I'm a loser I'm a loser And I'm not what I appear to be
Of all the votes I have won or have lost There is one vote I should
never have crossed She was a girl in a million, my friend I should have
known she would win in the end
I'm a loser And I lost to someone who's better than me I'm a loser And I'm not what I appear to be
Although I laugh and I act like a clown Beneath this mask I am
wearing a frown My tears are falling like rain from the sky Is it for
her or myself that I cry?
I'm a loser And I lost to someone who's better than me I'm a loser And I'm not what I appear to be
What have I done to deserve such a fate? I realize I have left it too
late And so it's true, pride comes before a fall I'm telling you so
that you won't lose all
I'm a loser And I lost to someone who's better than me I'm a loser And I'm not what I appear to be
President
Trump said on social media on Friday that he had directed his team to
fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
President
Trump unleashed his fury about weakness in the labor market on Friday,
saying without evidence that the data were “rigged” and that he was
firing the Senate-confirmed Department of Labor official responsible for
pulling together the numbers each month.
In
a long post on social media, Mr. Trump said he had directed his team to
fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, who was confirmed on a bipartisan basis in 2024.
Emily
Liddel, an associate commissioner for the bureau, confirmed late Friday
that Dr. McEntarfer had been fired and that William Wiatrowski, the
deputy commissioner, would serve as acting commissioner.
The
president fired Dr. McEntarfer after the bureau released monthly jobs
data showing surprisingly weak hiring in July and large downward
revisions to job growth in the previous two months. Economists widely
interpreted the report as evidence that Mr. Trump’s policies were
beginning to take a toll on the economy, though the president insisted
in a subsequent post that the country was “doing GREAT!”
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the labor secretary, echoed Mr. Trump’s concerns about Dr. McEntarfer in a post on social media.
“So
you know what I did?” Mr. Trump later told reporters, as he claimed the
numbers were “phony.” “I fired her, and you know what? I did the right
thing.”
Dr. McEntarfer was appointed
to her post by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2023 after a long career
at the Census Bureau and other agencies, where she served under
presidents of both parties, including Mr. Trump. Among the Republicans
who voted to confirm her as commissioner was Vice President JD Vance,
who was then an Ohio senator.
The
firing prompted swift criticism from economists, former government
officials and others, who said the removal would further erode trust in
government statistics and make it more difficult for policymakers,
investors and businesses, who rely on having dependable data about the
economy to make decisions. In addition to the monthly jobs numbers, the
Bureau of Labor Statistics is responsible for producing data on
inflation, wages and other aspects of the economy.
William W. Beach, who led the bureau during Mr. Trump’s first term, criticized the move to fire Dr. McEntarfer on Friday.
“It’s
unfortunate,” he said. “This could set a precedent where bad news on
many different fronts is a reason for dismissing a person.”
Mr.
Beach, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2019 and remained in the role
for the first two years of the Biden administration, said he had never
felt pressure to manipulate the data under either president. Even if
there were such pressure, he said, there is “no way” the commissioner
could interfere in the revisions process, which is conducted by career
employees.
Erica Groshen, who led the agency under President Barack Obama, called the decision “a terrible precedent.”
“I
hope will be reversed because it undermines the integrity of our
statistical system and really all of government data and science,” she
added, calling it “a very sad day.”
Dr. McEntarfer’s tenure got off to a rough start last year when the agency made a series of missteps
in which Wall Street firms had access to data before the general
public. But none of those incidents involved issues with the statistics
themselves.
Mr.
Trump and his top aides have made a habit of attacking government
agencies, researchers and watchdogs when they have produced findings
that the president does not like. That has led to concerns that Mr.
Trump could seek to interfere with the operations of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and other statistical agencies, particularly if the economy
begins to take a turn for the worse.
Until
now, however, most experts on the statistical system said they remained
confident in the data produced by the agencies and had seen no evidence
of political interference in their operations. Current and former
agency staff members consistently echoed that message — in part, they
said, because they trusted Dr. McEntarfer and her counterparts at the
other major statistical agencies to protect their independence.
“If that pressure got too great, you would see people resigning rather than shape the numbers,” Mr. Beach said.
Economists
across the ideological spectrum said Ms. Trump’s move to oust Dr.
McEntarfer was likely to erode public confidence in the data published
by the administration.
“If you want
people to stop trusting the numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, firing the person who is confirmed by the Senate to make
sure those numbers are trustworthy is a real good way to do it,” said
Martha Gimbel, the executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale, who
served in the White House under Mr. Biden.
Dr. McEntarfer could not immediately be reached for comment.
