President fires the woman who counts the jobs because the count was bad.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put out a jobs report Friday morning. The number was 73,000 nonfarm jobs for July. The bureau also revised the previous two months down by a combined 258,000. By lunch the markets were sliding. By the evening the commissioner of the BLS was unemployed.

Erika McEntarfer. Career economist. Senate-confirmed. The job of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner is to put out the number when the number is ready. She does not pick the number. She does not write the number. She is the lady at the front of the bakery, and the bakery this month had fewer rolls.

Buddy. I have run a casino floor. When the slot count is bad, you do not fire the lady at the count window. You ask the slots what’s wrong with the slots.

The President went on his social network and said she “faked” the numbers to help the previous administration. The previous administration was last year. The numbers we are talking about are this month. The math does not math.

A man who was the BLS commissioner under the first Trump term, a Republican, a Heritage Foundation guy, came out the same night and said this firing “sets a dangerous precedent.” When you have lost the Heritage Foundation guy on the integrity of federal statistics, you have done something. You have done something specifically.

The market closed lower. Then it kept closing lower on Monday.

When the man at the podium does not like what the dashboard says, and his answer is to fire the lady who reads the dashboard, you have not made the dashboard wrong. You have just made it expensive to read.

I have been arguing with televisions for thirty years. This one I’m arguing with at full volume.