Senator Murray: “Any Senator who votes to confirm this partisan hack is voting to shred the integrity of our nation’s best economic and jobs data, which underpin our entire economy. If E.J. Antoni gets confirmed, I hope Republicans like playing make-believe, because that’s all BLS data will become.”
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on President Trump’s pick of Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), an independent agency within the Labor Department, after firing BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, wrongfully blaming the nonpartisan statistician for weak jobs numbers:
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics is responsible for producing factual information about jobs, prices, and our overall economy—data that financial markets, businesses, and governments rely on every day. Now, Trump is firing the experts and putting an unqualified partisan hack atop the agency because he didn’t like the fact that the latest jobs report showed his job-killing policies are in fact killing jobs.
“E.J. Antoni is an unqualified right-wing extremist who won’t think twice about manipulating BLS data and degrading the credibility of the agency to make Trump happy—and has already suggested shelving important data entirely. Putting him in charge of the BLS is a dangerous move that puts nonpartisan economic data—and by extension, our entire economy—plainly at risk. I am demanding that Chairman Cassidy hold a hearing ahead of any confirmation vote on E.J. Antoni to lead BLS.
“The facts are clear: Trump’s tariffs are raising prices and wreaking havoc on businesses. But instead of putting an end to his disastrous trade war, Trump is firing the people who report the facts and replacing them with loyalists who will only tell Trump what he wants to hear. Trump is sabotaging America’s economy outright and killing the messengers.
“Any Senator who votes to confirm this partisan hack is voting to shred the integrity of our nation’s best economic and jobs data, which underpin our entire economy. If E.J. Antoni gets confirmed, I hope Republicans like playing make-believe, because that’s all BLS data will become.”
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