Trump’s BLS pick blasted by conservative outlet: ‘Willful misinterpretation or ignorance’

Any excitement Donald Trump may have created among serious conservatives by replacing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with an economist from the Heritage Foundation should be put aside, according to an editor at the conservative National Review.

According to the National Review's Dominic Pino, the choice of E. J. Antoni should raise alarm bells among those who are dependent upon guidance given by BLS, since Antoni has a well-documented, by his own hand, history of shoddy work that some might call "wilful" misinterpretations.

One of those critics is Pino.

Providing a series of posts (which can be seen here) that Antoni placed on X, Pino wrote the nominee, "...has been a relentless booster of Trump’s policies on social media. And he has demonstrated time and again that he does not understand economic statistics."

"Whether that is due to willful misinterpretation or ignorance on Antoni’s part is open for debate. But the pattern is undeniable," he wrote, adding, the Trump nominee has been "presenting the routine data revisions by the BLS as some kind of conspiracy in favor of Democrats."

There's no evidence to suggest such a conspiracy.

Pino added that it is entirely possible Antoni's X posts were conceived as "rage bait" for MAGA followers, but there is also the fact that Antoni has no "serious work to speak of."

"He hasn’t published in any major economics journal. His claims to fame include being a frequent guest on talk radio shows," wrote Pino.

The National Review editor put the full blame for the nomination back on Trump, writing, "Antoni is nowhere near qualified to be BLS commissioner."

"If it was really true that Trump wanted to modernize and improve the BLS, he would have nominated someone with deep experience in economic data collection who has published research on statistical methodology and has ideas about how to make the nuts and bolts of the BLS work better. His nomination of Antoni proves that he wants a lackey instead," said Pino.

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