Economists Are Seriously Alarmed About Official Data Under Trump

As the Trump administration guts and otherwise interferes with federal statistical agencies, nearly 90 percent of economists recently surveyed by Reuters are concerned about the reliability of official government data on the economy.

From July 11 to 24, Reuters polled economists—including “Nobel Laureates, former policymakers, academics from top U.S. universities, and economists from major banks, consultancies and think tanks”—and found that 89 of 100 of them “were concerned about the quality of official U.S. economic data,” with 41 saying they are “very concerned.”

Reuters’ report shows that alarm over Trump’s cuts to key agencies that collect and deliver data, such as statistics on jobs and inflation (to say nothing of other data impacted by Trump, such as that on health, weather, and education), has reached fever pitch.

Erica Groshen, former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, told Reuters, “I can’t help but worry some deadlines [for future data releases] are going to be missed and undetected biases or other errors are going to start creeping into some of these reports just because of the reduction in staff.”

Groshen also noted “another very big risk”: that “all of the current administration’s changes will make civil service employees more like political appointees.”

MSNBC’s Steve Benen observed in an article earlier this month that the prospect of “corruption and political mischief” interfering with federal statistics under Trump is also worth keeping in mind. “Perhaps Donald Trump, the argument goes, might use his influence to tell the Labor Department to manipulate the data and deceive the public,” Benen wrote—though he noted “there’s been no evidence of statistics being altered to fit a political narrative” to date.

Even setting that worrisome possibility aside, Trump’s war against trustworthy federal data already threatens to wreak real havoc.

During a press conference last month, Fed chair (and MAGA persona non grata) Jerome Powell explained why we mustn’t take for granted “having good data” on the economy: This information, he pointed out, “doesn’t just help the Fed. It helps the government, it helps Congress, it helps the executive branch. More importantly, really, it helps businesses. They need to know what’s going on in the economy.”

For years, Powell noted, the United States has prided itself on being a leader in “measuring and understanding what’s happening in, in our very large and dynamic economy.”

“I hate to see us cutting back on that,” he continued, “because it is a real benefit to the general public that people in all kinds of jobs have the best possible understanding of what’s happening in the economy.”

President Trump is using $10 million of our taxes to market his new golf course in Scotland.

The president traveled to Scotland on Friday for the grand opening of an 18-hole golf course in Aberdeen. He’s expected to stay for four days. His appearance will likely generate positive revenue and publicity for the course—money that will flow right back into the pockets of the Trump Organization.

HuffPost has estimated that the trip will likely cost at least $9.7 million dollars due to Air Force One operations, motorcades and helicopters, Secret Service overtime, and more. Trump has framed the international vacation as a “working trip,” and has instead emphasized his plan to meet in Aberdeen with U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer. But Aberdeen is not the capital of the United Kingdom, or even the capital of Scotland, making it clear this meeting was just randomly added in to use as an excuse for the golf course.

Trump has grown more and more comfortable completely blurring the lines of his private businesses and his public office. This trip will make his second-term golf tab at least $52 million in just six months, according to HuffPost. His first term was $152 million over four years.

“We’ve reached a point where the Oval Office is an extension of the Trump Organization, and American taxpayers are footing the bill,” Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told HuffPost. “A president should not be spending time trying to make money in a foreign country while in office, but if they do, at the very least they could pick up the tab for their business trips.”

The cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show is apparently a sign of what’s to come for America’s media industry.

Speaking with CNBC Friday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr blamed the comedy show’s demise on a lack of profitability, and warned that the “media industry across this country needs a course correction.”

“The American people simply do not trust the mainstream media,” Carr said, likening the current field of late-night comedy shows to genuine news outlets.

He has a point: Media trust has never been so low in this country. A February Gallup survey found that trust in news had fallen to a five-decade low, with just 31 percent of polled Americans claiming to trust the mainstream media a “great deal” or “a fair amount,” while 36 percent said they didn’t trust traditional news sources “at all.”

But threatening to forcibly curtail content via the heavy hand of the federal government—à la some Russian- or North Korean–inspired trajectory—is not the solution.

“For broadcasters, they have a federal license and they are obligated to operate in the public interest,” Carr said. “In the extent that we’re starting to see some changes, I think that’s a good thing.”

Some of the most prominent news companies in the country have already been pressured into changing their coverage of Trump. The longtime head of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, quit after Paramount executives attempted to interfere with the show’s content, reportedly pressuring him to change how the show reports on the president. The former president of CBS, Wendy McMahon, resigned under similar circumstances shortly afterward.

