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    Trump firing of statistics chief puts US data credibility at risk, experts warn

    Donald Trump’s firing of the head of the main agency for producing jobs figures risks propelling the US into the same category as countries notorious for “cooking the books” such as Argentina and Greece, experts have warned.Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner last Friday, after accusing her agency of “faking” the latest employment figures for “political purposes,” which showed the US economy adding a lower-than-expected 73,000 jobs in July.The BLS, the US government official source for labor statistics since 1884, also revised down the estimates of new positions created in May and June by a combined 258,000.Trump provided no evidence for his accusations against McEntarfer, which he reinforced in social media posts on Monday, calling the bureau’s latest reports “rigged” and concocted.But his decision jeopardizes the US’s tradition of impartial and reliable statistic collection on which the country’s economic stability and international reputation depends, specialists have told the Guardian.Erica Groshen, McEnterfer’s predecessor as BLS commissioner during Barack Obama’s presidency, warned earlier this year that an impending civil-servant rule change that presaged last Friday’s sacking could usher in a “politicization” of government statistical bodies – whereby experts are pressured to produce massaged numbers that fitted an incumbent president’s agenda.She raised the specter of Greece and Argentina, where official statistics became discredited as a result of government-instigated misrepresenting of figures.The International Monetary Fund stopped accepting the Argentinian government’s inflation figures in 2013 after officials were found to have deliberately understated the rate for the previous six years.After threatening Argentina – historically one of the IMF’s biggest borrowers – with expulsion, the organization did not extend another loan to it until 2018.In the case of Greece, government statisticians were accused of having made inflation and soaring budget deficits “disappear” in the 1990s as the country sought respectable-looking numbers that would enable to qualify for the single European currency, the euro.Greece subsequently joined the currency, but at an exorbitant long-term price. The 2008 global financial crash plunged its economy into a deep recession, and the government was forced to accept multi-billion dollar bailouts from the IMF and European Union – at the cost of painful cuts to social services.Andreas Georgiou, who became head of Greece’s main statistics agency during the crisis, even faced prosecution after he discovered that authorities had been dramatically understating budget deficits for years.Both countries experienced severe political backlashes.In Argentina, after two further IMF loans failed to stabiliize its economy, Javier Milei, a populist economist and ally of Trump, was elected in 2023 promising to take a chainsaw to the governing bureaucracy and many public services.In Greece, a succession of left and rightwing governments have taken office amid a rise in support for radical and populist parties, giving rise to concerns for the health of the country’s democracy.Talking to the Guardian, Groshen warned of comparable scenarios following a rule change rolled by the White House’s office of personnel management in April.“Bureau of Labor Statistics leaders could be fired for releasing or planning to release jobs or inflation statistics unfavorable to the president’s policy agenda,” she wrote in a briefing paper.The revision altered the category of about 50,000 permanent civil servants to “policy/career” status, making their removal easier.Originally tabled in April to allow 30 days for comments, it gave agencies the right “to expeditiously remove career employees in policy-influencing positions for poor performance or misconduct, such as corruption or for injecting partisanship into the performance of their official duties”.The precise roles of officials affected were not defined, but Groshen pointed out that, if implemented, the president would determine who would be reclassified.The change stemmed from an executive order Trump issued on his first day back in the White House on 20 January. It stated that the power of “policy-influencing” civil servants is “delegated by the president, and they must be accountable to the president”.Groshen, now a specialist in government statistics at Cornell University, said the changes in civil servant status would make it easier for the government to tamper with numbers it disliked.“There are a number of changes to the civil service that makes it much easier for the administration to interfere with the activities of statistical agencies and that worries me,” she said.Under increased threat of removal, civil servants in federal statistics bodies “might also face pressure to change methodologies or reveal pre-release information”, she wrote.“By making it easier to remove employees if a president determines that they are interfering with his or her policies, it increases the potential for passivity or political loyalty to be prioritized over expertise and experience.” More

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    How the Trump administration made a sewage crisis ‘woke’ – podcast

    Like hundreds of families across Lowndes County, Alabama, the McPhersons do not have access to proper sanitation – just a pipe carrying raw sewage a short distance from their home. For a country that is one of the richest in the world, it is a public health scandal.“There’s a chance if you don’t watch yourself, everything will shoot down with force and get all over you,” says Christopher McPherson.Nina Lakhani, a senior reporter for Guardian US, explains to Nosheen Iqbal that Lowndes County is one of the poorest districts in the country and has a history of brutal cotton plantation enslavement and also the civil rights and Black power movements.They discuss the way the soil has affected access to sanitation in the county, the significant health and psychological problems that have followed, and the long struggle for justice in which a landmark civil rights ruling under the Biden administration has been overturned by the actions of Donald Trump.Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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    Trump news at a glance: political battle in Texas escalates and president under fire for firing labor statistics chief

