Trump orders firing of labor statistics chief after weaker than expected jobs report – US politics live | US news

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The Federal Reserve has announced that Adriana D Kugler will step down early from her position as governor of the Federal Reserve Board on 8 August.

Her term was due to expire in January, but her early resignation gives Donald Trump an opportunity to more quickly appoint someone who could eventually replace Jerome Powell as chair.

In a speech earlier this month, the New York Times notes that Kugler said the Fed should not cut interest rates “for some time” as tariffs trickle through to consumer prices.

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Maxwell ‘routinely moved’ to lower-security prison in Texas due to safety concerns – report

Responding to Ghislaine Maxwell’s move to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas, a senior administration official has told NBC News that prisoners are “routinely moved” due to safety concerns.

“Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to significant safety and danger concerns,” the official said of Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice.

In a statement earlier today responding to Maxwell’s move from a Florida facility to the one in Texas, the family of Virginia Giuffre, along with Maxwell and Epstein accusers Annie and Maria Farmer, said:

It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received.

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Updated at 15.41 EDT

The New York Times (paywall) notes that the Senate confirmed Erika McEntarfer to the post of commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2024 in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. Among her supporters at the time was then senator and now vice-president JD Vance.

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Updated at 15.40 EDT

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s labor secretary, has said she “wholeheartedly” supports the president’s firing of Erika McEntarfer to “ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from (the Bureau of Labor Statistics)”.

Trump ordered McEntarfer’s firing hours after data revealed that jobs growth had stalled this summer and administration officials scrambled to explain the lackluster report.

“A recent string of major revisions have come to light and raised concerns about decisions being made by the Biden-appointed Labor Commissioner,” Chavez-DeRemer wrote in a post on X.

She said William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as acting commissioner during the search for McEntarfer’s replacement.

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Updated at 15.40 EDT

Gavin Newsom may call special election to redraw California congressional maps

Chris Stein

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state’s congressional maps in response to Texas’s plans to change their own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives.

Donald Trump is pushing Texas and other Republican-dominated states to carry out mid-decade redistricting that will favor the GOP and potentially stop Democrats from retaking control of the House in next year’s midterm elections. Governors in Democratic-led states have responded by warning they will move to redo their own maps if Texas goes ahead with its plans, which could create an additional five Republican-leaning districts.

California is viewed as the best opportunity for Democrats to pick up seats through gerrymandering, but voters will first have to approve changes to an independent redistricting commission that was given the power to draw congressional districts in 2010.

Speaking at a Thursday press conference, Newsom said “a special election would be called, likely to be the first week of November” to approve the changes.

“We will go to the people of this state in a transparent way and ask them to consider the new circumstances, to consider these new realities,” the governor added.

The party out of power typically regains control of the House in a president’s first midterm election, as the Republicans did under Biden in 2022 and Obama in 2010, and Democrats did during Trump’s first term in 2018.

Newsom argued that another two years of unified Republican control of Congress would be especially harmful for California, noting that Los Angeles residents were still waiting for lawmakers to approve aid from the wildfires that ravaged the region earlier this year.

“They’re doing a midterm rejection of objectivity and independence, an act that we could criticize from the sideline, or an act that we can respond to in kind – fight fire with fire,” Newsom said.

While Republicans could gain the most seats by redrawing Texas’s maps, Ohio, another red state, must also redraw its maps before next year’s election, and there’s talk of redistricting to the GOP’s advantage in Missouri and Indiana.

Democrats are seen as having a more difficult path to improving their odds of winning the House majority through redistricting, often due to their states’ embrace of independent commissions intended to draw fair congressional amps.

Voters created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2008 to draw its legislative maps, and in 2010 expanded its powers to congressional districts. Newsom said, “We’re not here to eliminate the commission,” but rather to respond to what he described as “the rigging of the system by the president of the United States.

“And it won’t just happen in Texas. I imagine he’s making similar calls all across this country. It’s a big deal. I don’t think it gets much bigger,” Newsom said.

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Updated at 15.29 EDT

Trump says Fed’s Powell should be ‘put out to pasture’

In the same Truth Social post, Trump said Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell should also be “put out to pasture”, as he continued to insist the US economy is booming on his watch.

The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting ‘Kamala’ elected – How did that work out? Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be put ‘out to pasture’.

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Updated at 15.37 EDT

Trump fires labor statistics chief after weaker than expected jobs report

Donald Trump has said he’s ordered the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, hours after data showed US employment growth was weaker than expected for the last few months.

