As he boarded Air Force One on Sunday, the president told reporters that a new leader for the Bureau of Labor Statistics would be announced “over the next three to four days”. Trump added that he had “no confidence” in commissioner Erica McEntarfer, who he fired on Friday.
The director of the White House Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, defended the president’s decision in an interview with NBC on Sunday. “He wants his own people,” Hassett said. Despite not being able to offer evidence that suggested the jobs data McEntarfer published was, in fact, “rigged”.
It’s also worth noting that the commissioner of BLS is a cabinet position that requires Senate confirmation.
Updated
Donald Trump is at the White House today, per his schedule.
But it’s a quiet day for the president. The only listed item on his agenda is lunch with the vice-president JD Vance, at 12:30pm EDT.
As Donald Trump’s Department of Justice expands investigations of his foes and ousts dozens of lawyers and staff who worked on cases targeting himself and his allies, scholars and ex-prosecutors say the rule of law is under siege in the US as the department morphs into Trump’s “personal weapon”.
The justice department’s politicization to please Trump was underscored by an announcement on 23 July of a new “ strike force” to investigate unsubstantiated charges that ex-president Barack Obama and top officials conspired to hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign and his presidency with inquiries into Russian influence operations to help Trump win, say critics.
The announcement came the day after Trump dodged queries from reporters about the justice department’s failure to produce long-promised files about the notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and pivoted to blast Obama without evidence for “treason”. Trump’s conspiratorial charge echoed dubious claims by his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, who days before called for a justice department inquiry into a purported “treasonous conspiracy”.
Likewise, the FBI earlier in July announced investigations into the ex-FBI director James Comey and ex-CIA director John Brennan, which critics see as political efforts to placate Trump who has often voiced anger at them for their roles in the Russia investigations before and during his first term.
Legal scholars and ex-prosecutors say Trump and his loyal attorney general, Pam Bondi, have turned the justice department into his personal law firm to pursue his political and legal agendas.
“It’s not unprecedented for presidents to deploy their powers for personal ends, but no one including Nixon has done this with the intensity of Trump,” Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University, told the Guardian.
In a new court filing, attorneys for the Trump administration denied the existence of a daily quota for immigration arrests, despite reports and prior statements from White House officials about pursuing a goal of at least 3,000 deportations or deportation arrests per day.
In May, reports from both the Guardian and Axios revealed that during a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) leaders on 21 May, the White House adviser Stephen Miller and the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people per day.
Following that report, Miller appeared on Fox News in late May and stated that “under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for Ice every day.”
He added that Trump “is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every day”.
However, in a court filing on Friday, lawyers representing the US justice department said that the Department of Homeland Security had confirmed that “neither Ice leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that Ice or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law.”
The filing is part of an ongoing lawsuit in southern California, where immigrant advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration, accusing it of conducting unconstitutional immigration sweeps in the Los Angeles area.
Donald Trump administration officials fanned out on Sunday’s US political shows to defend the president’s policies after a bruising week of poor economic, trade and employment numbers that culminated with the firing of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Trump had “real concerns” about the jobs numbers that extend beyond Friday’s report that showed the national economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far below expectations. Job growth numbers were revised down by 285,000 for the two previous months as well.
On CBS News’s Face the Nation, Greer defended Trump’s decision to fire McEntarfer, a respected statistician, saying: “You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.”
He added: “The president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.”
But William Beach, who served as Trump’s commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in his first presidency, warned that McEntarfer’s dismissal would undermine confidence in the quality of US economic data.
The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that “monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors”.
Updated
More than a dozen House Democrats have signed a letter pressing the Trump administration to recognise a Palestinian state, with at least one lawmaker planning to introduce a pro-statehood resolution, Axios reported on Monday.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Trump envoy to visit Moscow this week before deadline for ending Ukraine war
Donald Trump has said he will dispatch his special envoy to Moscow this week before his Friday deadline for progress to be made on ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump said Steve Witkoff would visit Moscow on Wednesday or Thursday. When asked on Sunday what message Witkoff would take to Russia and what Vladimir Putin could do to avoid new sanctions, the US president answered: “Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed.”
In Kyiv, there is little expectation that Witkoff will make a breakthrough with Putin, but a hope that Trump’s changed rhetoric and tougher stance on Moscow may lead to a real change in US support for Ukraine.
