Trump’s BLS Pick Posted Some Truly Disturbing Things on Social Media

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics had a since-deleted social media account where he made lewd comments about Kamala Harris, bashed women and gay people, and spread far-right conspiracy theories. Gee, no wonder the president picked him!

E.J. Antoni, the MAGA rioter Trump tapped to replace Erika McEntarfer, ran an X account under different usernames and display names to air his right-wing grievances, CNN’s KFile reported Friday.

When the account was first created in 2015, the username was simply his full name: “ErwinJohnAntoni.” He later changed his display name to “Dr. Erwin J. Antoni III” around the time he received his Ph.D., in 2020.

After that, the user frequently identified himself as an economist, and other accounts also identified him as one too. The account posted the specific phrase “You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind” 20 times, which also appeared on Antoni’s professional account “RealEJAntoni.” The account had previously been linked to Antoni by Wired.

Using the account, Antoni reportedly published a number of gross attacks against female politicians and political figures. While the posts are grotesque, they generally aligned with positions the president has expressed.

In October 2018, Antoni referred to Christine Blasey Ford, who’d accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, as “Miss Piggy,” just one day after Trump mocked her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Antoni posted at least five times suggesting that former presidential candidate Kamala Harris had used sexual favors to advance her career. “You can’t run a race on your knees,” he wrote in December 2019, responding to a picture of a Harris campaign poster that had been defaced. Trump later shared similar comments about Harris during the 2024 presidential race.

Antoni accused former President Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, and economist Paul Krugman of being pedophiles. He also took aim at members of the Squad, a group of female Democratic lawmakers, whom Trump has also repeatedly criticized, but the president’s barbs have tended to lean more racist than sexist.

Sexism was a common theme for Antoni, who wrote and shared a number of posts explaining just how much he hates women. “Feminism is that belief by which women are liberated from false slavery to men in order to become true slaves to corporations,” he wrote in February 2020. He’s dabbled in gay bashing, writing in March 2020, “There is only one sexual orientation—everything else is a disorientation,” and he wrote several posts targeting CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.

Wired previously reported that Antoni’s account had published far-right positions, like conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, Covid-19, and Jeffrey Epstein. KFile reported that he also shared conspiracy theories about the 2016 presidential election, criticized abortion, and engaged with QAnon and far-right accounts.

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Palestinians seeking international justice for Israeli human rights abuses mustn’t go unpunished. The State Department on Thursday announced sanctions on three top Palestinian rights groups that asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for war crimes, including genocide.

Al Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights—which all document human rights abuses in occupied Palestine—drew America’s ire for having “directly engaged” in ICC efforts “to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”

In November 2023, the three groups called the tribunal’s attention to various Israeli abuses in Gaza, including strikes on its civilian areas, forced displacement of its population, the use of toxic gas, and the denial of necessities like food and water.

“These actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and incitement to genocide,” the groups wrote in a press release at the time. They encouraged the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

A year later, the ICC issued warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” (The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for a former Hamas commander.)

On Friday, the three groups issued a joint statement condemning the U.S. sanctions.

“Threatened by the impact and role of our advocacy, legal research, and documentation in exposing Israel’s ongoing international crimes, the United States has resorted to punishing individuals and organisations seeking to uphold the legal system upon which the international community was founded,” the statement says. “The implications go beyond Palestine: by protecting Israel from accountability, they are dismantling the international legal order and undermining the possibility of justice for victims of grave crimes anywhere.”

The Trump administration in February imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, and last month slapped ICC officials with sanctions, giving the same rationale then as this week.

Fox News is struggling to find a spin as President Trump’s economy continues to perform worse than expected. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States added only 22,000 jobs this month—a massive decrease from the previous month’s numbers—and unemployment has risen, both warning signs for a rough economy ahead.

“Twenty-two thousand jobs added in the month of August, that was much less than the expectation of 75,000, guys; the July number was revised, I will get to the revisions in a moment,” said Fox Business’s Lauren Simonetti on Friday morning. “Unemployment rate coming in as expected, 4.3 percent.… Again, 22,000 jobs added in August.… For June and July together, combined 21,000 jobs lower than previously reported.”

That 22,000 number isn’t just “weaker than expected,” it’s awful—and it once again raises fears of that awful word Trump keeps avoiding: recession. Economists had forecast 75,000 jobs would be added this month.

The coping continued on Fox.

“But again, that 22,000 number, Charles, it’s a weaker than expected number, and these revisions are pretty brutal,” Fox Business host Cheryl Casone said.

“Yeah, extraordinarily,” host Charles Payne replied. “I’ve mentioned health care, 31,000—the 12-month average is 42,000. That had been obviously a massive driver, and we know the demographic situation there. Just a little disappointed in manufacturing, was hoping to maybe see something there.”

Casone then asked guest and “motivational leader” Joanie Bily to share her thoughts on the labor force participation rate, which is at 62.3 percent.

