Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) spoke out against President Trump Sunday after he fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), calling the president a “petulant child” for doing so.
The president’s former ally-turned-enemy said he is not shocked the president reacted to the disappointing jobs report Friday by blaming the messenger.
“When he gets news he doesn’t like, he needs someone to blame, because he won’t take the responsibility himself,” Christie said on ABC News’s “This Week” in a roundtable discussion.
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“This is the action of a petulant child,” he continued. “Like, ‘You give me bad news, I fire the messenger.’”
BLS Chief Fired After Weak Job Growth Numbers
The president dismissed BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer just hours after the Labor Department announced data indicating that the U.S. had created only 73,000 jobs in July, substantially fewer than economists had predicted. And the department also published astounding revisions to labor statistics for May and June, indicating 258,000 fewer jobs total than initially reported.
Christie: “Impossible to Rig the Numbers”
Christie, who also sought the White House in 2024, acknowledged how crucial jobs numbers are to making policy, but he added that the BLS chief is not the only person responsible for those figures.
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“It seems to me, from everything I learned over my eight years as governor, that it would be almost impossible for anyone to try to rig these numbers, because so many people are involved in putting them together,” Christie said on ABC.
“She’s Just the Conduit,” Christie Says
“In the end, when it comes to the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the woman who was fired, when that happens, all she’s doing is being a conduit of the information. She can’t go back in through it and start lining and line-iteming it around,” he continued.
“So, it’s irresponsible from a position of facts, but it also shows you the way he manages,” Christie added.
Trump defended the move to fire the BLS chief and indicated that he will identify a new individual for the position in the coming days.
