Trump Taps BLS Skeptic To Replace Leader He Fired Over Grim Jobs Report

President Donald Trump announced on social media Monday he’s nominating E.J. Antoni, a rightwing economist who criticized the Bureau of Labor Statistics data-collecting, to head that very department.

If confirmed by Congress, Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, will replace former BLS Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer, who Trump fired earlier this month after she issued a damning report on poor job growth under his presidency.

“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” said Trump.

When Trump fired McEntarfer, he claimed without any evidence that she had manipulated the jobs data to make him look bad. A HuffPost analysis of Labor Department data found that Trump delivered the worst three months of job growth since the pandemic.

Antoni has been critical of the BLS, posting on X days after McEntarfer’s ousting that the bureau should change how it collects jobs data.

“There are better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data — that is the task for the next BLS commissioner, and only consistent delivery of accurate data in a timely manner will rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years,” he wrote last week.

During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast earlier this month, Antoni called for McEntarfer to be fired. When Bannon asked him whether a “MAGA Republican that President Trump knows and trusts” had been installed at BLS, Antoni replied, “Unfortunately we still haven’t gotten there, and I think that’s part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems.”

In a later episode of his show after McEntarfer’s firing, Bannon said he was “pushing” for Antoni to head the BLS, praising him as “the guy that almost single-handedly took it down by going through their numbers.”

Jason Furman, a top economic adviser in Barack Obama’s White House who is now an economics professor at Harvard University, was highly critical of Antoni’s nomination.

“I don’t think I have ever publicly criticized any Presidential nominee before. But E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS Commissioner,” he wrote on social media. “He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant expertise. He would be a break from decades of nonpartisan technocrats.”

Antoni’s work at the Heritage Foundation includes authoring some of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration. The Heritage Foundation was also instrumental in propping up Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and has shared false reports of noncitizens registering to vote.