McEntarfer was nominated by former president Joe Biden to serve in the role in 2023 and was confirmed by the US Senate the following year.

In a Truth Social post, Trump suggested (with no evidence) McEntarfer had “faked” the employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election, in a bid to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory, and implied she “manipulated” the numbers for political reasons.

“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump wrote.

“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”

The bureau released revised job stats today which showed the US economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns with Trump’s escalating trade war.

In the report, the BLS also slashed the number of jobs added in May, revising the figure down by 125,000, from 144,000 to only 19,000, and June, which was revised down by 133,000, from 147,000 to just 14,000 – a combined 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

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Updated at 15.36 EDT

Here is my colleague Andrew Roth’s report:

Donald Trump has said that he has deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to a threatening tweet by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of “highly provocative statements” by Medvedev, noting he is now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.

Medvedev had earlier said that Trump’s threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were “a threat and a step towards war”.

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Updated at 14.10 EDT

Donald Trump also continues to voice his frustration over the war Russia continues to wage in Ukraine, writing on Truth Social earlier (before the submarine announcement):

I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine. Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing. Ukraine has also lost civilians, but in smaller numbers, as Russian rockets crash into Kyiv, and other Ukrainian locales. This is a War that should have never happened — This is Biden’s War, not ‘TRUMP’s.’ I’m just here to see if I can stop it!

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Updated at 14.00 EDT

As Trump and Medvedev have traded taunts in recent days following Trump saying on Tuesday that Russia had “10 days from today” to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or be hit, along with its oil buyers, with tariffs, Moscow has shown no sign that it will comply with Trump’s deadline.

As my colleague Shaun Walker reports from Kyiv, Vladimir Putin has not responded to Trump’s ultimatum. He has claimed he wants a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine but has given no indication that he is willing to make any concessions to achieve it, after a week in which Russian missiles and drones again caused death and destruction across Ukraine.

“We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” said Putin, speaking to journalists on Friday, a week before Trump’s new deadline for hostilities to cease.

Trump has said if Russia and Ukraine do not come to an agreement to end the war by next Friday, 8 August, he will impose a package of economic sanctions on Russia.

Per my last post, Medvedev on Monday accused Trump of engaging in a “game of ultimatums” and reminded him that Russia possessed Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities of last resort after Trump told Medvedev to “watch his words”.

Medvedev has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most outspoken anti-western hawks since Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Reuters notes that while Kremlin critics deride him as an irresponsible loose cannon, some western diplomats say his statements illustrate the thinking in senior Kremlin policymaking circles.

The Associated Press also notes that with his frequently wielded nuclear threats and lobbing of insults at western leaders on social media, some observers have argued that Medvedev is seeking to score political points with Putin and Russian military hawks with his extravagant rhetoric.

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Updated at 14.16 EDT

The escalation from Trump comes amid a spiralling war of words with the former Russian president over Trump’s efforts to get Russia to end its war in Ukraine.

Trump yesterday called Medvedev a “failed former president”, writing on Truth Social that he should “watch his words” and is “entering very dangerous territory”.

Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!

Medvedev, who was prime minister of Russia from 2012 to 2020 and is a very vocal supporter of its invasion of Ukraine, has ridiculed Trump’s ultimatum to the Kremlin to reach a peace deal. He wrote on X earlier this week:

Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10 … He should remember 2 things:

1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran.

2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.

Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!

In another post on X, Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, called US senator Lindsey Graham “gramps”, after he told him to “get to the peace table”.

It’s not for you or Trump to dictate when to ‘get at the peace table’. Negotiations will end when all the objectives of our military operation have been achieved. Work on America first, gramps!

The jabs continued on Telegram, where Medvedev threatened Trump with a cold war-era doomsday weapon known as the “Dead Hand” – a Russian nuclear system designed to automatically launch a retaliatory strike.

If a few words from a former Russian president can cause such a nervous reaction from the supposedly powerful President of the United States, then clearly Russia is right about everything and will continue its own way.

And as for the ‘dead economies’ of India and Russia and ‘stepping into dangerous territory’ – well, let him recall his favorite movies about the ‘walking dead,’ as well as how dangerous the supposedly non-existent ‘Dead Hand’ can be.

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Updated at 13.24 EDT

Trump orders nuclear submarines moved after ‘highly provocative statements’ from Medvedev

Donald Trump has said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in “appropriate regions” in response to threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who said on Thursday that Trump should remember Moscow had Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social:

Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Updated at 14.36 EDT