White House Withdraws President Trump’s Pick for Bureau of Labor Statistics Chief — Here’s Why

Yesterday, it was reported that the White House had withdrawn Dr. EJ Antoni’s nomination for Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner.

After firing the previous Biden-appointed BLS chief a couple months ago, President Trump announced that he was nominating Antoni — a prominent conservative economist  — for the role.

However, during a press conference today, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed that Antoni’s nomination was withdrawn because he did not have the votes needed to secure a Senate confirmation.

Watch:

🚨 WATCH: Karoline Leavitt says the White House pulled EJ Antoni's nomination as head of Bureau of Labor Statistics because "he was not going to have the votes." A replacement nominee will be announced soon, Leavitt adds.

Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins did… pic.twitter.com/odEIhsBaj0

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 1, 2025

WATCH: Karoline Leavitt says the White House pulled EJ Antoni’s nomination as head of Bureau of Labor Statistics because “he was not going to have the votes.” A replacement nominee will be announced soon, Leavitt adds.

Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins did not meet with Antoni while he was nominated.

RINO Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were two holdouts on Antoni’s confirmation.

Antoni was a controversial pick, primarily due to his criticism of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and their data problems.

NBC News has more:

Antoni was nominated in August after President Donald Trump fired the previous BLS chief, Erika McEntarfer, in the wake of a poor jobs report.

That report found that the United States added only 73,000 jobs in July and reflected deep revisions to previous months’ numbers. At the time of the report, it found job growth for May was revised down from 144,000 to just 19,000. It also marked down June’s job creation from 147,000 to only 14,000.

Trump said, without evidence, that the June jobs report was “rigged in order to make the Republicans, and me, look bad.”

“I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory,” Trump said.

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He said Antoni would “ensure that the numbers released are honest and accurate.”

Multiple former commissioners of the Bureau of Labor Statistics said shortly after McEntarfer was fired that the head of labor statistics does not have a role in compiling the monthly jobs reports and is briefed on its contents only shortly before it is released to the public.

Antoni, a contributor to Project 2025, was backed by Steve Bannon for the post. Antoni has been a skeptic of the data the BLS produces.

As the chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, Antoni also wrote a number of pieces for the think tank that were complimentary of the Trump administration’s policies.

Antoni’s nomination came under scrutiny after the White House said he was a “bystander” at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

An interview he gave to Fox Business Network on Aug. 4, before his nomination, also drew the attention of businesses and the markets. Antoni said the agency should suspend issuing the monthly job report and instead publish quarterly data until the reports are more “accurate.”