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Last week, President Donald Trump fired the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Her transgression? The bureau reported that recent job growth was much lower than expected.
Trump said he didn’t think the numbers were true, so he fired her. He accused the bureau’s commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, of rigging the numbers “to make Republicans, and ME, look bad.”
Here’s the problem: Firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics director and pretending that job growth is stellar doesn’t make it so. The number of jobs created in the U.S. in recent months was lower than expected, no matter how much Trump denies it.
Beyond the utter lie about job growth, the firing highlights a troubling pattern for Trump: Deny unflattering truth and try to get rid of the person who shared it.
It’s a familiar situation for journalists. We’re often blamed for reporting news that people don’t like. Caught committing a crime? Lost your elected office for wrongdoing? Blame the media for reporting those facts rather than taking responsibility for the misdeeds that caused the problem.
With Trump, however, the consequences are far worse. Because of the power he wields as the president of the United States, he’s literally trying to rewrite history. As part of his efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion, the Pentagon, for example, has removed references to honors for military members who are Black and female. Trump also fired Black and female generals.
Last month, the Smithsonian Institution removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit on presidential impeachment. It did so as part of a content review following pressure from the White House, the Washington Post reported. The Smithsonian said last week that it would restore the accurate information that Trump was in fact impeached twice, although the Senate failed to convict him.
Now, in addition to trying to change references to history, the Trump administration is making outlandish claims about present reality.
Trump recently said he was going to reduce drug prices by 1,500 percent. Mathematically, that’s not possible. Medication would either be free or drug companies would be paying us to take their prescriptions. Neither seems likely. So, it’s a number that Trump just made up.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi lauded Trump for saving 119 million lives with fentanyl seizures by law enforcement agencies. She later updated that number to tout — and taunted the media to report it — that the president saved 258 million lives. Keep in mind that there are about 340 million people in the U.S. If Bondi’s numbers were true, more than two-thirds of Americans would need to be using drugs contaminated by fentanyl. It is an utterly absurd claim.
It was made, without anyone raising doubts in an April Cabinet meeting, to make Trump look good.
Following the same script of only sharing information — whether it is accurate or not — to make Trump look good, expect to see numbers telling Americans that the economy is doing great, despite what their pocketbooks and paychecks may say. He’ll tell you prices are dropping, that millions of jobs have been created, when it simply is not true.
Of course, this is a page from the authoritarian playbook. However, it means that any data now shared by the Trump administration is suspect. Too good to be true? It likely is. Bad news will be buried, or altered, and we’re all supposed to think life is great under Trump.
But reality won’t change. Providing reports that say millions of jobs were created won’t actually make more jobs, and more paychecks, appear. Reports saying Trump’s tariffs are raising revenue and increasing trade won’t hide the fact that consumer prices are rising and economic growth has slowed.
Likewise, on the environmental front, the Trump administration can stop research and reporting on climate change, but that won’t slow the warming of the planet and its consequences on the U.S.
That’s the funny thing about trying to hide reality from people. Eventually, the truth comes out. And the ones who tried to hide it are usually the ones who look bad. Unfortunately, many people will suffer in the meantime.
