When President Donald Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer earlier this month, the dismissal sparked fears about the politicisation of the agency responsible for collecting the nation’s economic data. And with Trump’s announcement of Dr E.J. Antoni to serve as McEntarfer’s successor, the President did nothing to dispel those initial fears.

Antoni, an outspoken policy activist with strong pro-Trump views and a modest résumé, previously served as chief economist at the Right-wing Heritage Foundation. A contributor to Project 2025, he was a vocal critic of the BLS’s methodologies, dismissing them as “phoney baloney”. At stake, therefore, are the very terms by which the health of the US economy is defined and measured.

Establishment liberals and Never-Trump conservatives were quick to condemn the move. Former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman called Antoni “a completely unqualified … extreme partisan [who] does not have any relevant expertise”, while Jessica Riedl of the Right-wing Manhattan Institute — herself a former Heritage economist — was equally blunt: “The articles and tweets I’ve seen him publish are probably the most error-filled of any think tank economist right now.”

Support, unsurprisingly, came from Trump allies such as Steve Bannon and Stephen Moore, who echoed the President in casting doubt on the BLS’s July jobs report, which had revised May and June’s numbers downward by 285,000. Although such revisions are standard practice, Antoni seized on them to reinforce the MAGA Right’s narrative of unreliable economic data. He appeared on Bannon’s podcast to attack BLS leadership, later posting that “there are better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data.”

During that interview, Antoni urged the removal of McEntarfer and her replacement with a MAGA Republican — advice neatly aligned with the White House’s position. He had previously gone further, calling on the Department of Commerce “to take a chainsaw to BLS”. Now, as he prepares to take the helm, critics wonder whether he will attempt exactly that.

One can reasonably question the BLS’s methods, and Antoni is not necessarily acting in bad faith by doing so. But — as with many officials in this administration — it is the tone and tenor of his challenges that risk undermining the agency’s credibility. His combative style offers little reassurance to sceptics and non-MAGA stakeholders accustomed to the neutral, technocratic posture of previous commissioners.

In such cases, the perception of politicisation alone can be enough to erode an agency’s usefulness. That risk is particularly acute for the BLS, whose data underpins decisions in both the public and private sectors and directly influences the value of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). Because TIPS are tied to the Consumer Price Index, any doubts about data integrity could raise the federal government’s borrowing costs and carry serious fiscal policy consequences.

Antoni’s appointment is also expected to erode confidence in BLS and raise the visibility of alternative sources of economic information. The American political class has traditionally rested on the assumption that certain areas of public life, such as economic and scientific data, are sacrosanct and beyond the reach of partisanship. By elevating Antoni and altering the institutional logic of the BLS, the Trump administration is about to teach them yet another lesson about its own Schmittian view of the world, in which nothing — not even the facts — are free from political contestation.

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Michael Cuenco is a writer on policy and politics. He is Senior Editor at American Affairs.

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