On
Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data showing
that employers added only 73,000 new jobs in July. It also notably
revised data for the previous two months, reducing the number of jobs
created by 258,000. While revisions to previous months are common, it
was an unusually high number that came as a surprise. It suggested the
labor market was not as resilient as it had seemed earlier this summer.
Shortly
after the numbers were released, Stephen Miran, the chair of the White
House Council of Economic Advisers, offered an explanation for the jobs
revision that was much different from Mr. Trump’s.
On
CNBC, he said much of the change was the result of “quirks in the
seasonal adjustment process” and even the president’s own policies,
particularly on immigration, potentially affecting hiring numbers for
May and June. He made no mention of any concerns about manipulated data
as he sought to recast the slowdown in July as a “pretty decent” jobs
report.
By evening, Kevin Hassett, the
director of the National Economic Council, sought to frame the firing
as an attempt to restore “trust” at the statistics agency. Unlike Mr.
Trump, who described the revisions as politically motivated, Mr. Hassett
said its jobs figures had been “awful” for some time.
“I think it is a good time for a fresh set of eyes to look at what the heck is going on,” he told Fox Business.
In
his social media posts on Friday, Mr. Trump provided no evidence that
Dr. McEntarfer had injected political bias into her agency’s data. And
his criticisms contained contradictions and inaccuracies.
Mr.
Trump complained about not just the latest jobs numbers but also a set
of revisions from last year. The bureau, like other statistical
agencies, routinely updates its figures to incorporate data that wasn’t
initially available or to reflect information from more authoritative
sources.
Last August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said employers had added roughly 818,000 fewer jobs
over a 12-month period than previously believed. That announcement was
part of a normal annual revision process, although the change was
unusually large. (It was also preliminary — the final figures were
revised down by just under 600,000 jobs.)
In
a social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump said the revision was made
“right after the election.” In fact, the announcement was made roughly
two and a half months before Election Day. Indeed, Mr. Trump posted
about the revisions at the time, calling them a “MASSIVE SCANDAL.”
To
the agency’s defenders, however, the twin revisions show that it
operates without political bias and was willing to announce politically
inconvenient news under presidents of both parties.
“President
Trump is completely wrong in asserting there’s been any sort of
anti-Trump bias in the labor market data,” said Michael Strain, an
economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “I think
that assertion is wholly unsupported.”
Mr.
Strain said that government data is revised frequently, and that doing
so reflected a “standard” practice to ensure its quality. In this case,
he acknowledged that the change was “historically large” but “doesn’t
smell fishy.”
Federal statistical
agencies have faced mounting challenges in recent years as Americans
have become more reluctant to respond to the surveys that are the basis
for much of the nation’s economic data. Shrinking budgets have made it
harder to make up for falling response rates, and to develop new
approaches to replace surveys altogether.
Those
concerns predate the current administration, but have grown worse since
Mr. Trump returned to office. The statistical agencies have struggled
with staff attrition as a result of the president’s freeze on federal
hiring, combined with the buyouts he offered early in his term. The
president’s budget also proposed further staff and funding cuts.
In June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said it was reducing its collection of data on consumer prices
in response to resource constraints. Economists warned that, over time,
such cuts could erode the reliability of the inflation data that
Federal Reserve policymakers rely on when setting interest rates, and
that determine cost-of-living increases in union contracts and Social
Security benefits, among other uses.
Asked
about those cuts on Wednesday, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said
policymakers were “getting the data that we need to do our jobs.” But he
stressed the importance of the federal statistical agencies.
“The government data is really the gold standard in data,” he said. “We need it to be good and to be able to rely on it.”
Sydney Ember contributed reporting.
Ben Casselman is the chief economics correspondent for The Times. He has reported on the economy for nearly 20 years.
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
The Short-Lived Plan to Produce a Trump-Themed Instant Pot
In
June, a lobbyist for Instant Pot announced a new line of devices
emblazoned with President Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”Credit...Jens Mortensen for The New York Times
Like most appliances, the Instant Pot used to keep quiet about its politics.
But recently, it went all-in for President Trump.
Listen to this article with reporter commentary
In June, a lobbyist for the countertop cooker announced a new line of devices
emblazoned with Mr. Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” The
lobbyist said other manufacturers owned by the same private-equity firm
would also make Trump-themed products: snow globes, dinner plates,
flatware, bedsheets. The companies would donate all proceeds to the fund
to build Mr. Trump’s presidential library.
It looked like a page out of a new political playbook.
The
New York-based private equity firm, Centre Lane Partners, wanted the
Trump administration’s help with tariffs and a looming antitrust
inquiry, according to lobbying filings and interviews with people on
Capitol Hill. To get it, the firm’s lobbyist augmented the usual
backroom meetings with newly popular tactics in Mr. Trump’s second term:
over-the-top public flattery of the president and gifts to his cause.
