The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public profile.

But like so much in President Donald Trump’s second administration, this time is different.

Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.

His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer of reliable measures of the nation’s economic health. While many former Labor Department officials say it it unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.

Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency.

Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.

For instance, on Aug. 4 — a week before he was nominated — Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.

The monthly employment reports are probably the closest-watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.

When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.

“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that, “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”

Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue, instead of a careful economist who considers tradeoffs and prioritizes getting the math correct.

“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favor Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics.

Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15%.

His argument that the U.S. was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly-purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.

“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the center-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.

On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.

Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.

“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”

Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS Commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Thursday aims to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies. Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development.

The order requires all federal agencies, including FEMA, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to appoint officials responsible for reviewing federal funding opportunities and grants, so that they “are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.”

It also requires agencies to make it so that current and future federal grants can be terminated at any time — including during the grant period itself.

Agencies cannot announce new funding opportunities until the new protocols are in place, according to the order. The Trump administration said these changes are part of an effort to “strengthen oversight” and “streamline agency grantmaking.” Scientists say the order will cripple America’s scientific engine by placing control over federal research funds in the hands of people who are influenced by politics and lack relevant expertise.

“This is taking political control of a once politically neutral mechanism for funding science in the U.S.,” said Joseph Bak-Coleman, a scientist studying group decision-making at the University of Washington.

The changes will delay grant review and approval, slowing “progress for cures and treatments that patients and families across the country urgently need,” said the Association of American Medical Colleges in a statement.

The administration has already terminated thousands of research grants at agencies like the NSF and NIH, including on topics like transgender health, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and diversity, equity and inclusion.

The order could affect emergency relief grants doled out by FEMA, public safety initiatives funded by the Department of Justice and public health efforts supported by the Centers for Disease Control. Experts say the order is likely to be challenged in court.

President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch Friday, a day after the newspaper published a story reporting on his ties to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The move came shortly after the Justice Department asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Epstein’s sex trafficking case, as the administration seeks to contain the firestorm that erupted after it announced that it would not be releasing additional files from the case, despite previously pledging to do so.

The controversy has created a major fissure between Trump and his loyal base, with some of his most vocal supporters slamming the White House for the way it has handled the case, and questioning why Trump would not want the documents made public.

Trump had promised to sue the Wall Street Journal almost immediately after the paper put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

Trump denied writing the letter, calling the story “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

The suit, filed in filed in federal court in Miami, accuses the paper and its reporters of having “knowingly and recklessly” published “numerous false, defamatory, and disparaging statements,” which, it alleges, caused “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” to the president.

In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump cast the lawsuit as part of his efforts to punish news outlets, including ABC and CBS, which both reached multimillion-dollar settlement deals with the president after he took them to court.

“This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Journal’s publisher, responded Friday night, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

The letter revealed by The Wall Street Journal was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before the wealthy financier was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling-out with Trump.

The letter bearing Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the newspaper.

Trump denied writing the letter and promised to sue. He said he spoke to both to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, before the story was published and told them the letter was “fake.”

“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” the president insisted.

The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely or provide details on how it came to learn about it.

In the lawsuit, Trump takes issue with that fact. The defendants, it attests, “failed to attach the letter, failed to attach the alleged drawing, failed to show proof that President Trump authored or signed any such letter, and failed to explain how this purported letter was obtained.”

“The reason for those failures is because no authentic letter or drawing exists,” it goes on to charge, alleging that the “Defendants concocted this story to malign President Trump’s character and integrity and deceptively portray him in a false light.”

Earlier Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche filed motions in a separate federal court urging them to unseal the Epstein transcripts as well as those in the case against Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Epstein killed himself in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial.

The Justice Department’s announcement that it would not be making public any more Epstein files enraged parts of Trump’s base in part because members of his own administration had hyped the expected release and stoked conspiracies around the well-connected financier.

The Justice Department said in the court filings that it will work with with prosecutors in New York to make appropriate redactions of victim-related information and other personally identifying information before transcripts are released.

“Transparency in this process will not be at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims,” Blanche wrote.

But despite the new push to release the grand jury transcripts, the administration has not announced plans to reverse course and release other evidence in its possession. Attorney General Pam Bondi had hyped the release of more materials after the first Epstein files disclosure in February sparked outrage because it contained no new revelations.

A judge would have to approve the release of the grand jury transcripts, and it’s likely to be a lengthy process to decide what can become public and to make redactions to protect sensitive witness and victim information.

The records would show testimony of witnesses and other evidence that was presented by prosecutions during the secret grand jury proceedings, when a panel decides whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge.

The Senate has confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital, filling the post after President Donald Trump withdrew his controversial first pick, conservative activist Ed Martin Jr.

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed 50-45. Before becoming the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show “The Five” on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump.

Trump yanked Martin’s nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin’s outspoken support for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Martin now serves as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.

In 2021, voting technology company Smartmatic USA sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7 billion from the defendants.

Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro’s nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove’s nomination to become a federal appeals court judge.

Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.

In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges.

Federal immigration judges fired by the Trump administration are filing appeals, pursuing legal action and speaking out in an unusually public campaign to fight back.

More than 50 immigration judges — from senior leaders to new appointees — have been fired since Donald Trump assumed the presidency for the second time. Normally bound by courtroom decorum, many are now unrestrained in describing terminations they consider unlawful and why they believe they were targeted.

Their suspected reasons include gender discrimination, decisions on immigration cases played up by the Trump administration and a courthouse tour with the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat.

“I cared about my job and was really good at it,” Jennifer Peyton, a former supervising judge told The Associated Press this week. “That letter that I received, the three sentences, explained no reason why I was fired.”

Peyton, who received the notice while on a July Fourth family vacation, was appointed judge in 2016. She considered it her dream job. Peyton was later named assistant chief immigration judge in Chicago, helping to train, mentor and oversee judges. She was a visible presence in the busy downtown court, greeting outside observers.

She cited top-notch performance reviews and said she faced no disciplinary action. Peyton said she’ll appeal through the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent government agency Trump has also targeted.

Peyton’s theories about why she was fired include appearing on a “bureaucrat watchdog list” of people accused by a right-wing organization of working against the Trump agenda. She also questions a courthouse tour she gave to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois in June.

Durbin blasted Peyton’s termination as an “abuse of power,” saying he’s visited before as part of his duties as a publicly-elected official.

The nation’s immigration courts — with a backlog of about 3.5 million cases — have become a key focus of Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement efforts. The firings are on top of resignations, early retirements and transfers, adding up to 106 judges gone since January, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents judges. There are currently about 600 immigration judges.

Several of those fired, including Peyton, have recently done a slew of interviews on local Chicago television stations and with national outlets, saying they now have a platform for their colleagues who remain on the bench.

“The ones that are left are feeling threatened and very uncertain about their future,” said Matt Biggs, the union’s president.

Carla Espinoza, a Chicago immigration judge since 2023, was fired as she was delivering a verdict this month. Her notice said she’d be dismissed at the end of her two-year probationary period with the Executive Office for Immigration Review.