    Texas governor Greg Abbott on Monday ordered the department of public safety to arrest and return any House member who had left the state and “abandoned their duty to Texans”, as Democrats thwarted plans to redistrict the state along lines that would favour Republicans.“There are consequences for dereliction of duty,” Abbott said in a statement on Monday, after the Republican-dominated House issued civil arrest warrants in an attempt to compel the return of the members who fled the state in order to deny the legislature a quorom.“This order will remain in effect until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol.”Democrats hold 62 of the 150 seats in the legislature’s lower chamber, so as long as at least 51 members remain out of Austin, the Texas legislature cannot move forward with any votes, including a plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give Republicans five more seats in Congress.Here are the key US politics stories of the day:Texas Democrats deny quorum in attempt to thwart Republican plansTexas Democrats in the state legislature denied its speaker a legislative quorum Monday by leaving the state, forestalling plans proposed by the White House to redistrict Texas’s congressional lines to more greatly favor Republicans. Texas governor Greg Abbott has threatened arrest, fines, felony charges of bribery and expulsion against the lawmakers.Read the full storyTrump firing of labor statistics chief ‘undermines credibility’, ex-leaders sayThe former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioners and non-partisan economic groups have criticized Donald Trump’s shock firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer.Read the full storyHundreds of ex-Israeli officials urge Trump to help end Gaza warAbout 600 former Israeli security officials, including previous heads of the Mossad and the military, have urged Donald Trump to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza as the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, considers expanding the conflict.In an open letter, the former officials said an end to the war was the only way to save hostages still held by Hamas.Read the full storySpeaker Mike Johnson visits occupied West Bank to support Israeli settlersMike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.Read the full storyMore than 40 arrested at protest against Gaza war at Trump hotel in New YorkMore than 40 people protesting the war in Gaza and worsening humanitarian crisis were arrested outside the Trump International hotel in New York City on Monday evening.Read the full storyTrump envoy to visit Moscow this week Donald Trump’s special envoy is expected in Moscow days before the US president’s deadline on Friday for Russia to make progress on ending the war in Ukraine or face increased US sanctions.Trump said Steve Witkoff would visit Moscow on Wednesday or Thursday. When asked what message Witkoff would take to Russia and what Vladimir Putin could do to avoid new sanctions, the US president answered: “Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed.”Read the full storySome travelers entering US may face up to $15,000 bondThe US state department has prepared plans to impose bonds as high as $15,000 for some tourism and business visas, according to a draft of a temporary final rule. The bonds would be issued to visitors from countries with significant overstay rates, under a 12-month pilot program.Read the full storyTrump officials look to block abortion services at veterans affairs hospitalsThe Trump administration is seeking to block veterans from receiving abortions at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs in cases of rape or incest, or when a veteran’s pregnancy has imperiled their health, according to new paperwork filed by the administration.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    The Swiss stock market has plunged, the cabinet has held crisis talks and the country’s president has been accused of mishandling a vital phone call with the White House after Donald Trump hit the country with a shock 39% export tariff.

    News Corp, part of the Murdoch family media empire, has announced it will bring a version of the brash rightwing New York tabloid to California in early 2026.

    Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she feels the Republican party has lost touch with its base – but she said she has no plans to leave the party.

    More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress signed on to a letter that urges the Trump administration to recognise Palestinian statehood, in a draft copy shared with the Guardian.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 3 August 2025. More

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    Texas House reconvenes without quorum as Democrats flee state

