President Trump finally got the economic numbers he wanted.
Still bristling about last week’s less-than-impressive report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mr. Trump summoned reporters into the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon to present them with more favorable data.
During an impromptu news conference, the president displayed charts from Stephen Moore, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, that he said proved his economy was better than that of his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“All new numbers,” Mr. Trump said, holding up a chart.
The typically humdrum task of counting jobs, income levels and other economic data has become decidedly dramatic during the second Trump administration. For months, Mr. Trump and his top allies had praised the Bureau of Labor Statistics when it showed strong job growth. But after the bureau put out weak job numbers last week, Mr. Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the agency’s commissioner, and claimed that the figures were rigged. (Instead of offering proof, he said it was “my opinion.”)
The firing of the commissioner, whose job was merely to count the data accurately, left the president in search of some different data, more to his liking.
Enter Mr. Moore.
It just so happened that the Heritage Foundation economist had been crunching some census data, and he began assembling the figures into graphs that he knew would please the president.
Mr. Moore said his numbers were based on unpublished data from the Census Bureau, which means they are difficult to verify independently. But Mr. Trump seemed convinced.
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The post Still Fuming Over a Weak Jobs Report, Trump Finds Some Numbers He Likes appeared first on New York Times.
