Trump’s latest moves against free speech are ‘really scary stuff’

Just when it appears as if the situation can’t get any more absurd or dire, President Donald Trump does something even more preposterous that further jeopardizes democracy.

The lone silver lining in all of this is that the press is paying attention and reporting on everything that is happening.

Let’s go back to what happened on Friday.

After a slightly disappointing jobs report, what did President Donald Trump do? Did he go about trying to see why the numbers didn’t meet expectations? Did he roll up his sleeves to see how to improve those numbers?

Uh, no. He fired the person who pulled together the numbers. In other words, he fired the messenger. Trump went on long social media rants claiming, without proof, that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “faked” numbers before last year’s election to help Kamala Harris. Trump also wrote, again without proof, that the data was “rigged.”

On Friday, PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson wrote, “Trump’s baseless ‘manipulated’ data claim in firing BLS chief Erika McEntarfer follows long history.”

In his piece, Jacobson wrote, “PolitiFact has fact-checked Trump’s complaints about employment reports and accusations that officials have cooked the books against him, such as his August 2024 statement, rated Pants on Fire, that the Harris-Biden administration had been fraudulently manipulating job statistics. Trump’s distrust of economic data goes back to his June 2015 campaign debut. Economists from across the ideological spectrum have consistently told us that the jobs calculations are free from political meddling; civil servants compiled them using the same methods and schedule for decades.”

William Beach, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the commissioner can’t manipulate the numbers, saying, “There’s no way for that to happen. The commissioner doesn’t do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn’t see the numbers until Wednesday before they’re published. By the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they’re all prepared. They’re locked into the computer system. The only thing the commissioner does on Wednesday is to kind of do the edits on the text. So, there’s no hands-on at all for the commissioner. I was commissioner, and I was sometimes locked out of the process of actually, where the people were working in the building. So, there’s no way for doing that.”

When you think about it, Trump is like a football coach who wants the referee fired because his team didn’t score more touchdowns.

But this isn’t a game.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, “This is … something that I’ve been talking about since 2018. When he gets news he doesn’t like, he needs someone to blame because he won’t take the responsibility himself. And this is the action of a petulant child. Like, you give me bad news, I fire the messenger.”

Christie also explained how hard it would be to manipulate such numbers: “It seems to me, from everything I learned over my eight years as governor, that it would be almost impossible for anyone to try to rig these numbers because so many people are involved in putting them together. And in the end, when it comes to the Director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the woman who was fired, when that happens, all she’s doing is being a conduit of the information. She can’t go back in … and start line-iteming it around. So, it’s irresponsible from a position of facts, but it also shows you the way he manages.”

Also appearing on “This Week,” former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called Trump's accusation that the numbers were rigged "a preposterous charge.”

Summers said, “These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There's no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number.”

But there’s more to all of this than just a less-than-robust job report. This is just the latest example of the president going after people, places and things that he doesn’t like — the same people, places and things that are a backbone of democracy.

During his “This Week” appearance, Summers said, “The numbers are in line with what we're seeing from all kinds of private sector sources. This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism. It — firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers. It goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms that defend clients that the elected boss finds uncongenial. This is really scary stuff.”

Friday not only saw Trump’s ridiculous temper tantrum about the jobs report, but also news that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down early next year. As my Poynter colleague Angela Fu wrote, “The announcement comes just two weeks after Congress decided, at President Donald Trump’s request, to take back the $1.07 billion it had previously approved to support CPB’s next two fiscal years.”

On top of all this, there’s the dismantling of Voice of America, lawsuits against television networks, threats to take away TV licenses, banning certain news outlets from press conferences, suing The Wall Street Journal, and the constant attacks on media outlets.

Like Summers put it: “This is really scary stuff.”

A MESSAGE FROM POYNTER

Sarasota, Florida, event: Poynter’s 50th anniversary exhibit

Step into the story of how journalism has changed and where it’s headed. Poynter’s "Moments of Truth: An Exploration of Journalism’s Past, Present, and Future" exhibit runs August 4–11 at The Ringling, featuring interactive displays and a free week of media literacy events. The week culminates in a thought-provoking community conversation with leaders in journalism and AI, examining how emerging technologies are reshaping the truth behind the images we see.

Register for the events 

Important context

Let’s go back to the jobs report and explain why Trump’s reaction matters in the grand scheme of things. The New York Times’ Ben Casselman has a must-read article: “Trump Fired America’s Economic Data Collector. History Shows the Perils.”

Casselman writes, “It was a move with few precedents in the century-long history of economic statistics in the United States. And for good reason: When political leaders meddle in government data, it rarely ends well.”

Casselman explains examples from Greece, China and, most famously, Argentina, where such moves had serious consequences. Janet Yellen, the former Treasury secretary and chair of the Federal Reserve, told Casselman, “This is the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic.”

