President Trump is still claiming without evidence that a lackluster jobs report was "rigged," leading him to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. CBS News' Olivia Rinaldi and Kelly O'Grady report.

Washington

President Trump has stood by his decision to remove the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner, asserting that job numbers released by the department were manipulated and politically influenced. The White House cited frequent revisions to job data as evidence, although such revisions are a routine part of the BLS process due to challenges in data collection, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the vacancy, the BLS continues to function, with teams still preparing regular reports on jobs and inflation. Economists and experts acknowledge ongoing scrutiny of the data collection process, noting that improvements in digital access and survey methods could enhance accuracy. The appointment of a new commissioner is pending Senate confirmation, and discussions about modernizing data collection are expected to continue.

Trump doubles down on decision to fire labor statistics chief

Well, to use your words, the president is also buckling down, doubling down on his decision to oust the former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. He says the job numbers coming out of that department are rigged. Again, we ask on the air and elsewhere, where is the proof? What's the evidence for that assertion? Well, the White House says the proof for that is in the revisions. But Reed, there are always revisions when it comes to that information we get from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the job market. And that happens because it's difficult to obtain that information. It used to be easier than COVID happened. It was harder to obtain that data. People don't always pick up their phones when they're being asked, you know, questionnaires and surveys. I know I certainly don't. So the response rate has really gone down, which has forced the data that we've gotten to, you know, be subject to larger revisions. That's what the White House is pointing to as some of the evidence as to why the president took this unprecedented step to fire the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner on Friday. He was also asked about this in that CNBC interview, because certainly this is something that has market impact. You know, these businesses wait for that information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to know what the health of the economy looks like. So take a listen to what Trump said this morning on CNBC about his decision to fire the commissioner. Antiquated, no doubt, and certainly not, certainly suboptimal, but rigged? Where do you get the notion that it's rigged, or do you have any evidence there? It is antiquated, but it's also very political. Just days before the election, they put out numbers that it was like the country was on fire, it was doing so well. And then they did a revision about two weeks later, and the revision was down by almost 900,000 jobs. They gave phony numbers, and then they revised them a week and a half later. Now, Reid, we should note that week and a half later that he's talking about is actually something he talked about on the campaign trail, and it happened during the Biden administration that in the springtime, when the campaign was kicking off, it showed that the jobs reports were doing well in the spring of last year, and then got revised in August, and it was about 1,800,000, excuse me, 818,000 jobs, excuse me, that were lost during that time. So as a result, President Trump back then said that the jobs were rigged. So this is something he has been talking about, trying to make it a political issue. And of course, the revisions that happened under his administration, he then claimed were political, even though this is something that has happened under every administration. So the question now, though, is when will there be a new commissioner? That's something the president has to appoint. It then heads to the Senate, where it has to go through several rounds of confirmation. So it could be a while that we are without a commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Olivia Rinaldi, thank you so much for that live report. Okay, so for more on the fallout stemming from that firing at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, let's go to CBS News Money Watch correspondent, Kelly O'Grady. So Kelly, with all that said, where do we go from here? Right, I think that's the question that everyone's asking, you know, we've heard these comments from the president, but we still have to go on. There still has to be data. So as Olivia said, we are awaiting the appointment of a new Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. The president had said that that could be coming soon. But I want to underscore that it is not just one person who is putting together all of these numbers. So just because that person is gone, we are still expecting a jobs report. We are still expecting a number of inflation reports that the BLS puts out. And so there's a whole team of people that the show goes on, and they're continuing to work on that. And so I think that part aside, there obviously has been a lot of scrutiny around how this data is collected. And I was talking to a number of economists, I mean, there was already scrutiny about the health of the survey and the accuracy of this data with so many revisions sort of growing and growing that I would expect that there would be some maybe changes or discussions around how that data can be more accurately collected. I was speaking to one economist that said, you know, there needs to be more accuracy in terms of the digital access to information. They do have access to some payroll data, but the survey shouldn't be collected by faxes going out or, you know, just phone calls. As Olivia said, you can easily just say, hey, I'm not going to pick that up. So I would expect that part to be scrutinized as well, and maybe potential proposals of how to better improve that data, which would benefit everyone, right? Better data is always good news. Well, the scrutiny over revisions may very well be the refiner's fire on the system. Kelly O'Grady, thank you so much.

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