President Donald Trump on Tuesday continued to insist that the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he fired last week, "rigged" the agency's jobs data to make him look worse than former President Joe Biden.
Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last Friday after her office released a report showing a relatively weak labor market, with the U.S. having added just 73,000 jobs last month.
He said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning, "The numbers were rigged. The numbers were rigged. Biden wasn't doing well; he was doing poorly."
Trump added, "I think when somebody says the commissioner is not involved, I don't want to get into any arguments with anybody, why should I? She's a very nice woman, but when they say that nobody was involved, that it wasn't political, give me a break."
The director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, backed up Trump's claims in an interview with CNBC on Monday, saying that "All over the U.S. government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can."
Hassett told NBC News on Sunday that Trump plans to place "his own people" in the bureau "so that when we see the jobs numbers, they are more transparent and more reliable."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.