John,

Donald Trump hates facts. He seeks advantage and attacks  opponents; truth doesn’t come into it. He doesn’t want the public to know what’s really happening. This is why he’s trying to weaponize data and turn the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) into a political tool.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects and analyzes data regarding U.S. labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes. They’re one of the federal government’s primary fact-finding agencies. The information collected is critical to publishing key economic indicators like the Consumer Price Index, which serves as a barometer of inflation and shapes benefit levels for key basic needs programs such as SNAP and housing assistance.

So for Donald Trump to politicize this agency is alarming.

After firing the head of the BLS in reaction to a jobs report he didn’t like, Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist of the right-wing Heritage Foundation and a key contributor to Project 2025. Antoni is already undermining confidence in the monthly jobs report, before even being considered by the Senate. Antoni says the BLS should stop publishing monthly jobs numbers and only release quarterly updates, claiming that subsequent revisions prove the monthly data is “wrong.”¹ He has also called Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid “Ponzi schemes.”²

When the Senate returns next week, it’ll hold confirmation hearings for Antoni. They must not confirm an extremist to this critical position.

Send a message to the Senate telling them to reject Antoni’s confirmation as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The opposition to Antoni’s nomination is bipartisan, with conservative economists saying that he is “utterly unqualified” and makes “many elementary errors.” An economist at a conservative think tank said Antoni has “...shown time and again that he is not a credible source of information.”³

Without credible data, the American people and the economic markets have no way of knowing whether economic danger signs are emerging; policymakers won’t know how to respond. Without that confidence, longer-term interest rates will spike, because investors will assume that there’s no inflation cop on the beat and therefore will demand a higher risk premium.

It’s the same playbook Trump has used throughout his thugocracy: pressuring the Federal Reserve, gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, attacking public health, proposing to undermine the Constitutionally-mandated decennial Census, and extorting universities. Any institution that produces inconvenient facts is attacked, purged, and bent to his will. Truth itself becomes the casualty.

Sometimes the truth hurts—and the president evidently thinks it will hurt him. But we know lies about our economy hurt more. We have to preserve the independence of the BLS. We need accurate, competent assessments of employment and prices, and we won’t get that from an incompetent ideologue.

Send a message to your senators urging them to reject an unqualified nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action

¹ 6 controversial ideas from Trump’s pick for top labor statistics job
² Trump’s BLS commissioner nominee EJ Antoni calls Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”
³ Conservatives join backlash over Trump pick for head of labor statistics: ‘Not a credible source of information’