The Most Closely Watched Trump Firing in Washington
For many Americans, the government’s monthly jobs number was a pretty dull statistic — until a few days ago, when President Trump angrily fired the person responsible for producing it, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, from Washington to Wall Street, many people are wondering whether you can still trust federal statistics if the president is willing to just get rid of people who give him facts he doesn’t like. On this episode, Ben Casselman joins The Daily to discuss how the government’s economic data suddenly turned into a national drama.
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (dts.podtrac.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
For many Americans, the government’s monthly jobs number was a pretty dull statistic — until a few days ago, when President Trump angrily fired the person responsible for producing it, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Now, from Washington to Wall Street, many people are wondering whether you can still trust federal statistics if the president is willing to just get rid of people who give him facts he doesn’t like.
On this episode, Ben Casselman joins The Daily to discuss how the government’s economic data suddenly turned into a national drama.
Guest: Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- President Trump fired America’s economic data collector. History shows the perils of such a move.
- Until the president fired her, Erika McEntarfer was an economist with bipartisan support.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Photo: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.