Feelings Over Facts
National decision making will get worse if we’re not grounded in facts.
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Bad Decisions
As a nation, there are some warning signs for us being able to make good decisions. I’ve written before about how we make decisions – “two key factors that weigh into what independent decision makers do – the most likely explanation for what is observed, and their own assessment of the costs associated with getting the decision wrong. I tend to describe these are “facts and feelings” or “truth and consequences.”” [1][2]
The biggest red flag came Friday with President Trump called for the firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Trump implied, without evidence, that the poor job numbers released this past Friday and the subsequent and significant revision downward of May and June job numbers were “manipulated for political purposes” [3] and claiming the data were “rigged.” [4]
Chart from the New York Times on the recent July 2025 jobs report and the dramatic downward revisions of the May and June job estimates. [5]
Trump just took his attack on reality to a different level, by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why? Because he did not like the job numbers her agency produced.
In related news, we just saw the last credible BLS data for the rest of the Trump administration.
The most recent jobs report is indeed quite bad. The number of new hires for July were anemic. Worse yet, the BLS revised down numbers for previous months. The broader picture is of an economy that is sputtering rather than booming, which makes the recent stock market highs looking increasingly out of touch with reality. And the markets duly dropped upon seeing the job reports.
Post from fired BLS head Erika McEntarfer [7]
….
Late on Friday, [BLS head Erika] McEntarfer posted the first comment on her firing, illustrating the gulf in class between those who think of public service as a noble calling, and the President removing them from our government. [7]
This isn’t the first time Trump has lashed out against those tasked with surfacing reality, only the most reactive and visible episode of blaming the messengers of reality that doesn’t conform to his views or wishes. Here are other occasions where Trump and his administration has dismissed truth-tellers:
“Dismissed the scientists working on the country's flagship climate report” mandated by Congress [8]
Fires “hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration” in a manner described as “cruel and thoughtless” [9]
“Laid off thousands of federal health workers… in a purge that included senior leaders and top scientists charged with regulating food and drugs, protecting Americans from disease and researching new treatments and cures.” [10]
“Fired or demoted over 20 inspectors general,” “hobbling offices that for years have served as a check on waste, fraud and abuse.” [11]
Episodes like this put countries is perilous positions to deal with real world circumstances that affect millions of people. The best approach to making decisions is to recognize the facts as they are – be open to what the data are telling us – and openly assess the costs associated with various possible decisions.
Sometimes we find ourselves is bad situations - there are truly lose-lose situations, where no matter the decision we make, bad consequences will result. COVID is a great example of this – with a widespread pandemic, millions of people died [12]. However, depending on the decisions made, such as downplaying its risks to the public [13], manipulating health data [14], or accelerating the development of a vaccine [15][16], these decisions can increase or reduce those consequences, even though we may not be able to avoid them.
But this doesn’t warrant distorting reality in hopes of convincing people there are no problems. Autocratic governments are more prone to manipulate data than democratic ones [17] or to take actions against those in government who tell the truth. Historical and recent examples include:
The Soviet Union: Statistical falsification of economic data [18][19]
Turkey:
Currency plunges after President Erdoğan fires central bank head [20]
Dealing with triple-digit inflation, double the official 79% inflation figure [21]
Argentina: True rates of inflation were two to three times higher than estimates provides by the government [22]
China GDP figures: “There is a crucial difference between smoothing data and fabricating it” [23]
And, in an amazing study, satellite imagery analysis was used to compare independent estimates of country GDP with announced GDP figures from these governments: [24][25]
In a peer-reviewed article that will be published [in September 2022], Luis Martinez, an economist, investigated dictators’ GDP-growth figures. To do so, he first obtained data on the brightness of countries’ lights at night, as measured by satellites, a well-known proxy for GDP. He combined it with data from Freedom House, a think-tank, on countries’ political systems. Assuming that the most democratic countries reported growth figures accurately, he then used the satellite data to estimate if other countries under- or over-stated theirs.
The data showed that dictators’ reported GDP tended to grow much faster than satellite images of their countries would suggest. This could not be explained by their economies being based on different industries from other countries, or that people there had lower average incomes.
Figure from “A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth,” The Economist, drawn from the peer-reviewed article by Martinez [24][25]
Trump and his allies are weighing the President’s image over doing what’s best for the country; the state of the country does not seem to be part of their decision making, especially if it makes the President look bad. He and his allies are clearly viewing the personal and political costs – the President’s feelings over facts - how he feels seems to be more important than how Americans feel.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, guest anchor Ali Velshi discusses the firing of the BLS head with Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting under President Barack Obama. Here is some of the discussion and how bad this is for national decision making: [26]
Ali Velshi: For democracy this is a bad thing. This is a nonpartisan organization, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Donald Trump apparently didn't like the numbers and now she's gone.