Colbert’s show—the most popular show in its time slot—was canceled three days after the comedian claimed that Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over his groundless lawsuit targeting Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview looked like a “big, fat bribe.”

In his first show back following the announcement, Colbert didn’t deny that it was possible the show was hemorrhaging money. However, he said he couldn’t work out the $40 million loss that an unidentified Paramount source leaked to The New York Post—until he considered another possibility.

“$40 million is a big number. I could see us losing $24 million. But where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million? Oh yeah,” Colbert said.

The FCC approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance Thursday.

Asked on three occasions Friday morning whether he would consider pardoning convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump first said he didn’t “want to talk about” it and, later, made a point to note he is “allowed” to do so.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about that,” the president responded to the first query about a potential pardon.

Later, Trump said: “It’s something I haven’t thought about. It’s really some—it’s some. I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.”

“But you wouldn’t rule it out?” a reporter followed up, but Trump did not reply.

Later still, the president told reporters, “I certainly can’t talk about pardons right now.”

While the president’s response wasn’t a “Yes,” it certainly wasn’t a “No,” either. (And recall that, in 2019 and 2020, Trump said he hadn’t thought about pardoning Roger Stone, whom he pardoned in December 2020.)

Trump’s glaring nonanswers come as his allies appear increasingly open to embracing Maxwell as a way out of his Epstein mire. The administration is facing an uproar over its lack of transparency and Trump’s personal ties to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse minors. (When she was arrested by the FBI in 2020, Trump had said, “I wish her well.”)

Despite Maxwell’s crimes, as Rolling Stone reported Thursday, “the Trump administration and the president’s allies in Congress seem to think that if they get Maxwell to attest that Trump did nothing wrong,” it will solve everything. MAGA media has also begun cozying up to the convicted sex criminal.

In recent days, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Maxwell and will depose her next month. Meanwhile, Todd Blanche, Trump’s deputy attorney general and former personal lawyer, has met with Maxwell and will meet again Friday, purportedly to gain information “about anyone who has committed crimes against victims.”

The potential for corruption in Blanche’s closed-door sit-downs with Maxwell, who has everything to gain from aiding the president, is plain, as has been much observed by Democratic lawmakers and other critics. The observation was even made by Trump toady House Speaker Mike Johnson, who recently told reporters that he backed the House Oversight Committee’s move to subpoena Maxwell while noting an “obvious concern”:

Could she be counted on to tell the truth? Is she a credible witness? I mean, this is a person who’s been sentenced to many, many years in prison for terrible, unspeakable, conspiratorial acts, and acts against innocent young people. I mean, can we trust what she’s going to say?

Palm Beach County Attorney Dave Aronberg and former aide to Pam Bondi, now Trump’s attorney general, has speculated that the DOJ’s talks with Maxwell could presage a “hidden pardon” deal.

And of course it wouldn’t be unprecedented for Trump to flagrantly abuse the pardon power.

This story has been updated.

President Trump suggested on Friday that Israel should “finish the job” and “get rid of it,” when asked about Gaza, which is now suffering from mass starvation due to Israel’s blockade.

“Gaza, they pulled out of Gaza, they pulled out in terms of negotiating. It was too bad, Hamas didn’t really wanna make a deal. I think they wanna die. And it’s very, very bad,” the president said on Friday before departing for Scotland. “You’re gonna have to finish the job … don’t forget, we got a lotta hostages out. So now we’re down to the final hostages and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that they really didn’t wanna make a deal I saw that. So they pulled out, they’re gonna have to fight, they’re gonna have to clean it up. You’re gonna have to get rid of it.”

The Trump administration has been explicit about its horrifying vision for Gaza, as the president clearly views it as potential property for an Israeli beach resort rather than an area that human beings call home. The genocidal language he casually uses here, saying that Israel needed to “get rid of it,” only reinforces that.

While leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and the U.K.’s Kier Starmer have this week finally decided that the indiscriminate killing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—for throwing rocks, for waiting for aid, for doing journalism, for simply refusing to leave their homes—has become too much, Trump has tripled down in his dismissiveness. All signs point to him allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s butchering of Palestine to continue uninhibited.

A weak dollar is better than a strong dollar, according to Donald Trump.

The dollar hasn’t fallen this fast since 1973. Over the last six months, the dollar has declined more than 10 percent against America’s most prominent trading partners, bringing the value of the world’s reserve currency to a three-year low.

