A month after Donald Trump shitcanned the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the July jobs report, it looks like more heads will have to roll at the agency, because the jobs report for August showed only 22,000 new jobs created, well below the Dow Jones forecast of 75,000. The report also showed another downward revision for June. (July’s report had a slight upward revision, but overall jobs were down by 21,000 for the two months combined.) The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 4.3 percent, which was more in line with forecasts.
This is where we remind you that every monthly report’s numbers aren’t definitive, especially when the economy is slowing or gaining ground rapidly. We saw big revisions in both directions at the beginning and in the closing months of the COVID recession. It just takes time for businesses to report their full data if they don’t report during BLS’s one-week sampling period every month.
That’s why the most accurate numbers are always those released after two rounds of revision, a basic fact Trump pretends is evidence of evil machinations behind the scenes. But so far in 2025, the overall totals have been headed downward, another basic fact Trump refuses to believe.
The BLS says that job gains in healthcare were offset by losses in federal government employment (we all saw that coming!) and also by losses in “mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.”
If those numbers hold up, that would indicate that Trump’s efforts to rig the energy economy in favor of fossil fuels aren’t exactly going great, which would fit with the dismal market conditions his tariffs have created for his oil and gas buddies. Can’t exactly drill, drill, drill to prosperity when prices of equipment and materials are rising and the wider economy is headed into the shitter.
But don’t worry! Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick explained on CNBC this morning that the jobs numbers will pick up real quick as Trump’s brilliant leadership fixes the economy, or at least the people tasked with measuring it!
Lutnick explained that the job numbers will “get better because you'll take out the people who are just trying to create noise against the president. Take out the people trying to create noise, and let’s get the accurate numbers!”
Lutnick seemed not at all to mind giving away the game and admitting the numbers need to be cooked, insisting that the actual statistics are the ones that can’t be trusted because there are still pre-Trump employees at the BLS. And here’s why you wanna watch the whole interview when you can, not just snippets on social media. In answer to a question that preceded the “noise” clip, Lutnick claimed the tariffs are a huge victory, and now it’s just a matter of firing all the riggers at the agency.
Seriously, the fucker simply would not shut up about the need to only have loyalists compiling better jobs reports. Lutnick stayed on the fantasy script, because his job isn’t economics, it’s polishing any turds Trump hands him.
Here’s more context, queued up to the bit where Lutnick insisted that Trump had to replace previous BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer because she produced bad numbers (which everyone knows were no different from all other BLS stats). Instead, you should believe the new BLS numbers because they are from Trump people, and only Trump people can be trusted to give you the “truth.”
Lutnick explained that new BLS numbers wrangler and Nazi battleship enthusiast EJ Antoni simply needs more time to beat the jobs report into submission.
“Take the noise out. If the leader [of the BLS] is bent against Donald Trump, then they’re going to have, you know, such errors and those things are bent. We’ve seen that in all sorts of agencies. […] The holdovers from the Biden administration were just bent against the president. They were rooting against America and against Donald Trump, and that’s got to end.”
No, of course Lutnick didn’t present any evidence that the numbers under Biden were skewed. Trump said they were, so that’s reality. Oh, yes, and you know how shortly after Trump chose him, we learned that Antoni had an old Twitter account full of racist and misogynist jokes, like they always do? CNN is out with a new, detailed dive into his scummy posts that he’d rather you forget about. Thought you should know.
Anyway, back to Lutnick. He explained that we just need to give Antoni and his team a little time and we’ll have “correct” numbers showing everything is great!
“So he can’t replace somebody two weeks ago, and you expect fundamental change, but what you will get is an agency that’s on side, just trying to do the best and put out the correct numbers, and that’s what Donald Trump has to do, and what this whole Cabinet has to do. They have to get rid of people who are against the president, against the elected leader of the United States of America, and get people on side, who just want America to win.
“Donald Trump wants America to win, and anybody who’s against him is really against America being the greatest.”
The host tried to push back and say decisionmakers want accurate numbers, not massaged numbers, and that was the context for Lutnick’s “take out the noisemakers” comment. You want accuracy, you’ll take the numbers we say are accurate, capisce?
Republicans were quick to signal their willingness to only believe Trump Facts™, even in advance of the job report. Here’s Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida), explaining on CNN that numbers are known leftists.
CNN: When [the August jobs report comes out], are you going to believe the numbers?
REP. RANDY FINE: Um, I'm going to look at the numbers. Look, the people who put these numbers together are human and they’re fallible and they make mistakes —
CNN: But Congressman, it wasn't that they make mistakes … [Trump] said that they were faking it, that they were cooking the books. Which there’s no evidence of that.
FINE: When the numbers are always wrong in one direction, you have reasons to be suspect.
CNN: There’s no evidence of that!
The anchor explained, as we did at the outset, how BLS always revises, based on businesses getting data to them after the brief survey window each month. No manipulation at all. But Fine had his talking point, and he stuck to it, lying that that in all sorts of government statistics, “Numbers always tend to benefit the left, and when the facts come out, they don’t anymore.” He doesn’t need facts, he practices faith-based economics.
But back briefly to Lutnick, who had a lot of other neat lies about how Trump’s trade deals are sparking a manufacturing boom in America that also hasn’t showed up in the numbers, but you bet it will, and please disregard the manufacturing numbers in today’s report, which notes,
Manufacturing employment changed little in August (-12,000) but is down by 78,000 over the year. Employment in transportation equipment manufacturing declined by 15,000 over the month, in part due to strike activity.
But again, those numbers are subject to revision, and as we also learned today, there should be openings soon at one of the many green tech factories that opened due to the tax incentives in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. In Georgia Thursday, hundreds of workers were arrested in an immigration raid at an LG battery manufacturing factory, which is still under construction. When it’s completed, it’ll provide batteries for Hyundai’s huge new EV factory nearby.
The raid came just weeks after South Korea agreed to make new investments in US manufacturing. See? No favoritism! A social media post by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — we guess ICE is too busy spreading mulch and fending off sandwiches in DC — said that those arrested were “unlawful aliens.”
And as the Wall Street Journal reports (gift link), the ILLEGALS weren’t just lowly construction workers, because it looks like the agents swept up anyone who wasn’t white and couldn’t answer detailed questions about NASCAR:
Among those detained at the factory were South Korean employees of LG Energy Solution on business travel. Hyundai Motor said it believed that it didn’t directly employ any of those detained. LG Energy said Friday it was cooperating with the South Korean government and relevant authorities to ensure the employees’ safety and secure their prompt release from detention.
South Korea lodged an official protest (but not with any ambassadorial feet up Trump’s ass, unfortunately) and says it’s trying to secure the release of its citizens. Better hurry before they’re deported to Uganda or South Sudan.
Everything is great! Stop making noise!
[BLS / NBC News / CNBC / WSJ (gift link)]
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It is with some regret that I must report that Professor Prettypaws was disappeared after being fired from Wonkette for being an AI-generated image.
He's just the latest worker to lose his job because of AI.
Holy shit.
I am only 50 seconds into the full Lutnick interview and he makes Brainworm McWingnut sound almost sane by comparison.