- “When you don’t like the message, fire the messenger,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, according to Semafor.
- When asked if she can still trust the numbers, she responded: “No. That’s the problem. And when you fire people, it makes you trust them even less.”
Driving the news: Democrats responded with outrage over Trump’s announcement that he was dismissing Erika L. McEntarfer from the Department of Labor.
- McEntarfer was confirmed 86-8 in January 2024, including a yes vote from then-Sen. JD Vance.
- “Instead of trying to fix the economy, he shoots the messenger,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Yes, but: When asked if Trump’s move will undermine faith in job numbers, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) replied: “I don’t believe economists half the time anyway.”
Reality check: Doctoring job numbers would require a conspiracy across several government departments.
- Government statistics agencies are historically insulated from politics, as Axios’ Neil Irwin notes, so they can tally up activity in a $30 trillion economy.
Flashback: President Obama faced accusations from former General Electric CEO Jack Welch that he fixed the job numbers ahead of the 2012 election.
Zoom in: About two hours after Trump announced he would fire McEntarfer, he received some unexpected — and good — news from the Fed.
- One of Biden’s appointees, Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler, will resign her job next week, the Fed announced.
- That will give Trump an opening to fill this fall.
Zoom out: Embedded in Trump’s Truth Social post on firing McEntarfer were some of Trump’s customary taunts of Fed chair Jerome Powell, saying he should be put “out to pasture.”
- But in a separate post, he called for the central bank’s board to “assume control” and lower interest rates on its own.
- Such an ask faces some long odds, even if Trump’s new nominee votes to lower rates the way Trump wants them to.
- Wednesday’s interest rate vote was 9-2, and while it was the first double dissent since the 1990s, Powell still has the clear majority on his side.
What we’re watching: Powell has his detractors in the Senate, but independence is an important principle for many Republican lawmakers.
— Axios’ Stef Kight contributed reporting.