Ben Rhodes: I think this is catastrophic actually, because it just shows the kind of spiral that we're in. I remember that, for my last book, I went to Hong Kong and I talked to some Hong Kong protesters who were protesting the encroachment of the Chinese Communist party, snuffing out democracy, snuffing out freedom of speech, imposing their ideology on that city. And I said to one, who is not very political, “Why are you protesting?” And she said, because they want to bring about a situation where they can point at a horse and tell me I have to call it a cow. To me, I thought that was a pretty simple definition of extreme autocracy.
And that's where we're headed in this country to tie all this together, he doesn't like the results he gets on statistics. He fires the people responsible for providing the data. We saw in Texas - they cut people, gave people retirement who are responsible for flood warning. He doesn't like what the FBI might tell him about something, so he's going to put his own people in there to tell him what he wants to hear. Again and again and again, they fired all the inspector generals at agencies.
What I worry about is a systematic dismantling of reality in this country, because that's what this is. It's Donald Trump trying to create his own reality and force us to live in his reality. His statistics, his conspiracy theories. This is what autocracy looks and feels like, and we're only six months into this thing. So where are we going to be in two years?
How are we going to be able to evaluate matters of war and peace, matters of recessions and economic growth. To take war, he declares that Iran's nuclear program is obliterated, no evidence for that. So we are going to be living through a period here where we're just not going to have independent, reliable data or information necessary to make decisions about really important matters. And we just have to prepare for that.
Velshi: The Hong Kong example is great because it's the boiling of a frog, right? For a long time, people said, life's pretty good here, it's a little bit different. The Chinese have a great presence here, but pretty much they're going to let us go on the way, the way life went on.
And that's what people are thinking in America. And the problem is when you start replacing nonpartisan government officials who just count things for a living. Is the message to the next person - count them the way you want Trump to count them? And is the message to the rest of us that we can't trust that information? We can't trust climate information. We can't trust information about what those warplanes did in Iran.
I don't know what the truth is, so how do I evaluate the truth the next time I have to vote?
Rhodes: And here's the really important thing. There's a question about voting and there's also a question about decision making. How are you going to make good decisions about the economy, about war and peace, about criminal prosecutions, if you're cooking the books and you're inventing the data, right?
You're not going to make a decision. It's hard enough to make a decision with good information. What are you going to do with that information? And so it's both whether Americans have the ability to evaluate the competency and performance of their own government, and it's also whether that government is even going to look at the data.
You mentioned climate change. They made a decision a couple of days ago to determine that climate change is actually not a risk to people's health, despite the extreme weather events we're facing. Guess what that's going to lead to? Bad policy that doesn't deal with climate change.
On the same night, guest anchor Antonia Hylton interviewed CNBC’s Ron Insana and former Treasury official and Yale law professor Natasha Sarin about the fallout from the BLS chief’s ousting and the critical importance of the rule of law as the foundation of our decision making: [27]
Insana: This is the longer term set of concerns that we have - whether it's you're talking about CDC data or whether you're talking about market data and economic data and the structural changes that are taking place within the government and the reordering of global trade that's taking place outside the United States coming our way.
These are major, major changes - the likes of which we've not seen in over 80 years which are going to have profound impacts on individuals with respect to their purchases and the growth of, or lack thereof, of the US economy and also the reliability of all the data that the government collects and disseminates to policy makers to investors and to individuals.
These are really important structural changes taking place, and I think that people shouldn't underestimate the seriousness of what's taking place right now, because they're going to be surprised down the road at what they used to have not being available to them any longer.
Hylton: And are you as concerned as Natasha is about the role that the rule of law and the internal and external perception of our judiciary what that could do to our economy?
Insana: Oh, 100%. And I mean this this is a problem that we have like when you try to invest in in another country that does not have property rights protection, doesn't have in intellectual property protection or your company, if you start one in another country, could be nationalized by that government and taken over and you lose your company to the government.
Rule of law is what we base our decisions on knowing that there's equality under the law not just for individuals but also for businesses there are means of redress and other ways in which we solve these problems or adjudicate issues.
If that were to go away, we become like a lot of other countries that we criticize quite openly and have over the course of the history of this nation.
And in another instance of bending reality to the government’s viewpoint, the Smithsonian agreed to remove references to the two impeachments of Donald Trump in the historical exhibits describing presidential impeachments: [28][29]
The exhibit, titled "The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden" includes reference to the impeachments of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Watergate scandal that engulfed President Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face certain impeachment. A temporary label was added in 2021 to include President Trump's impeachments in 2019 and again in 2021, just days before the end of his first term.
