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After it was revealed on Friday that the US economy added only about 100,000 jobs over the past three months, Donald Trump used a couple of fact-challenged social media posts to identify a scapegoat and claim that he was the victim of a deep state conspiracy theory. 

“In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad,” Trump wrote after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a subpar jobs report for July and also significantly revised the employment figures for May and June downwards.

The president seemed especially irked by those revisions, which wiped out most of the 291,000 jobs that the economy had supposedly gained in those two months.

It makes sense that he would be displeased. After all, this three-month stretch of lackluster job growth is the worst since Trump presided over a pandemic-ravaged economy in 2020, and he and Republicans have nevertheless been trying to convince the country that everything is going great. 

However, various data points this week are pointing to potential turmoil ahead… even a report that showed that the gross domestic product (GDP) grew more than anticipated in the second quarter.

All of this spells trouble for Trump and the GOP, who are trying to convince Americans that they are ushering in a new golden age by taking away government benefits for millions of them to reward billionaires with tax cuts.

Therefore, the president resorted to what he does best: denying reality, blaming others, and conjuring up a half-baked narrative that explains to his gullible supporters what really happened. 

“I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory,” he wrote in his first post. 

What Trump is referring to is the significant downward revision of the employment figures that was announced in August of last year. Back then, the BLS stated that the economy had gained 818,000 fewer jobs than previously thought during the 12-month period beginning in March 2023.

At the time, Trump used that announcement to claim that this was done to benefit Kamala Harris, which never made sense because it would have meant that the BLS fudged the numbers when it didn’t matter only to come clean shortly before the election. 

It’s true that the revision last year was larger than usual. However, experts noted at the time that the process the agency used was standard.  The BLS bases its initial employment figures, which are always released on the first Friday of each month, on surveys. In other words, they are educated guesses. Later, when more solid data can be compiled, the figures are updated. 

All of this is very transparent, experts like Keith Hall, a BLS commissioner appointed by George W. Bush, say. In addition, the numbers cannot be faked, according to William Beach, who served as Trump’s own BLS commissioner during his first term. 

“Folks who say this don’t know enough about how the revisions work,” Beach said the last time Trump and other Republicans conjured up this conspiracy theory.

Of course, the president is all about not understanding how things work and making up his own explanations instead. And blaming others, which is what he did on Friday. 

“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump stated. “Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”

Of course, the danger is that this is exactly what will happen now if the president appoints yet another sycophant to the position. 

“Instead of properly addressing the consequences of his actions and taking reasonable steps to bolster the economy, President Trump’s action politicizes economic data and undermines the independence of yet another federal agency, seemingly out of frustration that the facts do not support his manufactured narrative,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the ranking member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. “Worse, today’s action serves as a warning to any future BLS officer that they should not dare to make the mistake of reporting accurate information.”

He is right. Until now, the BLS has always been seen as a nonpolitical, data-driven agency, no matter whether a Democrat or a Republican was at the helm. 

However, that could all change now if the actual performance of the economy continues to lag behind the fantasy version that Trump is trying to sell to the American people. 

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.