Trump just cannot let the bad jobs data go.Yuri Gripas/Pool/CNP/ZUMA
On Monday night, President Donald Trump announced his new pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after firing the previous commissioner and baselessly alleging that recently released poor jobs numbers were “rigged.”
Trump’s pick for the post is EJ Antoni, a conservative economist at the Heritage Foundation and a longtime critic of the BLS who has suggested doing away with the report that so triggered Trump. “Our Economy is booming, and EJ will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump claimed in his Truth Social post announcing he would nominate Antoni for the role.
Economists have called him “completely unqualified,” “an extreme partisan,” and “disastrously terrible.” Stan Veuger, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Axios that Antoni’s work at the Heritage Foundation “frequently included elementary errors or nonsensical choices that all bias his findings in the same partisan direction.”
A look at Antoni’s public statements, writings, and politics suggest that, if confirmed, he will likely help remake the BLS—a wonky, heretofore nonpartisan agency housed within the Department of Labor (DOL)—in Trump’s image.
Last week, Antoni, who is also a senior fellow for the right-wing Committee to Unleash Prosperity, said on Steve Bannon’s podcast that the next BLS commissioner should “be willing to essentially overhaul the entire thing.”
“We need a redo at at BLS, essentially,” Antoni said. He also told Bannon he thinks a MAGA Republican should be running the agency, alleging that the lack of a Trump supporter in a leadership role is “part of the reason why we continue to have all of these different data problems.”
Also last week, in an interview with Fox News, Antoni suggested instead publishing quarterly data. But the monthly data, focused on estimates of employment and earnings nationwide, offers important information on the state of the economy for economists, policymakers, government officials, and employers. In a post on X the same day, Antoni seemingly contradicted himself, calling for the next BLS commissioner to ensure “consistent delivery of accurate data in a timely manner.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Antoni received a doctorate in economics from Northern Illinois University in 2020. Since then, he has worked as an economist for a handful of right-wing organizations, including the now-defunct FreedomWorks and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, where he currently works, has become best known for compiling Project 2025, the more than 900-page guidebook to a second Trump term. Antoni is listed in the document as one of several hundred contributors who the document says “volunteered their time and effort to assist the authors in the development and writing.”
Project 2025 has some questionable ideas for BLS, including collecting and disseminating monthly “family statistics,” including marriage and fertility rates, and having a congressionally-appointed assistant commissioner for family statistics to oversee this data collection and dissemination. (This would, of course, track with the administration’s pronatalist priorities.) The document also suggests the administration should consider merging BLS with other statistical agencies, including the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which collect and share distinct data. Antoni did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones on Tuesday afternoon, including a question on whether he supports Project 2025’s proposals for the agency or would implement them if confirmed.
Like Trump, Antoni has argued that the BLS revision of May and June jobs numbers to show weaker growth was politically motivated to make Trump look bad, even though such revisions are commonplace as BLS gains more precise data over time as employers complete voluntary surveys. Former government officials, including former BLS Commissioner William Beach, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, also said there was no way that Trump’s allegations of “rigged” data were possible.
Trump and Antoni share many other baseless takes. In his other writings for the Heritage Foundation website, Antoni has alleged Biden’s DOL shared unreliable jobs data, even though there is no evidence to support that. He called criticisms of Trump’s tariffs “overblown and unfounded,” even though major banks have said they create a higher likelihood of recession and economists have estimated they will cost the average US household thousands of dollars per year. He praised the work of DOGE, despite the havoc the DOGE bros wreaked across government. And Antoni has claimed immigrants are stealing jobs from American-born workers and that Trump’s mass deportation policies would raise wages and create more jobs, even though experts say they will tank the GDP and decimate industries including agriculture, health care, and construction, as my colleague Isabela Dias previously reported.
The Senate will need to confirm Antoni’s nomination in order for him to formally assume the post. And if he does, he will have his work cut out for him: Several of the agency’s top roles are vacant, and the White House budget seeks to cut its funding by $56 million.