But the reference to Trump's impeachments was removed last month. The Smithsonian said in a statement to NPR that after a recent review of the museum's "legacy content," it was decided to pull the reference to Trump's impeachments – which were placed on the exhibit in September 2021 – pending a more substantial overhaul of the exhibit.
And from Washington Post reporting: [30]
A temporary label including content about Trump’s impeachments had been on display since September 2021 at the Washington museum, a Smithsonian spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that it was intended to be a short-term addition to address current events. Now, the exhibit notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”
In case you didn’t remember, your memories aren’t wrong – there were two impeachment trials of Donald Trump.
2019: Relating to interference with Ukraine
2021: Relating to the January 6 siege on the United States Capitol
The detailed records for both impeachments – the committee hearings, the evidentiary records, the Senate trial records – can be found here. [31][32]
By the way, we know he loves to claim that he’s a club champion at golf, but the reality doesn’t back this up – he continues to lie and cheat to claim victory. You can read sportswriter Rick Reilly’s book about Trump’s incessant cheating [33] or the viral video this week from Scotland, showing Trump’s caddy effortlessly dropping a ball in a good lie for Trump to hit his next shot. [34]
If he claims to have a better golf handicap than golf legend Jack Nicklaus [35], we might be justified to question anything he claims.
“The President isn’t a king”
King watch.
A couple of months ago, I wrote that, [36] in a unanimous ruling by the United States Court of International Trade in May blocking Trump’s tariffs on foreign trading partners, the court “does not read [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act] to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.” [37]
Oral arguments were held this week in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board – not a group who opposed strong executive authority – took the Administration’s arguments to task: [38]
The Administration says the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act grants a President sweeping authority to impose tariffs. The 11 judges were mostly skeptical. Out of the gate one judge pointed out that no President has ever used the emergency law to impose tariffs.
…
As one judge told [Assistant Attorney General Brett] Shumate, it seems “you’re asking for unbounded authority” to impose tariffs. Yes he is. But as the small business plaintiffs argue, the President isn’t a king, and the Constitution doesn’t let him command the trade tides.
Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire. [39]
Season 3 of Foundation started in July and is streaming on Apple TV+.
GIF Game
W. Edwards Deming helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the United States Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He is also known as the father of the quality movement and was hugely influential in post-WWII Japan, credited with revolutionizing Japan's industry and making it one of the most dominant economies in the world. He is best known for his theories of management.
Notes and Sources
[1] Mic Farris, “Danger: Intentional and Otherwise,” April 27, 2025, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/danger-intentional-and-otherwise
[2] Mic Farris, “Making Decisions: Individually and Collectively,” February 9, 2025, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/making-decisions-individually-collectively
[3] Donald J. Trump [@realDonaldTrump], TruthSocial, August 1, 2025, https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114954846612623858
[4] Ben Casselman and Tony Romm, “Trump, Claiming Weak Jobs Numbers Were ‘Rigged,’ Fires Labor Official,” New York Times, August 1, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/business/economy/trump-bls-firing-jobs-report.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bE8.4UWO.vei-8mg1LiHV&smid=url-share
[5] “Economy Updates: After a Weak Jobs Report, Trump Fires That Agency’s Commissioner,” New York Times, July 31, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/31/business/tariffs-trump-trade#9749a9cf-81ea-563e-8943-c86a1411ba67
[6] Don Moynihan, “Trump Shoots the Messenger,” Can We Still Govern?, August 1, 2025, https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trump-shoots-the-messenger
[7] Erika McEntarfer [@erikamcentarfer.bsky.social], Bluesky, August 1, 2025, https://bsky.app/profile/erikamcentarfer.bsky.social/post/3lvf3yddtrk27
[8] Rebecca Hersher, “White House dismisses authors of major climate report,” Morning Edition, NPR, April 29, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/nx-s1-5380816/climate-assessment-authors-released
[9] Dharna Noor and Gabrielle Canon, “‘Cruel and thoughtless’: Trump fires hundreds at US climate agency Noaa,” The Guardian, February 27, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/27/trump-noaa-cuts-climate
[10] Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Christina Jewett, and Apoorva Mandavilli, “Mass Layoffs Hit Health Agencies That Track Disease and Regulate Food,” New York Times, April 1, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/trump-federal-layoffs-health-food.html
[11] Luke Broadwater, “In the Trump Administration, Watchdogs Are Watching Their Backs,” New York Times, July 17, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/us/politics/inspectors-general-trump.html
