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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK: President Donald Trump on Friday fired a top Labor Department official on the heels of a market-shocking weak scorecard of the US job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures and adding to already growing concerns about the quality of economic data published by the federal government.
In a second surprise economic policy development, the door for Trump to make an imprint on a Federal Reserve with which he clashes almost daily for not lowering interest rates opened much earlier than anticipated when Fed Governor Adriana Kugler unexpectedly announced her resignation on Friday afternoon.
The two developments further rattled a stock market already reeling from his latest barrage of tariff announcements and the weak jobs data. The benchmark S&P 500 Index sank 1.6 percent in its largest daily drop in more than two months.

Trump accused Erika McEntarfer, appointed by former President Joe Biden, of faking the jobs numbers. There is no evidence to back Trump’s claims of data manipulation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the statistical agency that compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data.
A representative for the BLS did not respond to a request for comment.
Friday began with BLS reporting the US economy created only 73,000 jobs in July, but more stunning were net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported.
“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

DATA CONCERNS
A Trump administration official who requested anonymity said that while all economic data is noisy, the White House has been dissatisfied with how large the revisions have been in the recent data and issues with lower survey responses. The problem started during COVID and has not been addressed in the years since.
“There are these underlying problems that have been festering here for years now that have not been rectified,” the person said. “The markets and companies and the government need accurate data, and like, we just weren’t getting that,” the official said.
The BLS has already reduced the sample collection for consumer price data as well as the producer price report, citing resource constraints. The government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 631,000 individual worksites for the employment report.
The response rate has declined from 80.3 percent in October 2020 to about 67.1 percent in July, BLS data shows.
A Reuters poll last month found 89 of 100 top policy experts had at least some worries about the quality of US economic data, with most also concerned that authorities are not addressing the issue urgently enough.
In addition to the concerns over job market data, headcount reductions at BLS have resulted in it scaling back the scope of data collection for the Consumer Price Index, one of the most important gauges of US inflation, watched by investors and policymakers worldwide.
Trump’s move fed into concerns that politics may influence data collection and publication.
“Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act,” said Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute’s Roosevelt Forward.
“Credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America’s economic data is the foundation on which we’ve built the strongest economy in the world. Blinding the public about the state of the economy has a long track record, and it never ends well.”

FED CHANGE SOONER THAN EXPECTED
Meanwhile, Kugler’s surprise decision to leave the Fed at the end of next week presents Trump an earlier-than-expected opportunity to install a potential successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell on the central bank’s Board of Governors.
Trump has threatened to fire Powell repeatedly because the Fed chief has overseen a policymaking body that has not cut interest rates as Trump has demanded. Powell’s term expires next May, although he could remain on the Fed board until January 31, 2028, if he chooses.
Trump will now get to select a Fed governor to replace Kugler and finish out her term, which expires on January 31, 2026. A governor filling an unexpired term may then be reappointed to a full 14-year term.
Some speculation has centered on the idea Trump might pick a potential future chair to fill that slot as a holding place. Leading candidates for the next Fed chair include Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and Fed Governor Chris Waller, a Trump appointee who this week dissented with the central bank’s decision to keep rates on hold, saying he preferred to start lowering them now.
Trump, as he was leaving the White House to spend the weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, said he was happy to have the open slot to fill.
“I would not read any political motivation into what [Kugler is] doing, although the consequence of what she’s doing is she’s calling Trump’s bluff,” said Derek Tang, an analyst at LH Meyer, a research firm. “She’s putting the ball in his court and saying, look, you’re putting so much pressure on the Fed, and you want some control over nominees, well, here’s a slot.”

WASHINGTON: In a warning to Russia, President Donald Trump said Friday he’s ordering the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines “based on the highly provocative statements” of the country’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, who has raised the prospect of war online.
Trump posted on his social media site that, based on the “highly provocative statements” from Medvedev, he had “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.”
He added: “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”
It wasn’t clear what impact Trump’s order would have on US nuclear subs, which are routinely on patrol in the world’s hotspots, but it comes at a delicate moment in the Trump administration’s relations with Moscow.
Trump has said that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made. He cut his 50-day deadline for action to 10 days, with that window set to expire next week.
The post about the sub repositioning came after Trump, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, had posted that Medvedev was a “failed former President of Russia” and warned him to “watch his words.” Medvedev responded hours later by writing, “Russia is right on everything and will continue to go its own way.”

And that back-and-forth started earlier this week when Medvedev wrote, “Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10” and added, “He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step toward war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.”
Asked as he was leaving the White House on Friday evening for a weekend at his estate in New Jersey about where he was repositioning the subs, Trump didn’t offer any specifics.
“We had to do that. We just have to be careful,” he said. “A threat was made, and we didn’t think it was appropriate, so I have to be very careful.”
Trump also said, “I do that on the basis of safety for our people” and “we’re gonna protect our people.” He later added of Medvedev, “He was talking about nuclear.”
“When you talk about nuclear, we have to be prepared,” Trump said. “And we’re totally prepared.”
Medvedev was Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, while Vladimir Putin was barred from seeking a third consecutive term, and then stepped aside to let him run again.
Now deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council, which Putin chairs, Medvedev has been known for his provocative and inflammatory statements since the start of the war in 2022. That’s a U-turn from his presidency, when he was seen as liberal and progressive.
Medvedev has frequently wielded nuclear threats and lobbed insults at Western leaders on social media. Some observers have argued that with his extravagant rhetoric, Medvedev is seeking to score political points with Putin and Russian military hawks.
One such example before the latest spat with Trump came on July 15, after Trump announced plans to supply Ukraine with more weapons via its NATO allies and threatened additional tariffs against Moscow. Medvedev posted then, “Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin. The world shuddered, expecting the consequences. Belligerent Europe was disappointed. Russia didn’t care.”

Medvedev on Thursday said Trump should remember that Moscow possessed Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities of last resort, after Trump told Medvedev to “watch his words.”
President Putin said on Friday that Moscow hoped for more peace talks with Ukraine but that the momentum of the war was in its favor. He made no reference to the deadline.
Trump, who in the past touted good relations with Putin, has expressed mounting frustration with the Russian leader, accusing him of “bullshit” and describing Russia’s latest attacks on Ukraine as disgusting.
Medvedev has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most outspoken anti-Western hawks since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022. Kremlin critics deride him as an irresponsible loose cannon, though some Western diplomats say his statements illustrate the thinking in senior Kremlin policy-making circles.
Trump also rebuked Medvedev in July, accusing him of throwing around the “N (nuclear) word” after the Russian official criticized US strikes on Iran and said “a number of countries” were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads. “I guess that’s why Putin’s ‘THE BOSS’,” Trump said at the time.
The US president took office in January having promised to end the Ukraine war on Day One, but has not been able to get Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.
Only six countries operate nuclear-powered submarines: the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and India.
The US Navy has 71 commissioned submarines including 53 fast attack submarines, 14 ballistic-missile submarines, and four guided-missile submarines. All of them are nuclear-powered, but only some carry nuclear weapon-tipped missiles.