Trump set to name replacements at the Fed and BLS in coming days

President Donald Trump plans over the next several days to name replacements for two key vacancies, one to fill a spot on the Federal Reserve and other to replace the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Both spots opened up Friday — the Fed position through the surprise resignation of Governor Adriana Kugler, and the other from Trump’s stunning decision to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Trump told reporters Sunday that he is thinking of several possible candidates for the Fed spot, and that he is set to replace McEntarfer soon.

“I have a couple of people in mind,” Trump said regarding the Kugler vacancy. “I’ll be announcing that probably over the next couple of days.”

Kugler’s Fed term expired next January, but she decided to exit ahead of time. In a letter submitted Friday to Trump, Kugler gave no reason for the move, which takes effect Aug. 8.

As a Fed governor, Kugler was a permanent voter on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets the central bank’s key funds level used as a peg for interest rates across the U.S. economy. In addition, governors help craft banking regulations.

During her short stint, which lasted less than two years, Kugler consistently aligned herself with the policies of Chair Jerome Powell, who has been on the receiving end of frequent Trump criticism.

Trump has stated that future Fed nominees will be litmus tested for whether they will vote to lower the funds rate.

The Kugler resignation “jump-starts the Trumpification of the Fed by handing President Trump a vacancy into which he can place a potential or even a clearly designated successor to Powell as Fed chair,” Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said in a note.

Potential successors include former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.

Controversy over jobs count

Trump sacked McEntarfer after Friday’s disappointing nonfarm payrolls report. The BLS not only reported that the economy added just 73,000 jobs in July, but it also revised the prior two months’ totals lower by 258,000.

In a Truth Social post Sunday, Trump alleged that McEntarfer was responsible for “the biggest miscalculations in over 50 years.”

Revisions are common for monthly jobs numbers as the BLS receives more information through the survey of establishments it uses to calculate the nonfarm payrolls figure. However, as survey responses have declined over time, revisions have risen, with the BLS last year adjusting down its count for the 12-month period preceding March 2024 by 818,000.

“I think it’s really important now that we get a fresh set of eyes over there to try to modernize the labor data, because it has to be transparent, it has to be reliable. It has to be something that market can make big bets on,” Hassett said Monday on CNBC.

However, McEntarfer’s firing has drawn widespread criticism because of worries that the move could politicize the BLS statistics, which are used to set policy and as a barometer for multiple aspects of the economy.

“Potential politicization of the Fed has been much discussed over the past several months, but the risk of politicizing the data collection process should not be overlooked,” wrote Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase. “To borrow from the soft-landing analogy, having a flawed instrument panel can be just as dangerous as having an obediently partisan pilot.”

Trump has not publicly discussed potential replacements for McEntarfer. Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski is serving in an acting role now.