Trump Shoots the Messenger - Rob Horowitz

Trump Shoots the Messenger - Rob Horowitz

The phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” stems from the times before modern communication, when bad news was delivered to rulers in person. From time to time, angry monarchs took out their disappointment and anger on the couriers who delivered the message, sending some of them to their deaths.

 

This practice is at the center of a famous scene in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.  When a messenger brings the news that Antony has married someone else, Cleopatra beats the messenger and threatens to cut out his eyes.  The messenger retorts, “Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match.”

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My guess is that Erika McEntarfer, director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), had a similar thought when President Trump fired her on Friday for delivering news of a dramatic slowdown in job creation.  The July jobs report released by her agency estimated only 73,000 new jobs were created in July, as well as provided an update for May and June. Showing only 33,000 net jobs created in that two-month period, a downward revision of 258,000 jobs.   She is, of course, in no way responsible for the dramatic slowdown in job growth and upward and downward revisions of the monthly reports, as more information comes in, are routine.

 

Neither a reader of Shakespeare nor a student of history, Mr. Trump may not realize he was reprising the odious ancient practice of taking out the bad news on the messenger.  But that is exactly what he did.  Without providing any evidence and falsely characterizing a previous revision, he baselessly accused Ms. McEntarfer of rigging the report to make him look bad and doing the same with previous reports to make Joe Biden look good. 

 

As Larry Summers, a former Treasury Secretary and noted economist, told George Stephanopoulos on his Sunday morning ABC show, “This is a preposterous charge. These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There's no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number. The numbers are in line with what we’re seeing from all kinds of private sector sources.”

 

Bill Beach, a former BLS director who was appointed by Trump, made the same point, telling Kasie Hunt on CNN’s State of the Union, “There’s no way for that to happen. The commissioner doesn’t do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn’t see the numbers for until Wednesday before they’re published. By the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they’re all prepared.”

 

Chris Christie, who knows Mr. Trump well, went straight to the heart of the matter on Sunday, telling Mr. Stephanopoulos, “Look, this is kind of a, something that I've been talking about since 2018. When he gets news he doesn't like, he needs someone to blame because he won't take the responsibility himself, and this is the action of a petulant child. Like, you give me bad news, I fire the messenger.”

 

Mr. Trump compounded the credibility problem he created by sending his top officials, including Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, out on the Sunday shows to defend the indefensible. Mr. Hassett, for instance, kept a straight face when he told Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, “The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable.” 

 

The President has a well-earned reputation for reflexive dishonesty and all, but his stoutest supporters know, if he actually follows through and makes the ill-advised decision to move away from independent, career statisticians to install a loyalist, it will be to tilt the data in his direction.  Even if that turned out not to be the case, the installation of a political choice would create distrust in the accuracy of government jobs data among investors, foreign nations, and the American public.    

 

The chilling message that this unjustified firing sends to members of the Trump administration is simple and dangerous: “Don’t tell the President the truth, tell him what he wants to hear.”  As President, your job is to live in reality, not create your own.  That is a lesson Mr. Trump refuses to learn and we are all paying a mounting price in poor, ill-informed, seat-of-the-pants decision making, declining American credibility around the world, and rising distrust at home.