“Why has the dollar fallen so much, and are you concerned about that?” a reporter asked Trump outside of the White House Friday.

“Well, I’m a person that likes a strong dollar, but a weak dollar makes you a hell of a lot more money,” Trump said. “I don’t know if you study, but I study it.”

“I went to Penn and Wharton,” the reporter said, referring to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious business school. “So I know this.”

“Then I know you’re smart,” Trump said. “So when we have a strong dollar, one thing happens—it sounds good. But you don’t do any tourism, you can’t sell tractors, you can’t sell trucks, you can’t sell anything.”

But tourism is booming everywhere but the U.S. A study from the World Travel & Tourism Council last month found that the U.S. was the only country in the world forecast to have less international travel spending, with the potential to lose as much as $12.5 billion in the category compared to last year, a figure that has rattled the hospitality and aviation industries. And Trump hasn’t made it easier: Prospective visitors might have to contend with more red tape to enter the country, paying a $250 “visa integrity fee” in addition to the $185 price tag on the nonimmigrant visa itself.

“It is good for inflation, that’s about it. But we have no inflation, we wiped out inflation,” the president noted Friday, further explaining his “strong dollar” ideology. Yet his administration did not actually eliminate inflation—it’s still a major concern, fueled in large part by Trump’s roller-coaster tariff plan.

“It doesn’t sound good, but you make a hell of a lot more money with a weaker dollar—not a weak dollar, but a weaker dollar,” Trump said, claiming that America’s trading partners, including China and Japan, were “fighting” for their own weaker currencies.

“And it’s good psychologically, it makes you feel good,” he added.

Donald Trump’s latest tactic of bringing up Barack Obama’s administration every time someone asks him about Jeffrey Epstein is getting downright ridiculous. 

Speaking to the press outside of the White House Friday, Trump once again denied writing a “bawdy” birthday message for Epstein in 2003 as part of a book of birthday notes for the alleged sex offender. 

“I don’t even know what they’re talking about. Now, somebody could have written a letter and used my name, that’s happened a lot,” Trump said. 

But the president wasn’t satisfied with simply answering the question—he took a moment to return to his favorite subject. 

“All you have to do is take a look at the dossier, the fake dossier,” Trump continued. “Everything’s fake with that administration. Everything’s fake with the Democrats. Take a look at what they just found about the dossier. Everything is fake, they’re a bunch of sick people.”

Trump was likely referring to the Steele dossier, a collection of reporting by former British spy Christopher Steele, which had been used to obtain surveillance warrants on a former Trump campaign adviser after the 2016 presidential election. 

Here, Trump is attempting to compare the validity of his crude birthday letter to the dossier, of which much of the contents has since been discredited or denied. In a broader sense, his administration is hoping to cast the ongoing fallout over Epstein as yet another vicious “hoax.” Even as president, Trump continues to cast himself as some sort of victim. 

But evidence of Trump’s ties to Epstein, who once claimed to be the president’s “closest friend,” are mounting. 

Earlier this week, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard claimed that the Obama administration had “used already discredited information like the Steele dossier—they knew it was discredited at the time.”

It’s worth noting that the dossier was not the sole basis for the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. After questions arose about the dossier’s credibility, the FBI continued to pursue the surveillance warrants for other information.  

Gabbard has emerged as the main sycophant in charge of Trump’s smoke screen, setting off on a campaign to prove the Obama administration manufactured the narrative that Moscow wanted Trump in power (Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that he did! Mystery solved!). But her declassified report didn’t really prove anything at all, and she has quickly returned to her own favorite pastime: spouting debunked Russian propaganda. 

Trump also said Friday that people should spend more time focused on the others who reportedly wrote birthday notes for Epstein, such as former president Bill Clinton.

Republican lawmakers are doing everything they can to squash the Trump administration’s Epstein scandal—even if their theories don’t make sense.

Speaking with CNN’s The Source Thursday night, Senator Bernie Moreno claimed that “the media and Democrats” were fueling the boiling pressure campaign to unveil the Epstein files.

“No matter how much is disclosed at this point, there’s going to be a small segment of the population fueled primarily by the media and the Democrats that are never going to be satisfied with what’s out there,” Moreno said.

But a few outliers immediately came to mind for host Kaitlan Collins.

“Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer are not fueled by the media and Democrats,” Collins said. “They would probably take offense to that.”

Bannon has called for full public transparency on what Trump has derided as a Democrat-invented “hoax.” (Bannon was reportedly paid to media-train the deceased pedophile.) Loomer, meanwhile, effectively predicted the right’s newfangled spin on the scandal last week, which has so far involved cozying up to the pedophile’s longtime girlfriend and imprisoned criminal associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in a supposed “pardon campaign.”

