They Shoot Messengers, Don’t They?
“I sit in this office now. Tomorrow it will be someone else… Can you imagine that hundreds of my colleagues could stomach or remain quiet about publishing a… rate very different from what they had established?”
You might be forgiven for thinking that this quote came from now former US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, whom US President Donald Trump fired last Friday after the BLS released jobs numbers that contradicted Trump’s falsely rosy economic narrative. But the quote’s source is Sait Erdal Dinçer, the former head of the Turkish Statistical Institute, also known as TÜİK or Turkstat. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fired Dinçer in early 2022, after Turkstat published inflation numbers that undercut Erdoğan’s attempts to downplay Turkey’s mounting inflation crisis.
The parallels between these moments are striking. They reflect a shared impulse among strongman-style leaders to treat impartial data as a threat and to punish those who report numbers that don’t suit the regime. Both McEntarfer and Dinçer were fired because they signed off on official statistics that made the leader look bad. In Erdoğan’s Turkey, the official inflation rate topped 36 percent in December 2021 — a 19-year high. Independent researchers suggest the rate may have been even higher. Erdoğan reportedly lambasted agency decision makers in private for releasing numbers that contradicted his regime’s official narrative, and Dinçer was subsequently ousted.
Three years later, the BLS’s July 2025 jobs report showed slowing employment growth and substantial downward revisions to earlier months, painting a far bleaker picture than preliminary estimates had suggested. Trump responded by removing McEntarfer, smearing her as somehow both incompetent and a wily political saboteur. Without evidence, Trump declared the BLS figures “fake” and “rigged,” wrongfully portraying the agency’s longstanding statistical revision process as a partisan cover-up.
Trump’s behavior has also elicited comparisons to that of former US President Richard Nixon. Both Nixon and Trump cast themselves as victims of vast conspiracies, and both indulged their paranoia by reshuffling BLS personnelfollowing the release of unwelcome statistics. However, Nixon — brazen as he was — stopped short of firing the BLS commissioner, and his overreach eventually triggered bipartisan backlash. In contrast, today’s GOP has largely fallen in line, mirroring the feckless adherence of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Of course, official statistics are never fully removed from politics. Elected officials decide what to fund, which questions to ask, and how to define key categories — like employment, race, or gender. Politicians routinely spin numbers to serve their messaging. But direct retaliation against the professionals who produce those numbers is a more dangerous escalation. Trump’s actions cross a line that even the most partisan administrations have historically respected: the independence of official statistics. These numbers are vital to a functioning democracy, and frankly, to a sustainably functioning economy.
Key differences remain between Erdoğan’s Turkey and Trump’s US. TurkStat’s credibility had already begun to unravel by the time Erdoğan fired Dinçer in 2022. Between 2019 and 2022, Erdogan’s government cycled through multiple heads of both TurkStat and Turkey’s central bank, undermining public confidence and consolidating Erdoğan’s control over data and monetary policy. Trump’s firing of McEntarfer may yet be the first in a series of similar moves, but whether it marks the beginning of a sustained campaign à la Erdoğan’s remains to be seen. For now, institutions like the BLS still carry strong reputations, thanks in large part to the integrity and expertise of the career professionals who uphold their mandates. And in contrast to Turkey, where Erdoğan replaced central bank officials whose interest rate policies did not align with his preferences, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has made clear that Trump lacks the authority to fire him.
The manner of Trump’s denial may also be different. Şahan Savaş Karataşli observedthat although Erdoğan downplayed the inflation crisis in public, he took steps to cushion its impact on his political base by raising wages and expanding public aid. Trump, by contrast, appears to be in such deep denial that he sees no reason to act. He has offered no material response to the economic problems his policies have created, choosing instead to ignore the warning signs and scapegoat civil servants. That may ultimately cost him politically, but it does little to lessen the damage of his actions in the meantime.
McEntarfer’s firing is far from Trump’s first attack on federal data infrastructure. In the first hundred days of his second term, Trump’s government drastically overhauled key reports, ceased collecting crucial information, reduced funding to dangerously low levels, pressured scientists and statisticians to alter findings, and took datasets offline without warning. Trump’s regime has thoroughly discarded data privacy norms in its relentless crusade against immigrants. And now Trump has gone from merely impugning the credibility of BLS data to actively punishing agency officials for doing their jobs.
Trump is following a well-worn authoritarian playbook by suppressing unflattering facts and attempting to silence those who refuse to play along. This playbook includes discrediting independent institutions, purging and instilling fear in career officials, creating a misinformation ecosystem, and reshaping the state to serve the leader’s narrative rather than the public good. In Turkey, Erdoğan’s personnel moves helped normalize a political culture where truth is subordinate to power. In the US, Trump’s dismissal of McEntarfer reveals his eagerness to do the same.
The stakes are high. Accurate data is essential for everything from effective resource distribution to individual financial planning. It also serves as a foundation for shared public understanding. Undermining that foundation threatens the public’s ability to participate meaningfully in democracy and to hold elected officials accountable. By treating facts as threats, both Erdoğan and Trump were attacking the conditions that make democracy possible. The US may not have yet reached Turkey’s level of executive consolidation, but those who care about democracy must respond to Trump’s latest escalation by standing in solidarity with those he wishes to silence.
This first appeared on CEPR.
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