[12] “COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic,” Worldometer, last updated April 13, 2024, retrieved August 2, 2025, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
[13] Juana Summers, “Timeline: How Trump Has Downplayed The Coronavirus Pandemic,” NPR, October 2, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/latest-updates-trump-covid-19-results/2020/10/02/919432383/how-trump-has-downplayed-the-coronavirus-pandemic
[14] Simon Wigley, “Regime Type and Data Manipulation: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, December 1, 2024, 49 (6): 989–1014, https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article-abstract/49/6/989/388122/Regime-Type-and-Data-Manipulation-Evidence-from
[15] “Operation Warp Speed: Accelerated COVID-19 Vaccine Development Status and Efforts to Address Manufacturing Challenges,” U.S. Government Accountability Office, February 11, 2021, https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-319
[16] “Operation Warp Speed: Vaccines, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics,” Center for Disease Control, July 2, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony/2020/t20200702.htm
[17] Wigley, “Regime Type and Data Manipulation”
[18] “The Reliability of Soviet Published Statistics: Implications for CIA's Analysis for Soviet Economic Performance,” Central Intelligence Agency, SOV M 87-20071X, August 14, 1987, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90T00114R000800310001-6.pdf
[19] “Soviet Statistical Falsification at the Enterprise Level: The Impact on CIA Measures of the Soviet Economy,” Central Intelligence Agency, SOV M 85-10155, September 9, 1985, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T01058R000507850001-1.pdf
[20] Jill Disas, “Turkey’s lira plunges after Erdogan fires central bank head,” CNN, March 22, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/22/economy/turkey-lira-erdogan-central-bank-intl-hnk
[21] “Turkey grapples with triple-digit inflation,” The Economist, July 14, 2022, https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/14/turkey-grapples-with-triple-digit-inflation
[22] “The price of cooking the books,” The Economist, February 25, 2012, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2012/02/25/the-price-of-cooking-the-books
[23] “Whether to believe China's GDP figures,” The Economist, July 15, 2015, https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2015/07/15/whether-to-believe-chinas-gdp-figures
[24] “A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth,” The Economist, September 29, 2022, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth
[25] Luis R. Martinez, “How Much Should We Trust the Dictator’s GDP Estimates?” Journal of Political Economy, Volume 130, Number 10, October 2022, https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/350051528721174623-0050022018/original/Nightlights.pdf
[26] “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” MSNBC, August 1, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tHD4sSnlfE
[27] “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” MSNBC, August 1, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4delF7gvXGE
[28] Scott Neuman, “Trump's impeachments have been removed from a Smithsonian exhibit, for now,” NPR, August 1, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/g-s1-80602/smithsonian-impeachment-trump
[29] Kanishka Singh, “American history museum removes Trump's name from impeachment exhibit,” Reuters, August 1, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/american-history-museum-removes-trumps-name-impeachment-exhibit-2025-08-01/
[30] Janay Kingsberry, “Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum,” The Washington Post, August 2, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/07/31/trump-impeachment-smithsonian/
[31] “Impeachment Related Publications,” Govinfo, retrieved August 2, 2025, https://www.govinfo.gov/collection/impeachment-related-publications
[32] Prosecution of an Insurrection: The Complete Trial Transcript of the Second Impeachment of Donald Trump, January 4, 2022, https://www.amazon.com/Prosecution-Insurrection-Complete-Transcript-Impeachment/dp/162097715X
[33] Rick Reilly, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, Grand Central Publishing, 2019.
[34] Jordan Liles, “Video shows Trump cheating at golf in Scotland?” Snopes, July 28, 2025, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/video-trump-cheating-at-golf/
[35] Donald McRae, “Rick Reilly: ‘Donald Trump will cheat you on the golf course and then buy you lunch’,” The Guardian, December 10, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/10/rick-reilly-donald-trump-golf-commander-in-cheat-book-interview
[36] Mic Farris, “The Market Loves a Good Taco,” June 1, 2025, https://www.micfarris.com/articles/the-market-loves-a-good-taco
[37] V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Donald J. Trump, 1:25-cv-00066, (Ct. Intl. Trade), Document 55, May 28, 2025, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cit.17080/gov.uscourts.cit.17080.55.0.pdf
[38] The Editorial Board, “A Rough Day in Court for Tariffs,” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-ieepa-appeals-court-brett-shumate-7a840297
[39] “Foundation,” Apple TV+, retrieved August 2, 2025, https://tv.apple.com/us/show/foundation/umc.cmc.5983fipzqbicvrve6jdfep4x3
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