Casselman does a superb job of explaining the importance of accurate government statistics and how they are essential for policymaking and, yes, democracy.

The Washington Post’s David J. Lynch and Abha Bhattarai wrote, “Even as the costs of his policies became more apparent, the action ignited worries that Trump’s volatile temperament could cause additional economic harm by undermining market confidence in the government data that investors, business executives and policymakers require to make decisions.”

Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist of the Department of Labor and now the president of the Economic Policy Institute, told the Post that firing a nonpartisan analyst for merely reporting bad news was “straight out of an autocratic playbook.”

She told the Post, “If policymakers and the public can’t trust the data — or suspect the data are being manipulated — confidence collapses and reasonable economic decision-making becomes impossible. It’s like trying to drive a car blindfolded.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Allysia Finley asks an excellent question in her latest opinion piece: “What does Mr. Trump plan to do if next month’s jobs numbers are meh or worse? Order the BLS to change them? Democrats are sure to accuse his administration of suppressing unfavorable economic data in any case. After Ms. McEntarfer’s defenestration, the president’s advisers may be even more reluctant to bear bad economic news lest he say off with their heads too.”

One final thought … for now

George A. Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote this in a guest essay for The New York Times:

​​Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead — until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That’s when the trouble begins. “He cheated!” the losing child yells. “I’m the winner anyway!” he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship.

But, in this case, it’s Trump who is acting like a child. Akerlof adds:

Most children learn that flipping the board doesn’t make them the winner. It just means the game is over. In a democracy, the same lesson holds. We need our referees. We need our scorekeepers. And most of all, we need leaders who understand that losing the game fairly is far more honorable than winning by force. Why so? Because when presidents flip the board, it’s not just a game that ends. It’s the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor.

Are university experts afraid to talk?

This is for the journalists out there.

Dr. Kathleen Searles at the University of South Carolina is looking for five to 10 journalists to share their recent experiences with expert sources who are researchers or academics. Broadly, this project seeks to understand the effects of uncertain research environments on experts and their willingness to publicly communicate.

More specifically, Searles wants to better understand the effects of changes at federal funding agencies and how these changes may affect dynamics between expert sources and journalists. Of particular interest are journalists who focus on science, higher education, health or other beats that source academic and research experts frequently.

Fill out this brief form to indicate your interest by Aug. 11. Those journalists chosen to participate are eligible for a gift card.

Media tidbits

• The Associated Press’ Matthew Daly with “Trump attacks Charlamagne Tha God after radio host criticizes his presidency.”
• The Los Angeles Times’ Meg James with “From friend to foe: Behind the tangled relationship between Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump.”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Berber Jin and Keach Hagey with “Thanks for Your $1 Billion Job Offer, Mark Zuckerberg. I’m Gonna Pass.”
• The Atlantic asks, “When young adults use the social-media outlet to keep up with current events, what kind of information are they getting?” Here’s Amogh Dimri with “This Is the News From TikTok.”
• The New York Times’ Patricia Mazzei with “The Billionaire Behind Mysterious Immigration Ads Targeting Miami Republicans.”
• The New York Times’ Jeré Longman with “Ann Harris, Who Edited a Stack of Best Sellers, Dies at 99.”
• Associated Press photographer Aaron Favila with “An AP photographer put on his waders and captured a kiss at a wedding in a flood.”

Hot type

• The Washington Post’s Erin Cox with “He left Iran 40 years ago. He may be deported to Romania. Or Australia.”
• “CBS News Sunday Morning” and correspondent Tracy Smith profile the legendary comedy team in “Cheech and Chong: Older and wiser.”
• And here’s an extended interview with Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong.

More resources for journalists

• Journalists of color: Join a free four-day workshop at Poynter's waterfront campus, where accepted applicants develop the skills needed to become powerful writers. Apply now.
• Turn your life story into a memoir in this pioneering virtual workshop led by Poynter's Director of Craft Kristen Hare, featuring accomplished authors as guest instructors. Enroll now.
• Refine your immigration policy expertise with Poynter's Beat Academy. Enroll now.
• Journalism leaders of color: Poynter’s prestigious Diversity Leadership Academy has helped over 200 journalists of color advance their careers. Apply today.
• Get strategies to find diverse sources, understand systemic barriers and advance mental health equity in your area. Enroll now.
• Early-career editors: Line-edit under pressure, coach inexperienced reporters remotely and guide reporters to develop stories that elevate their beat coverage. Register now.
• Join a five-day, in-person workshop that gives new managers the skills they need to help forge successful paths to leadership in journalism, media and technology. Apply today.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

The Poynter Report is your daily dive into the world of media, packed with the latest news and insights. Get it delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday by signing up here. And don’t forget to tune into our biweekly podcast for even more.