Trump To Nominate Long-Time Labor Statistics Critic As Head Of BLS

Just over a week after Trump’s shocking termination of BLS head, Erika McEntarfer (a 2023 Biden appointee), following a weak jobs report which saw the biggest negative revision outside of covid and prompted Trump to allege that the agency’s economic data was “rigged”, the president announced on Monday that he plans to nominate E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The position requires Senate confirmation.

Antoni, a longtime critic of the agency’s handling of jobs data and fervent booster of ZeroHedge and our data on X, had the support of conservatives like former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump posted Monday to Truth Social. “I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role.”

Antoni’s nomination is the latest indication that the president wants to see a major makeover to the agency. 

As a quick look at @RealEJAnthony X account shows, he has been almost as critical of BLS data manipulation as ZeroHedge, which is why we shudder to think what the next jobs report will look like if the new BLS commissioner decides to kitchen sink all the accumulated BS. One thing is for certain: a negative 10 million jobs report will certainly accelerate Fed rate cuts, and send both gold and crypto to the moon, more or less literally.  

While the BLS is an independent agency under the Labor Department which is responsible for measuring and analyzing data on jobs, wages, and the economy, including the monthly jobs report, and helps paint a picture of America’s overall economic health, its data has come in under stark attack in recent years due to massive (mostly downward) revisions in recent years, most notably the near record 818K negative revision in August of 2024, which prompted the September 50bps rate cut by the Fed, viewed by many as a political (if ultimately futile) intervention by the central bank to boost Kamala Harris’ chances of election. 

The BLS came under fire after Trump and some of his allies accused it of politicizing revisions to recent jobs reports. 

And while everyone knows that the BLS is in charge of the jobs numbers, fewer are aware that the BLS also cooks the inflation books, so to speak, and is the agency responsible for the CPI report… such as the one that drops at 8:30am tomorrow and will shape monetary policy well into 2026. Finally, if Trump indeed intends to politicize the BLS, expect an epic miss in tomorrow’s CPI report.