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President Donald Trump is pulling his controversial nomination for rightwing economist E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CNN and The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Sources told both outlets that the Senate has received the paperwork necessary to withdraw the nomination. The White House did not immediately respond when asked to confirm or elaborate on the reported decision.
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Trump tapped Antoni to head the department last month after firing former BLS Commissioner Dr. Erika McEntarfer and accusing her, without evidence, of manipulating a jobs report to make him look bad.
“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump said when announcing the nomination.
Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation who authored parts of Project 2025, has been critical of how the BLS collects data and posted about it on X after McEntarfer’s ousting. He also called for her firing during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast, agreeing with the host that they needed a “MAGA Republican” at BLS.
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Following his nomination, economists raised concerns about Antoni’s allegiance to Trump, saying the BLS commissioner needs to be focused on real numbers without putting any spin on them.
“I don’t think I have ever publicly criticized any Presidential nominee before. But E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS Commissioner,” Jason Furman, a top economic adviser in Barack Obama’s White House wrote on social media at the time. “He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant expertise. He would be a break from decades of nonpartisan technocrats.”
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Antoni has also advocated for getting rid of social security, repeatedly slamming it as a “Ponzi scheme” during a radio interview from last year unearthed by The Washington Post.
More alarming reports about Antoni emerged in the weeks following his nomination. Both CNN and Wired reported on what appear to be Antoni’s since-deleted Twitter accounts, finding that the accounts were littered with sexually degrading posts on Kamala Harris, homophobic remarks and Trump-approved conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
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An NBC investigation also found that Antoni was in the crowd during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. In response to the report, the White House said Antoni was simply in town for meetings and was a “bystander to the events of January 6th, observing and then leaving the Capitol area.” There is no evidence that he entered the Capitol building.