“I said a small population of Republicans,” Moreno said, laughing.

“Yeah, but that’s the president’s base,” Collins threw back.

The Ohio Republican further insisted that Trump has “never been more popular”—though recent polling indicates he’s wrong on that point too.

A Quinnipiac poll published last week found that 63 percent of voters disapprove of the way that the Trump administration has handled the Epstein case, which has so far included the Justice Department backtracking on the existence of certain documents.

There is mounting evidence that Trump and Epstein had a remarkably close relationship. The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump was named as a contributor on a birthday book for Epstein organized by Maxwell. The Times’ story backed up the bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal last week, which unveiled a salacious letter that Trump had penned to his “pal,” making reference to “a wonderful secret.”

The president has vehemently denied that he was ever close with Epstein.

President Trump is bending judicial rules to help his personal lawyer keep the job she’s woefully unqualified for.

On Tuesday, New Jersey federal judges decided to fire Alina Habba, refusing to vote to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, leading to uproar from the right. Now, the Trump administration seems to have found a loophole to keep one of their most loyal operatives back into a powerful position.

To rig the system for Habba’s return, Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this week fired the first assistant U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Desiree Grace, whom a panel of New Jersey judges had voted to succeed Habba. A Justice Department official then confirmed Thursday that Trump withdrew Habba’s permanent nomination, and Bondi appointed Habba as first assistant. This allows Habba to become the acting U.S. attorney once again, as the position is currently vacant thanks to Grace’s ousting. It also allows Habba to bypass Senate confirmation, which is needed for permanent appointments.

The Trump administration is going to such lengths to secure Habba this position because she is a thoughtless foot soldier whose main priority is not the law of the land, but unwavering devotion to Trump. And she’s demonstrated that throughout her career.

As the president’s personal lawyer she unsuccessfully defended him in his hush-money and E. Jean Carroll defamation cases. In her first 120 days as U.S. attorney, she made headlines for claiming that the thousands of military veterans indiscriminately fired by DOGE were simply unfit and attempted to prosecute Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for trying to enter a local ICE detention center.

“Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba wrote Thursday on X in a victorious tone. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire and former head of the White House’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” slapped away an olive branch extended by the president on Thursday, keeping the feud between them alive.

Earlier in the day, Trump had taken to his platform, Truth Social, to dismiss what he said was a widespread perception that he plans to “destroy” Musk’s companies by withdrawing “the large scale subsidies he receives” from the government.

On the contrary, the president said, “I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE.”

The apparent sign of goodwill came just days after the Pentagon awarded Musk’s company xAI a $200 million contract.

Musk challenged the veracity of Trump’s claims about subsidies and claimed that his ventures won their government contracts on merit.

On his own platform, X, the billionaire wrote: “The ‘subsidies’ he’s talking about simply do not exist. DJT has already removed or put an expiry date on all sustainable energy support while leaving massive oil & gas subsidies untouched.” Trump’s tax and spending plan, passed last month, included a number of unfavorable provisions for electric vehicle companies like Musk’s Tesla.

Musk also claimed that his space technology company, SpaceX, had earned its NASA contracts “by doing a better job for less money.”

In a subsequent post, Musk seemed to ridicule Trump’s promise not to “destroy” his companies, writing, “Phew.”

Trump and Musk have, famously, been at loggerheads since the billionaire, who formerly styled himself the “first buddy” to the president, ramped up attacks on Trump’s budget bill, which he called “pork-filled” and an “abomination.”

In the ensuing public clash last month, Trump repeatedly threatened to terminate government subsidies and contracts with Musk’s companies. He even suggested siccing Musk’s DOGE on its former handler, posting: “Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far…. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this?”

Musk’s jabs against Trump included threatening to create a new political party and alleging that Trump “is in the Epstein files.” Musk deleted the post in which he made the latter accusation (although it was corroborated by The Wall Street Journal’s report this week that the Justice Department, in May, informed Trump that his name appears repeatedly in the files).

While Musk has said some of his insults toward Trump went “too far,” the billionaire has continued, even since Trump’s attempt to make amends, to criticize the administration for its failure to provide full transparency on the case of the notorious pedophile (another former friend of the president). Notably, on the 2024 campaign trail, Musk had promised that the Epstein client list, which the DOJ said earlier this month is nonexistent, would become public under Trump.