Fox & Friends Weekend Spins BLS Job Revisions to Justify Trump’s Firing of Stats Chief

In a striking example of partisan storytelling overtaking statistical reality, Fox & Friends Weekend leaned hard into the idea that the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulated jobs data during the Biden administration — and used that to defend President Donald Trump on his abrupt firing of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer.

Charlie Hurt, a Fox News regular known for his fiery punditry, went conspiratorial Saturday morning, claiming the BLS has “always” revised jobs data “in the same direction” — upward, and conveniently timed “just in time for an election.”

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics, their record of having to revise these things, always in the same direction. We saw it throughout the Biden years,” Hurt insisted, adding, “We have an election that would help Democrats and afterwards follow the revisions.”

That would be a powerful allegation — if it were even remotely true.

Revisions from the BLS under Biden were both positive and negative. For example, in May and June 2024, the BLS lowered previously reported job gains by a combined 258,000 jobs — hardly the kind of revision that helps an incumbent. Other months during Biden’s term have seen modest upward or downward revisions as part of the bureau’s long-standing process of updating estimates with more complete data.

No serious economist has suggested a partisan motive, and there is zero evidence that BLS employees skew data to benefit any political party. But that didn’t stop Fox’s panel from implying a kind of statistical deep state was in operation — and from praising Trump’s shocking decision to fire McEntarfer after July’s worse-than-expected jobs report.

It’s worth remembering that jobs reports often include revisions — it’s literally how the system is designed. The BLS produces initial estimates quickly, then updates them as more employers file reports. Over time, this often smooths out initial volatility. But the idea that revisions have been systematically pro-Democrat is easily disproved with a basic look at the data.

Still, Fox & Friends wasn’t interested in nuance. They were selling a narrative: that Democrats cooked the books, and that Trump was finally cleaning house. It plays well to a certain base. It just doesn’t happen to be true.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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