AYESHA RASCOE, BYLINE: This line from the Greek tragedy "Antigone" feels especially relevant right now - no one loves the messenger who brings bad news. Sophocles nailed that back in 440 BCE. And on Friday, just hours after the release of a report showing a sharply weakened job market, President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He claimed on social media - without evidence - that the jobs report was rigged to make Republicans and him look bad. That's where we begin today with NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. Good morning, Danielle.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So give us some details about how this happened.
KURTZLEBEN: Sure. So Friday afternoon, Trump posts on social media that he's firing Dr. Erika McEntarfer. She's the commissioner of Labor Statistics. And he emphasizes that she's a Biden appointee. She is. And he says, like you said, that the - he thinks the jobs numbers were rigged. Now, this all came after a jobs report showing disappointing job growth last month, just 73,000 new jobs, and prior months' numbers were revised downwards.
Now, we should be totally clear here, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, which puts out the jobs report - yes, it's headed by a political appointee, but this agency operates very apolitically. I mean, I covered jobs reports for years. The BLS doesn't even give value judgments. If the U.S. added 300,000 jobs in a month - that's a lot - I could ask them, well, that's good, right? And they would just answer, well, it's 300,000 jobs. That's what they do. They give numbers and no more. These are data people who have long had bipartisan trust. And by the way, McEntarfer had a bipartisan confirmation. Vice President Vance and Marco Rubio - they both voted for her.
RASCOE: How significant is this?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, it's absolutely huge. Now, it may not be totally surprising. Trump has long told his supporters not to trust numbers he doesn't like. He did that in the 2016 and 2020 elections. He does it with polls. But again, to be clear, without McEntarfer, you still have all the competent people at BLS who were there before, so it's not clear that, you know, jobs reports are going to change immediately.
But this raises major questions and fears. For example, does Trump's firing here imply that he wants someone who would produce more favorable numbers? And again, we have no idea what other steps he might take, but financial markets, the Fed, economists of the world over - they rely heavily on these jobs reports from the BLS. If any of those actors ever got a whiff that these numbers can't be trusted, it could have global consequences. And one more thing, as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said this week, firing McEntarfer - that's an authoritarian move. It's what those kinds of leaders do.
RASCOE: And Trump announced a new round of tariffs on dozens of countries. You can probably talk about tariffs in your sleep at this point, but what sticks out to you about this latest batch?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, to me, this week in general, we saw Trump's messaging on tariffs really start to collide with reality. I mean, this latest round, he first announced them on April 2, then he delayed them. He delayed them again. He sent some letters. He announced some deals. Those deals weren't even finished. I mean, you get the point. This has been long coming. This means we've heard a lot about these tariffs, but many of his tariffs are only happening now, and that's by design, I think. Trump has made tariffs negotiations central to his image. It's why a lot of his voters like him.
But then this week we got some shaky GDP data. We got these jobs numbers. The effects of tariffs may just be showing up right now, and if bad data continues, it's going to make it harder for him to keep selling the whole tough-talking tariff-negotiator story. And by the way, one thing that might make that story even harder - if these tariffs are found illegal. A federal court found just that earlier this year. Well, then the administration appealed, and an appeals court heard that case this week, and those judges seemed skeptical of Trump's tariffs. And so if that case goes against Trump, it could be huge.
RASCOE: Trump keeps talking about his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Why does it seem like he can't turn the page on this and he keeps talking about it?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, sometimes it's his own comments. I mean, he said that his and Epstein's friendship ended because Epstein hired away his workers. Well, a reporter asked if Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim who worked at Mar-a-Lago, was one of them. And Trump said that Epstein stole her. Now, Giuffre died earlier this year by suicide, and her family spoke out really heart-wrenchingly this week, saying she wasn't an object that was stolen, and this is not just about two powerful men. This is about victims. And it really emphasized the victims, and it made it hard to divorce from them.
RASCOE: That's NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you so much for talking with us.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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