In this case, it backfired.
The
lobbyist announced the merchandise — complete with mock-ups of a wee
Mr. Trump inside a snow globe — without seeking the Trump Organization’s
permission to use its trademarks or offering to give the president’s
company a cut.
After The New York Times asked the Trump Organization about these plans, the company’s lawyers moved quickly to stop them.
Image
The
Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten, warned that if the
Trump name and trademarks were used without permission, “we would have
no choice but to take appropriate legal action.”Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
Publicly
announcing plans to infringe on the Trump Organization’s intellectual
property rights was “concerning to say the least,” the company’s general
counsel, Alan Garten, wrote in an email to the lobbying firm, a copy of
which was reviewed by The Times.
Mr.
Garten warned the firm that if any of its clients used the Trump name
and trademarks without permission, “we would have no choice but to take
appropriate legal action.”
The
lobbying firm, the Texas-based Nestpoint Associates, apologized,
another email showed. The MAGA Instant Pot was shelved before a single
one was made. And it became a cautionary tale about how not to exploit
Washington’s new rules.
Centre Lane
and Nestpoint declined to answer specific questions about who proposed
the MAGA Instant Pot and the other Trump-themed merchandise, what they
were meant to accomplish or whether the plan was definitively dead.
“It
is our practice not to comment on the specific plans of investee
companies,” Quinn Morgan, Centre Lane’s co-founder and managing
director, said in a statement.
A Sudden Push
Before
this year, Centre Lane Partners had little history of lobbying or
political activism. Federal campaign-finance records show only $70 in
recent political donations from its executives: a pair of small gifts to
the Republican fund-raising platform WinRed in 2020.
Image
A
glassmaking plant owned by Corelle Brands had operated in Charleroi,
Pa., for over 100 years. It was acquired by Centre Lane Partners and
closed.Credit...Justin Merriman for The New York Times
This spring, however, Centre Lane made a sudden push for influence in Washington.
On
Capitol Hill, the companies’ lobbyists mentioned one specific concern: a
potential antitrust suit from the Federal Trade Commission, focused on a
glassmaking plant owned by Corelle Brands that Centre Lane had
purchased and shut down in Charleroi, Pa., according to two people
familiar with those discussions. The people spoke on the condition of
anonymity to describe private lobbying conversations.
The
prospect of action by the Federal Trade Commission was also raised by
Representative Guy Reschenthaler, Republican of Pennsylvania, who wrote a
letter to the agency asking it to consider whether the company could
find another buyer for the Charleroi plant before the agency took any
action. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Times. Mr.
Reschenthaler did not respond to requests for comment.
For
many years, the plant’s workers had transformed molten glass into
Pyrex-branded measuring cups and baking dishes, staples of kitchens
across America. Centre Lane bought the plant last year, then closed it
and shifted the Pyrex brand and some of the equipment to another glass
company it owned: Anchor Hocking, based in Lancaster, Ohio.
“They
shut the presses down, blew the steam lunch whistle for 132 seconds, to
represent one second for every year of operation, and then the plant
went silent,” said Jim Watt, a union representative at the Pennsylvania
plant. “Then people walked out of the day shift, never to return.”
Image
A Pyrex measuring cup that was given to employees of the plant in Charleroi.Credit...Justin Merriman for The New York Times
In response, Attorney General Michelle A. Henry of Pennsylvania — a Democratic appointee — sued
last year to keep the plant open, saying that the closure reduced
consumers’ choices by eliminating a major manufacturer of glassware from
the market. Her Republican successor, David W. Sunday, has continued
the lawsuit this year.
In legal filings,
Centre Lane has argued that the Pennsylvania plant was less efficient
than the one in Ohio, and that customers still had plenty of other
choices, including imported glassware.
Experts
on antitrust law said the case might be a revealing test for the
Federal Trade Commission, since it seems to put two of Mr. Trump’s
priorities in conflict: freeing U.S. businesses from interference from
Washington and protecting American manufacturing jobs. The county that
includes the Pyrex plant voted for Mr. Trump three times by wide
margins.
The Federal Trade Commission, now led by Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, a Trump appointee, declined to comment.
So far, Centre Lane was deploying the old Washington playbook: lawyers, lobbying, letters.
Enter the MAGA Instant Pot.
The appliance was announced by Alex Olson, a Nestpoint lobbyist, in the online media outlet Semafor on June 16.
Instant
Pot — which Centre Lane had purchased after a bankruptcy last year —
would not just add “Make America Great Again” to some devices, the
Semafor article said. Others would carry the numbers 45 and 47, a
reference to Mr. Trump, the 45th and 47th president.