    Texas Democrats in the state legislature denied its speaker a legislative quorum Monday by leaving the state, forestalling plans proposed by the White House to redistrict Texas’s congressional lines to more greatly favor Republicans.When the legislature gaveled in at 3pm local time on Monday, Republicans fell short of a quorum by eight votes after Democrats fled to Illinois, a legislative conference in Boston, New York and elsewhere.In an extraordinary escalation, the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, said he he had ordered the Texas department of public safety to “locate, arrest and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans”.“There are consequences for dereliction of duty,” Abbott said in a statement on Monday, after the Republican-dominated House issued civil arrest warrants in an attempt to compel the return of the members who fled. “This order will remain in effect until all missing Democrat House members are accounted for and brought to the Texas Capitol.”Democrats hold 62 of the 150 seats in the legislature’s lower chamber, so as long as at least 51 members remain out of Austin, the Texas legislature cannot move forward with any votes, including a plan to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give Republicans five more seats in Congress.The Texas speaker, Representative Dustin Burrows, adjourned the house until 1pm on Tuesday after issuing a call for absent lawmakers and threatening their arrest. He cited pending legislation on flood relief and human trafficking – and not the contentious redistricting proposal before the chamber – in his call for Democrats to return.“Instead of confronting those challenges, some of our colleagues have fled the state in their duty,” Burrows said. “They’ve left the state, abandoned their posts and turned their backs on the constituents they swore to represent. They’ve shirked their responsibilities under the direction and pressure of out-of-state politicians and activists who don’t know the first thing about what’s right for Texas.”Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who fled his own impeachment hearings and refused a court order to release his travel records after speaking at the rally in Washington that preceded the January 6 insurrection, has described wayward Democratic legislators as “cowards”.Speaker Burrows said the house would not sit quietly. “While you obstruct the work of the people, the people of Texas are watching and so is the nation, and if you choose to continue down this road, you should know there will be consequences.”The Texas House Democratic Caucus said in response: “Come and take it.”“We are not fighting for the Democratic party,” state representative James Tallarico said in a video message recorded at an airport. “We are fighting for the democratic process, and the stakes could not be higher. We have to take a stand.”Most of the Democratic caucus absconded to Chicago, a city with a Democratic mayor and city council in a state with a Democratic governor and legislature.Illinois governor JB Pritzker, who owns the Chicago Hyatt hotel, announced on Monday he would provide free rooms to the Texas Democrats for as long as they are out of state.A special session of the Texas legislature lasts for 30 days, but Abbott can renew the call for a special session at will. Under new rules the Texas house adopted in 2021, each lawmaker will be fined $500 a day for each day they abscond from the state. More

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    Marjorie Taylor Greene says Republican party has lost touch with its base

    Marjorie Taylor Greene, historically one of the most prominent voices in Donald Trump’s Maga movement, has declared in an interview that she feels that the Republican party has lost touch with its base, but she said she has no plans to leave the party.After telling the Daily Mail this week she was questioning whether she still belongs in the Republican fold, the Georgia congresswoman told the Guardian she would not become independent or seek a third party option.“No – I’m urging my own party to support ‘America first’,” Greene said.Still, she made clear resounding frustration with GOP leadership and her place within the party’s planning.“I don’t know if the Republican party is leaving me, or if I’m kind of not relating to Republican party as much any more,” Greene said in the Daily Mail interview. “I don’t know which one it is.”Greene, who boasts 7.5 million followers on X and commands one of the largest social media audiences of any Republican woman, accused party leaders of betraying core conservative principles.She did not criticize Trump himself, instead preferring to express her ire for what she attempted to paint as political elites.“I think the Republican party has turned its back on America First and the workers and just regular Americans,” she said, warning that GOP leadership was reverting to its “neocon” past under the influence of what she termed the “good ole boys” network.The 51-year-old lawmaker, in the roughly six-month mark following Trump’s return to the White House, said she was particularly frustrated with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, saying: “I’m not afraid of Mike Johnson at all.”Her remarks reflect a broader pattern of voter dissatisfaction with traditional party structures. Americans appear to also be holding deeply unfavorable views of both major parties: a July Wall Street Journal poll found 63% view the Democratic party unfavorably, its worst rating in 35 years, while Republicans fare only marginally better in most surveys.Independent or independent-leaning Americans now account for nearly half the electorate, according to July Gallup polling, and public support has increasingly shifted toward Democrats through those leaners in recent months.On Monday, Greene used social media to criticize the lack of accountability over what she deems key issues to the base, sharing a table showing no arrests for the “Russian Collusion Hoax”, “Jan 6th”, and “2020 Election”.“Like what happened all those issues? You know that I don’t know what the hell happened with the Republican Party. I really don’t,” she said in the interview. “But I’ll tell you one thing, the course that it’s on, I don’t want to have anything to do with it, and I just don’t care any more.”Her recent bills have targeted unconventional Republican territory: preventing cloud-seeding, making English the official US language, and cutting capital gains taxes on homes. She is also the first Republican in Congress to label the crisis in Gaza a genocide, and has called for ending foreign aid and using the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to cut down fraud and waste in the government.Greene acknowledged her isolation within the party, saying: “I’m going alone right now on the issues that I’m speaking about.” More

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    Trump firing of labor statistics chief ‘undermines credibility’, ex-leaders say

