Republican senators raise concerns about Trump’s firing of Labor Dept. official

Some Republican senators expressed their concern about President Donald Trump’s decision on Friday to dismiss the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics a few hours after the publication of the July report.

Several Republicans have told NBC News that they would contest the dismissal of Erika Mcentarfer, the BLS commissioner, if it is Trump’s result did not like the figures for the report of jobs, which showed that the American labor market in recent months has been considerably lower than it was before.

Trump defended his decision on Friday, without evidence that the number of the report was “bogus” and accused Mcentarfer of publishing favorable employment numbers before the elections to give an advantage to the former vice-president Kamala Harris.

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Senator Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy., Said that if the data was unworthy of trust, the public should discover it, but dismiss the commissioner before knowing if the figures are inaccurate is “a little impetuous”.

“If the president draws the statistician because he does not like the figures but he is correct, then it is a problem,” said Lummis. “It is not the statistician’s fault if the figures are correct and that they are not what the president had hoped.”

Senator Thom Tillis, RN.C., also needed Trump’s decision to dismiss Mcentarfer.

“If she had just dismissed because the president or whoever decided to dismiss the director has just done so because they did not like the figures, they should grow up,” said Tillis.

Tillis announced in June that he did not intend to present himself to the re -election, one day after opposing Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, and later draw the anger of the president, including a threat to support a main challenge against the senator.

Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., Who discovered the dismissal of the commissioner of the question of NBC News on this subject, said that he did not know much on the subject, but wondered if this decision would be effective in improving figures.

“We have to look for a place for objective statistics. When people who provide statistics are dismissed, it is much more difficult to make judgments you know, the statistics will not be politicized,” said Paul.

“I’m going to examine it, but the first impression is that you cannot really make the figures different or better in dismissing people who make the count,” he added.

Paul also opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” of Trump in June. The senator said in June that because of his voice opposition, he was not invited to an annual White House picnic in the weeks preceding the vote on the national policy package. However, Trump later said that Paul and his family were invited.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, R -Alaska, said that she could not trust the work numbers – and “that’s the problem”.

“And when you dismiss people, it makes people trust them even less,” she said.

The Democratic senators also spoke out against the dismissal of Mcentarfer, the head of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, Dn.y., accusing Trump of having acted as “someone who imitates authoritarian leaders” during remarks in the Senate on Friday.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT., Qualified the move “the sign of an authoritarian type” and added: “What it means, I think that the American people will have trouble believing the information that comes out of the government, because Trump will always want it to be excellent news, and when that happens, it is difficult to face the problems, because we do not know what is going on.”

Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, went further, calling for the dismissal of Mcentarfer “the fabric of fascist dictatorships”.

The former BLS commissioner, William Beach, whom Trump appointed to the post and was confirmed In the Senate in 2019, published a position on X calling for the dismissal of Mcentarfer “totally baseless”, “a dangerous precedent” and undergoing “the statistical mission of the office”.

A declaration of “Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics”, co-signed by the beach, confirmed the accuracy of the work of the office and of MCentarfer specifically.

“The process of obtaining figures is decentralized by design to avoid the possibilities of interference. The BLS uses the same proven, transparent and reliable process to produce estimates each month. Each month, BLS revises the employment estimates of the previous two months to reflect slower and more precise information,” said the press release.

“BLS operates as a statistical federal agency and autonomy to ensure that the data it pays are as precise as possible,” he added.