Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped President Donald Trump as a “petulant child” on Sunday for his dramatic firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Christie said Trump just needed “someone to blame because he won’t take the responsibility himself” about the July jobs report, where the bureau reported the U.S. had only added a paltry 73,000 new jobs. The bureau also sharply revised down the May and June jobs reports, prompting Trump to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer and accuse her of having “RIGGED” the report to make him look bad.
“This is the action of a petulant child,” Christie said on ABC’s This Week. “Like, ‘You give me bad news, I fire the messenger.’”
“BLS data has been historically inaccurate and led by a totally incompetent individual,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “President Trump believes businesses, households, and policymakers deserve accurate data when making major policy decisions and he will restore America’s trust in this key data.”
Trump and Christie have frequently sparred since Trump launched his political career in 2015.
Trump vowed on Truth Social that McEntarfer, who former President Joe Biden appointed to the role in 2023, would be “replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.” He did not name a replacement.
“It seems to me from everything I learned over my years as governor, that it would be almost impossible for anyone to try to rig these numbers because so many people are involved in putting them together,” Christie added.
“And in the end, when it comes to the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the woman who was fired, when that happens, all she’s doing is being a conduit of the information.”
The action, Christie added, showcased Trump’s management style.
“It’s irresponsible from a position of facts, but it also shows you the way he manages,” Christie said.
Democrats and economists have criticized Trump’s decision, with some likening it to the decisions of a monarch.
“Instead of helping people get good jobs, Donald Trump just fired the statistician who reported bad jobs data that the wanna-be king doesn’t like,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on X.
Even Trump’s first BLS commissioner, William Beach, praised McEntarfer to The Wall Street Journal. “She is a very fine analyst and a good colleague,” Beach said.
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