Trump came into office convinced he could do a deal with Putin, but in recent weeks appears to have become increasingly frustrated with Russian actions. On Thursday he described Russia’s continued attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine as “disgusting” and on Sunday said that two nuclear submarines that he ordered to be deployed after online threats from the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev were now “in the region”, without giving further details.
Trump had initially announced in July a 50-day deadline for Russia and Ukraine to end the war, but said last week he said he no longer believed Russia was serious about ending the war and shortened it to “10 or 12” days, later clarified as this Friday, 8 August.
Trump has previously said the new measures he has in mind if the deadline is not met could involve “secondary tariffs” targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners, such as China and India.
Trump says there could be distribution of money from tariff revenues
President Donald Trump on Sunday said some Americans could get some kind of dividend or distribution of money as a result of tariffs being imposed on US trading partners.
“There could be a distribution or a dividend to the people of our country, I would say for people that would be middle income people and lower income people, we could do a dividend,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One after leaving his golf club in New Jersey.
Trump attacks Charlamagne Tha God after radio host criticizes his presidency
President Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out at radio host Charlamagne Tha God, saying in a social media post that the popular broadcaster “knows nothing about me or what I have done.”
Trump’s comments came a day after Charlamagne, whose real name is Lenard McKelvey, criticized Trump on the Fox News show “My View with Lara Trump.” The show is hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law, a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
Asked how he would rate Trump’s presidency, the radio host said, “I wouldn’t give it a good rating simply because the least of us are still being impacted the worst.”
Trump said on Truth Social that Charlamagne was a “dope” who voted for Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris.
Charlamagne said he personally will benefit from tax breaks approved in Trump’s tax-and-spending law, but said, “There’s going to be so many people that’s hurt by that bill.”
“Anything that takes away Medicaid from people and will put people in a worse financial situation than they were previously in, I’m not for,” he added.
Charlamagne also predicted that “traditional conservatives” are going to take back the Republican Party from Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, citing controversy over Trump’s refusal to release files related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Texas governor threatens to remove Democrats who left state over Trump-backed redistricting
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that Republican Texas governor Greg Abbott has said he will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office on Monday if they don’t return after dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn US House maps that president Donald Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections.
The revolt by the state House Democrats, many of whom went to Illinois or New York on Sunday, and Abbott giving them less than 24 hours to come home ratcheted up a widening fight over congressional maps, Associated Press reported.
The planned vote on Monday could see five new Republican-leaning seats created in the House of Representatives. The move by the Democrats threatens to thwart Republican efforts by denying them a quorum, or the minimum number of members to validate the vote’s proceedings.
In a statement, Texas Democrats accused their counterparts, the Texas Republicans, of a “cowardly” surrender to Trump’s call for a redrawing of the congressional map to “continue pushing his disastrous policies”.
“Texas Democratic lawmakers are halting Trump’s plan by denying his bootlickers a quorum,” the statement read.
The scheme to flee the state is reported to have been put together by the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, who met with the Texas Democratic caucus late last month and has directed staff to provide logistical support for their stay.
The Texas group has accused governor Abbott of withholding aid to victims of Guadalupe River flooding last month in a bid to force the redistricting vote through.
“We’re leaving Texas to fight for Texans,” Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic caucus chair, said in a statement. “We will not allow disaster relief to be held hostage to a Trump gerrymander.”
“We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent,” Wu added. “As of today, this corrupt special session is over.”
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
US trade representative Jamieson Greer has defended the firing of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer. “The president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch,” he said on Face the Nation. Greer was among a host of Trump administration officials who were deployed to defend Trump after a week of bruising economic numbers.
The US Senate left Washington DC on Saturday night for its month-long August recess without a deal to advance dozens of Donald Trump’s nominees, calling it quits after days of contentious bipartisan negotiations and the president taking to social media to tell Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to “GO TO HELL!”
In a new court filing, attorneys for the Trump administration denied the existence of a daily quota for immigration arrests, despite reports and prior statements from White House officials about pursuing a goal of at least 3,000 deportations or deportation arrests per day. Lawyers representing the US justice department said that the Department of Homeland Security had confirmed that “neither Ice leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that Ice or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law.”
The US Senate has confirmed Jeanine Pirro – a former Fox News host and staunch Donald Trump ally who boosted lies that he lost the 2020 presidential race because of electoral fraudsters – as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital. Pirro – a former New York state district attorney and county judge who joined Fox News in 2011 – was confirmed on Saturday in a 50-45 vote along party lines.
The Smithsonian says it will restore Trump impeachment exhibits in “coming weeks”.
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