Trump goes all out! After firing the director of the Census Bureau, he demands the resignation of Powell.

President Trump announced on Friday that he will fire Erica McTeaf, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after the agency's employment report showed deterioration in the labor market. Trump also called on Federal Reserve Chairman Powell to resign, following the example of board member Kugler, and accused the employment data released on Friday of being "manipulated". Wall Street experienced its worst single-day decline since May 21st, and US Treasury yields plummeted. The July non-farm employment report released on Friday showed a much lower than expected number of new jobs created, with significant downward revisions to the data for the previous two months. This has strengthened investors' expectations for a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September. Trump posted on the social media platform Truth Social: "I have instructed the team to immediately fire this Biden political appointee," and stated that he will replace them with "more capable and suitable candidates", emphasizing that "important data must be fair and accurate, and not manipulated for political purposes". Trump specifically pointed out: "McTeaf claimed only 73,000 jobs were added in July (shocking!), more importantly, they admit a significant error in the data for the previous two months, revising down 258,000 jobs. Similar situations have occurred earlier this year, always revised downward." Labor Statistics Bureau director McTeaf was nominated by former President Biden in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in January 2024 to serve in the current position. In another post, Trump asserted that the July employment data was "manipulated to smear the Republican Party and myself", and mentioned that "during the 2024 election period, they had released three days of impressive data, but on November 15th (after the election) significantly revised the employment data, with a revision of over 818,000, it's completely deceitful". Trump also demanded that Federal Reserve Chairman Powell follow the example of board member Adrianna Kugler in resigning. He has continuously criticized the Federal Reserve and Chairman Powell for not lowering interest rates in a timely manner. Despite the Federal Reserve maintaining rates unchanged for the fifth consecutive time on Wednesday, stubborn inflation indicators released on Thursday and disappointing non-farm data on Friday shook market confidence and raised concerns about the central bank's policy turnaround being too late. Trump said: "'Slow-moving' Powell should resign, just like the one appointed by Biden, Kugler. She knew early on that he had made mistakes in interest rate policy." The Federal Reserve confirmed later that afternoon that Kugler had submitted her resignation to Trump. Kugler was absent from this week's monetary policy meeting, having voted to maintain rates unchanged at four meetings earlier this year. Weighed down by weak non-farm data and tariff concerns, Wall Street saw its largest single-day drop since May 21st on Friday. Traders flocked to the bond market for safety, leading to a sharp drop in US Treasury yields. Trump staunchly maintains that the employment data is manipulated to tarnish his image, and has accused McTeaf of manipulating employment data to help former Vice President Harris campaign before the election last year.