For people like Trump to govern in an authoritarian manner, it takes a host of enablers. The reason why his more dictatorial actions have been more prominent this term is that he learned in his term to surround himself with sycophants. Kevin Hasett, Director of the National Economic Council, proved himself to be one of those sycophants over the weekend.
I will stress, again, that Trump’s firing the head of the BLS because he didn’t like the jobs report was an unambiguously dictatorial thing to do. So much for all that “joking” about being a dictator only on day one!
A couple of things.
First and foremost, the numbers themselves cannot be evidence that the numbers are wrong. Could the number cause additional questions to be asked? Of course. Could the numbers inspire a deeper dive? Sure. But when Trump fired the BLS commissioner the same day that numbers he didn’t like were released, no one can make a credible case that questions over the numbers led to the discovery of a mistake.
We all know that had the numbers been remarkably good that she would not have been fired. Moreover, Trump would have been preeening.
It also seems worth noting that a weakening job market was predicted and can be directly linked to all the economic uncertainty that Trump has been purposefully creating.
Second, Hassett’s dissembling about revisions is disengenuous, but it is a major talking point on the right since the firing. It strikes me as the kind of ex post facto rationalization people often cling to. Let’s face facts, most people pay, at best, passing attention to these numbers (I suspect that a huge percentage of Americans couldn’t say what “BLS” stands for).
Third, Hassett’s reference to Biden-era revisions ignores that rather salient point that the downward numbers can be at a politically inopportune time for Harris (the day before her DNC acceptance speech), so the notion that BLS was doing Democrats some kind of political service is absurd.
On this topic, I would commend Will Saletan’s Bulwark piece, The Banality of Weasel.
In ordinary times, this kind of gamesmanship might be excused as routine spin. But these aren’t ordinary times. Trump isn’t just blaming BLS. He is decapitating it, telling the public to ignore it, and sending a message to everyone in government that any release of unwelcome information might end their careers. The president who tried to overthrow an election is now threatening to undercut or destroy—with similar accusations of “rigging”—any institution that could document his failures or malfeasance.
This is the project Hassett has joined. In four interviews since McEntarfer was fired, he has endorsed her termination. “All over the U.S. government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can,” Hassett declared on CNBC. “To make sure that that’s not going to happen in the data agencies,” he went on, “we’re going to get highly qualified people in there that have a fresh start and fresh eyes on the problem.”
As Saletan notes, Hassett’s motivation is, no doubt, to please Trump so that maybe, just maybe, he can be Jerome Powell’s replacement as Fed Chair.
More evidence of his weasley ways here:
And, especially, this attempt to defend the indefensible regarding Brazil (while both admitting what it is and also pretending like it is also some vague something else).
One more for the road: a bizarre dodge on AI (wherein he suggests AI will help workers better put nuts on bolts). Also, his chess example would suggest that AI could replace both grandmasters and coaches. How that leads to more jobs is beyond me. Also, increased productivity of existing workers can depress the need for more employment.