In
addition, Centre Lane’s collectibles company Lenox Corporation would
make snow globes with Mr. Trump standing beside a tiny White House and
plates with his face, according to Semafor. The firm’s linens company
Live Comfortably would make bedsheets with the presidential seal and
others named “Mar-a-Lago” after the president club in Florida. Mr. Olson
said the company would also supply those sheets for free to the White
House, Trump Hotels and Mar-a-Lago itself, if they wanted them.
A
month later, in mid-July, Mr. Olson told The Times that plans for the
Trump products were still on. “While the merchandise hasn’t officially
launched yet, multiple lines are in development and expected to go live
soon,” he wrote in an email.
In
the past, this would have been an unusual arrangement: businesses
rolling out product lines that flattered a president and funded his
library, announced by a lobbyist they had hired to influence that
president.
But in Mr. Trump’s second term, they echoed tactics that many people believed to have worked.
Image
Shari Redstone, the nonexecutive chairwoman of Paramount Global, the media company that owns CBS.Credit...Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
Several
companies and prominent people have won legal reprieves after publicly
flattering the president or giving to his causes. And Mr. Trump’s
library foundation has served as a kind of collection box for companies
trying to get on his good side.
Most
recently, Paramount, the media company that owns CBS, pledged $16
million, after Mr. Trump’s legal fees, to the library to settle a
lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump. Filed just before the election in
November, the complaint said CBS’s “60 Minutes” had misleadingly edited
an interview with Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee,
giving her party an unfair advantage. A few weeks after the CBS
settlement, the Federal Communications Commission — led by a Trump
appointee — gave its approval to Paramount’s long-sought merger with the
Hollywood studio Skydance.
Donations
such as these might not go to Mr. Trump directly, but he could avoid
some of the arduous fund-raising most presidents face after leaving
office to build a monument to their legacies.
A Missed Step
Mr.
Olson declined to say why all these products were being launched at
this moment. Was it coincidental to the firm’s regulatory troubles? Or
were the products meant to be a type of lobbying, a show of support for
Mr. Trump at a time when Centre Lane wanted his administration’s help?
If the latter was their plan, they missed a crucial step.
The president’s company has business partners all over the world, who have placed his name on everything from cryptocurrency to hotels to golf courses to cell phones.
Those deals have entangled his business with countries, companies and
industries that want something from his administration, creating
wide-ranging conflicts of interest.
Image
The
groundbreaking ceremony for the Trump International Hung Yen in Vietnam
in May. The president’s company has business partners all over the
world.Credit...Linh Pham for The New York Times
But
those partners got Mr. Trump’s permission first. (Many small-time
operators use his name without permission, like those selling hats and
T-shirts on card tables outside his rallies. But those people do not
generally announce their plans to news outlets.)
When
the Trump Organization threatened legal action last week, Nestpoint
backed off, saying that none of the Trump merchandise had been produced
or sold, according to an email reviewed by The Times. The lobbying firm
also promised that its clients would seek approval before using the
Trump brand from now on, addressing the Trump Organization’s concern
that its intellectual property might be stolen.
“We
are of course relieved to hear that this is not the case,” Mr. Garten,
the general counsel, wrote to the lobbying firm, according to an email
reviewed by The Times.
Does that mean
the MAGA Instant Pot is done for good, or just done for now? Emails
reviewed by The Times showed that the lobbyists seemed to keep open the
possibility that they would return to their plans for Trump merchandise,
but next time they would ask permission.
Neither
the lobbying firm nor Centre Lane gave a direct answer when The Times
asked if the plans for Trump merchandise had been canceled.
“There are many thoughts on strategies,” said Stuart Jolly, an official in Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign
who is the lobbying firm’s director of government affairs and global
strategies. “And we’re working diligently to help create — and keep —
more jobs for our clients through our efforts.”
David A. Fahrenthold is a Times investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades.
Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, covering President Trump.
A version of this article appears in print on July 29, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Effort to Flatter Trump Lacked Key Ingredient. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Come here sister, donny's in the swing
He ain't too hip, about that new breed babe
He's really a big drag
donny's got a brand new bag
Come here mama, and dig this crazy scene
He's really fancy, but his line is never clean
He's really a big drag
donny's got a brand new bag
He's really a Jerk,
He likes to Fly
Don't play him cheap 'cause you know he ain't shy
He looks like a Monkey, he's a Masher too,
Jump back Jack, Skip to my loo.
Come here sister
donny's in the swing
He ain't too hip now
But he can dig that new breed babe;
He's really a big drag
donny's got a brand new bag