    The former Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioners and non-partisan economic groups have criticized Donald Trump’s shock firing of BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the July jobs report data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer.Trump, without any evidence to back his claims, alleged McEntarfer “faked” employment numbers in the run-up to the 2024 election to boost Kamala Harris’s chances and said that the recent data was “rigged” to make Trump and Republicans look bad.The Trump administration has continued to repeat the allegations. The National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, a Trump appointee, has claimed “all over the US government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can,” in justifying the firing.Friends of BLS, a group chaired by former BLS commissioners Erica Groshen, an Obama appointee, and William Beach, Trump’s appointee during his first term, strongly criticized the firing of McEntarfer, Trump’s allegations, and called on Congress to act.“We call on Congress to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge the Commissioner’s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained,” Friends of BLS wrote in a statement. “This rationale for firing Dr McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers.”The Association of Public Data Users, the National Association for Business Economics and the American Economic Association also criticized the firing.“Under the law, disliking the data is not a qualifying reason to remove the BLS Commissioner from her four-year appointment. Under our democracy, it is unacceptable to fire someone for publishing data collected in accordance with scientific standards,” the Association of Public Data Users said in a statement, echoing the call for Congress “to respond immediately, to investigate the factors that led to Commissioner McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge the BLS Commissioner’s continued service, and ensure that the nonpartisan integrity of the position is retained.”Beach added in a social media post: “the totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau.”Beach was nominated by Trump as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2017, was confirmed by the Senate in 2019 and served a full four year term until 2023.In an email, former BLS commissioner Kathleen Utgoff, who was appointed and served under the George W Bush administration, told the Guardian: “A functioning democracy requires accurate data so that workers, businesses, politicians and voters can make good decisions. I was at the BLS after the Iraq war. Many people asked me how to create something like the BLS there. They could not move forward without data on the state of the economy.”Republican US senators Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, Cynthia Lummis have also questioned the rationale behind Trump’s firing of BLS commissioner McEntarfer.The last jobs report issued by BLS before the presidential election in November 2024 showed the US only added 12,000 jobs in October 2024, the slowest growth since 2020. More

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    Trump loyalist Nancy Mace announces bid for governor of South Carolina

    Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a once moderate Republican turned Trump loyalist, officially launched her bid for governor of South Carolina on Monday.Currently serving her third term in Congress, Mace, 47, was once a Trump critic. Now, per the Associated Press, she calls herself “Trump in high heels” and promises to be a “super Maga governor” in the largely Republican state.Mace’s video announcement launching her bid for the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary on Monday focused heavily on her pro-Trump credentials, featuring a clip of the president calling her a “fighter”. She calls for a “zero-tolerance approach to crime”, cutting the state income tax to zero and stopping “the radical gender agenda” and “woke ideology” in South Carolina’s schools.The new campaign cements her Trump-era transformation. The representative for South Carolina’s first congressional district was one of seven House Republicans who signed a letter in 2021 saying Congress did not have the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump’s favor. She was also highly critical of his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Trump subsequently endorsed a primary opponent to Mace’s 2022 congressional campaign, which she ultimately still won, calling her an “absolutely terrible candidate”.She has since become a fierce ally of the US president, especially on so-called culture war issues, such as transgender rights, and his extreme immigration policies. Trump and the freshly Maga-fied Mace went on to endorse each other in the 2024 election.Just last week, Mace was criticised for disclosing that she loves to cruise the web for videos of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents dragging people into custody, saying she “can think of nothing more American”. She told Fox Report Weekend host Jon Scott that she was championing proposed legislation that would “defund and take tax breaks away” from US cities that restrict how much local authorities cooperate with federal immigration officials.Prior to that, Mace seized national headlines through her vocal opposition to transgender women being allowed to use women’s restrooms. Though as recently as 2023 she had described herself as “pro transgender rights”, she has since made being anti-trans rights a core part of her political personality. Mace has, for instance, repeatedly directly attacked the first openly trans member of Congress, US House member Sarah McBride of Delaware, who first took office in January. Last year she targeted McBride by introducing a resolution to ban transgender women from using the women’s restrooms at the Capitol.“We will not fund any schools that allow biological men in women’s bathrooms or locker rooms, that allow men to compete in women’s sports, or schools that push gender ideology,” she added.She now enters a crowded GOP primary in which competition for Trump’s endorsement – and the backing of his base of supporters – is expected to be fierce, and in which there isn’t yet a clear frontrunner. Among the other candidates are the state’s attorney general Alan Wilson, its lieutenant governor Pamela Evette, and US representative Ralph Norman, one of the most conservative members of the House. The incumbent governor isn’t allowed to seek another term.“I’m running for governor because South Carolina doesn’t need another empty suit and needs a governor who will fight for you and your values,” Mace said during a launch event at the Citadel military college in Charleston. She became the first woman to graduate from the Citadel in 1999. “South Carolina needs a governor who will drag the truth into sunlight and flip the tables if that’s what it takes,” Mace said. More