President Donald Trump raised a lot of eyebrows when he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn't like the quarterly report -- which showed numbers weren't up the way he wanted them to be.
His new pick for the job is raising questions for a totally different reason.
E.J. Antoni, formerly the chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, was hand-picked by the president, and he said recently that the monthly jobs reported that's heavily used as a sign of how the economy is faring, should be stopped.
"How on earth are businesses supposed to plan – or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy – when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy? It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately," Antoni told Fox News Digital.
"Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data," he said, adding, "Major decision-makers from Wall Street to D.C. rely on these numbers, and a lack of confidence in the data has far-reaching consequences."
So, why doesn't the report work? Antoni told FOX it's because the "underlying methodology, economic modeling and statistical assumptions are fundamentally flawed." It's worth noting that the monthly reports have been issued since 1948.
The Bureau began monitoring unemployment the way it does currently in the 1930s. Erika McEntarfer, the former director, was fired hours after the monthly numbers reported slower-than-anticipated July job growth.
"Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump wrote in an Aug. 12 Truth Social post announcing Antoni's nomination. "I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!"
When confronted about the possibility of discontinuing the jobs updates, Press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged it, saying that Antoni “floated the idea of possibly suspending until they can get the data and the methodology in order.”
“This president wants to ensure that the BLS again is putting out accurate and honest data,” Leavitt said.