“We’re not seeing much movement in that number, which is disappointing. And surprising, to be honest with you, Cheryl.… We’ve lost jobs again in the professional business service sector, we’ve lost jobs in this report in the temporary help sector, which is not a good sign, so there’s a lot of concern even though the private payroll number is 38,000, that is still a pretty weak number.”

Maybe Trump slashing the health care system and kneecapping the economy with a trade war was the problem all along, and not the BLS commissioner he fired for being too “woke” after last month’s terrible jobs report. What will Fox News say when we’re actually in the recession?

“Weak job growth. Rising unemployment. Soaring costs,” Colorado Representative Jason Crow wrote. “Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ is screwing working people.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released a dismal jobs report for the month of August.

According to the report, the labor market added 22,000 jobs in August—a far cry from the 75,000 new jobs economists had forecast for the month. The unemployment rate rose slightly, to 4.3 percent, which is the highest it’s been since late 2021.

Revisions to prior months paint an even drearier picture, showing, for instance, that 13,000 jobs were actually lost in June (as opposed to the 14,000 gain in jobs initially reported). Before then, job numbers hadn’t been in the negatives since December 2020, when Donald Trump was finishing his first term and the economy was still ravaged by the pandemic.

This is the first jobs report since Trump ousted the BLS chief and nominated MAGA partisan E.J. Antoni in her place due to a poor July report.

But even with the messenger having been shot, the message rings louder than ever. Jobs numbers thus far have been insulated from Trump’s meddling, as Antoni isn’t yet at the helm of the BLS, which is being overseen by its deputy commissioner, a BLS veteran.

Perhaps due to this fact, Trump on Thursday evening sought to downplay the importance of the August report.

At a gathering of tech executives at the White House, the president said, of the then-forthcoming numbers: “Well we’re going to have to see what the numbers—I don’t know, they come out tomorrow. But the real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now when these monstrous, huge, beautiful places—they’re palaces of genius. And when they start opening up, I think you’ll see job numbers that are going to be absolutely incredible.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed he had the “absolute” authority to conduct a military strike on suspected drug smugglers.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Hegseth was asked what legal authority the Pentagon had invoked to carry out its deadly strike on a vessel officials claim was carrying drugs.

“We have the absolute and complete authority to conduct that,” Hegseth said. “First of all, just the defense of the American people alone. 100,000 Americans were killed each year under the previous administration because of an open border and open drug traffic flow. That is an assault on the American people.”

So, in other words, there was no legal authority, as far as we can tell.

“I’d say we smoked the drug boat, and there’s eleven narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean. And when other people try to do that, they’re gonna meet the same fate,” Hegseth continued.

Hegseth’s response echoes Trump’s claim that the 11 slain crew members were “narco terrorists” who belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. While the executive branch has labeled Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization, such a designation does not serve as any legal basis for a combat strike.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the Pentagon was still scrambling to invent a legal basis for its own strike—though it appears that Hegseth doesn’t actually think he needs any. But a strike with no legal basis would violate international and domestic law.

Some officials at the Department of Defense have privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the deadly strike, which is especially concerning considering that the government has offered no evidence to support its claim that the individuals on the boat were in fact drug traffickers.

The Justice Department on Thursday scrambled to address alleged revelations about the Epstein files published by James O’Keefe—founder of the far-right Project Veritas, known for its hidden-camera stings, in which individuals are secretly filmed disclosing information about the organizations that employ them.

O’Keefe shared a video that, he said, showed an undercover operative eliciting eyebrow-raising statements from a top DOJ official, acting Deputy Chief of Special Operations Joseph Schnitt, about the department’s files on the notorious late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, as well as a supposed deal with Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

In the secret recording, Schnitt acknowledges that the Epstein files do exist—“thousands and thousands of pages of files”—and goes on to detail the DOJ’s plan.

“They’ll redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files,” the official said over lunch. He also noted that Maxwell was “transferred to a minimum-security prison too recently, which is against [Federal Bureau of Prisons] policy because she’s a convicted sex offender.” He added, “They’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.”

O’Keefe’s supposed bombshells here, as always, warrant skepticism, as they are notoriously sensationalized and often deceptively edited.

According to O’Keefe, the Justice Department provided a statement asserting that Schnitt’s claims were false—but effectively confirming the veracity of the video. The statement said, “Joseph Schnitt had no role in the Department’s internal review of Epstein materials,” and his comments “have absolutely zero bearing with reality and reflect a total lack of knowledge of the DOJ’s review process.”

Later, the official X account of the Department of Justice sought to clear the air in the most bizarre way: by posting an unedited iPhone screenshot (complete with airplane-mode icon and battery percentage) of an email from Schnitt to his superior.

The email states that the recorded meeting took place in August, when Schnitt met twice with a Hinge date who claimed to be “an au pair in Georgetown” named Skylar. She “gave no clues that she was a reporter or recording our dates,” he said, and his comments were based “on what I’ve learned in the media and not from anything I’ve done at or learned via work”

“I have no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Maxwell other than what is reported in the news,” Schnitt wrote, per the DOJ’s screenshot. “I also never divulged anything about what I do at work.”

