Trump’s Firing of Labor Data Chief Is an Attack on Truth

Donald Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Labor and Jobs Statistics department because the numbers didn’t flatter him is nothing less than a blatant act of political censorship. This is how authoritarian regimes operate—when facts don’t match the propaganda, they destroy the messenger and rewrite reality. Labor and employment data are not personal playthings for any president. They are the bedrock of economic policy, relied on by businesses, lawmakers, and American workers. By purging the official responsible for reporting the truth, Trump has sent a clear message: in his world, facts will be replaced with whatever fiction best serves his ego and political needs. This isn’t a surprise. Trump has a long and well-documented history of lying to the American people—more than 30,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency. He lied about the size of his inauguration crowd, about COVID-19’s severity, about election results, and now he’s targeting the very institutions that produce hard data. If his history tells us anything, it’s that under his influence, official statistics will be manipulated until they are worthless. If we allow this to stand, we will no longer have reliable economic indicators. Investors will be misled, businesses will make catastrophic decisions, and working families will be told things are “great” even as they suffer. This is not just bad governance—it is economic sabotage. I am demanding that you act now to protect the independence of all federal data agencies. We need legislation that shields agency heads from politically motivated firings, forces transparency in data collection, and punishes anyone—president or not—who tampers with official statistics. The American people cannot plan their futures or hold their leaders accountable if the numbers themselves are lies. This is a direct attack on truth, on democracy, and on the economic security of every citizen. You cannot stay silent.