Stephen Miran, President Donald Trump’s nominee for a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said that he would keep his job at the White House even if he’s confirmed to the Fed.

At a hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday, Miran said that he planned to take an unpaid leave of absence from the White House, but retain his job. His admission shocked senators, who grilled him about the plan.

“Your independence has already been seriously compromised,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed said. “You are going to be technically an employee of the president of the United States, but an independent member of the board of the Federal Reserve. That’s ridiculous.”

Senator Reed has good reason to be worried. The president would clearly prefer for the Federal Reserve to bend to his whims, rather than serve as an independent body. He’s been pressuring the institution to lower interest rates for months, he’s threatened to sue Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and he’s also attempted to illegally remove Governor Lisa Cook from her position.

Were Miran to be employed by the White House while also serving on the Fed board, the public would likely lose trust in the Fed’s independence. And that could have serious economic consequences—not just in the U.S. but all over the world.

Miran denied accusations that he would act as a political pawn, saying, “If I’m confirmed to this role, I will act independently, as the Federal Reserve always does, based on my own personal analysis of economic data.”

However, his idea of what acting “independently” means is concerning: In 2024, he co-wrote a paper for the Manhattan Institute where he argued that presidential control over the Fed should be increased.

But who knows whether he’ll stick to his recommendations.

He also wrote, “To further insulate board members from the day-to-day political process, they should be prohibited from serving in the executive branch for four years following the end of their term.”

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s shady attempt to claw back funds through a rare legal move called a pocket rescission, ordering the president to unfreeze billions of dollars of foreign aid.

U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ruled Wednesday that while the Trump administration retained “significant discretion” as to how the funds ought to be spent, it had no power over whether or not to spend the nearly $5 billion in funds that had already been allocated.

Last week, Trump wrote to Congress requesting back $4.9 billion in funding approved for international aid efforts, including $3.2 billion in development assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Congress then had 45 days to decide whether to approve Trump’s request, but the White House Office of Management and Budget asserted that it could freeze the funds until the fiscal year ended on September 30, ensuring the funds’ cancellation.

Trump had already bypassed Congress to dismantle USAID, and now he planned to do it again.

But the judge wrote that Congress would have to approve the rescission, because the law was “explicit that it is congressional action—not the President’s transmission of a special message—that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”

Ali couched his decision by saying that it would likely not be the final word in the case, and that “definitive higher court guidance now will be instructive.”

Vice President JD Vance didn’t take well to senators pressing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his wanton mismanagement of the Department of Health and Human Services. In response to the health secretary’s contentious Thursday Senate Finance hearing, the vice president lost his cool on social media.

“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vance wrote on X, adding, for good measure, “You’re full of shit and everyone knows it.”

Senators had questioned Kennedy’s various concerning moves since taking the helm of the Health Department—grilling him, for instance, on his firing of the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his anti-vaccine agenda, promises he broke from his Senate confirmation, and his general ignorance on public health matters.

Kennedy frequently flailed under the pressure, which came not only from Democrats but also Republicans—such as Thom Thillis, who highlighted Kennedy’s shady penchant for self-contradiction, and Bill Cassidy, who raised concerns about his vaccine skepticism.

But the vice president apparently can’t distinguish between conducting oversight on an official wreaking havoc on the nation’s health system and cheerleading child mutilation.

Senator Bill Cassidy deftly grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Senate hearing Thursday, forcing Kennedy to contradict himself on the topic of vaccines.

Cassidy, who chairs the Health Committee, is a Republican and a medical doctor. He’s had to walk a fine line when it comes to Kennedy, who holds many views not based in scientific fact. Cassidy wavered on confirming Kennedy, before ultimately casting a key vote in his favor after securing promises from the future health secretary on vaccines.

On Thursday, he managed to tie Kennedy in knots.

He began by praising President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 vaccine development and rollout, Operation Warp Speed. “President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed,” Cassidy said. “Mr. Secretary, you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kennedy replied.

“But you just told Senator Bennet that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid?” Cassidy asked.

Kennedy denied it. However, he did tell Senator Michael Bennet that he agrees with Dr. Retsef Levy, one of his new appointees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, who said that “evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people.” Previously, during his confirmation hearing, Kennedy had also called the Covid vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made”—an outright lie.

Cassidy continued to press Kennedy, saying he was “surprised” that the secretary had canceled $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research—the technology that made Operation Warp Speed, and the remarkably quick development of the Covid-19 vaccine, possible.

To defend himself, Kennedy claimed that he supported the Covid-19 vaccine when Trump pioneered it because there were low levels of natural immunity to the virus and people were getting dangerously sick.

He also said that under Trump, the vaccine was “perfectly matched” to the virus, and there were no mandates—unlike under Biden.

So essentially: Trump vaccine good, Biden vaccine bad. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Secretary!