Trump’s Problematic Pick to Lead BLS Expected to Face Senate Hearing After All

E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s problematic pick to lead the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, is expected to face a hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or the HELP Committee, according to two people familiar with committee proceedings.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) chairs the committee and plans to hold the hearing in September for Antoni and four other nominees if Antoni can get his paperwork submitted in time, according to a staffer for a member of the HELP Committee. The four other nominees are Scott Mayer and James Murphy, appointed as members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after Trump fired a Democratic member of the board in January; Rosario Palmieri as assistant secretary of labor for policy; and Surgeon General nominee Casey Means.

The HELP Committee doesn’t usually hold confirmation hearings for BLS commissioner nominees. But Democrats on the HELP Committee and BLS advocates have been pushing for a close examination of Antoni’s record since his appointment was announced due, in part, to his lack of experience and MAGA bona fides. 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the HELP Committee, called Antoni “an unqualified right-wing extremist who won’t think twice about manipulating BLS data and degrading the credibility of the agency to make Trump happy,” in a statement demanding Cassidy hold a hearing for Antoni.

Another committee member, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), called Antoni “a devout Trump loyalist” in an Aug. 15 statement, and called for Antoni to appear before the panel.

“I also believe his appointment could have devastating economic impacts if the country and the rest of the world can no longer trust statistics coming out of this crucial agency,” Blunt Rochester said.

And the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an advocacy organization on which multiple former BLS commissioners sit, called on the Senate HELP Committee to examine Antoni using a list of criteria ranging from “strong management experience,” to “an understanding of BLS products and broader relevance.”

Erica Groshen, co-chair of the Friends of the BLS and former BLS commissioner under President Obama, told TPM the organization released the criteria to help senators, senate staffers and the public understand and assess the qualities a BLS commissioner should possess. Friends of the BLS previously urged the senate to consider the same criteria for former commissioners William Beach and Erika McEntarfer, Groshen said.

“We were very intentional about putting out the qualities that we were looking for, and I guess I feel like I should leave it to the Senate to make that determination,” she said. “I think the Senate really has to do their job in this case.”

When she was nominated by Obama in 2012, Groshen had no committee hearing. She recalled attending meetings with Democratic and Republican committee staffers, answering some additional questions, and ultimately watching her own unceremonious confirmation vote live on CSPAN “because they told me that maybe it was going to be on,” she said.

Of the six BLS chiefs since Katherine Abraham in 1993, only Trump’s previous BLS commissioner nominee William Beach had a HELP Committee hearing, Groshen said. Beach has in the past drawn parallels between himself and Antoni. The former BLS commissioner also joined the agency as a conservative economist who had worked at the Heritage Foundation and had a reputation for being right wing. 

“That follows you into the bureau and you need immediately to align yourself with the staff in leadership positions,” Beach told TPM earlier in this month. “Afterward, his reputation doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant because what you do inside the BLS is way different than what you do at a thinktank.”

Beach made these statements to TPM, however, before additional details about Antoni emerged in recent weeks, including new reporting that showed he attended the Jan. 6 rally which later devolved into a violent insurrection and attack on the Capitol building. Recently surfaced footage showed Antoni among the crowd gathered outside the Capitol that day but it appears he did not enter the building. 

HELP Committee chair Cassidy has vocally condemned the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol for years. 

In an Aug. 13 statement to Punchbowl News about Antoni’s nomination, Cassidy’s spokesperson Stephen Lewerenz criticized the BLS and its federal economic statistics.

“BLS’s years-long failure to produce reliable data — especially when that data has broad market-moving implications — is unacceptable,” Lewerenz told Punchbowl. “We need a BLS Commissioner committed to producing accurate, unbiased economic information to the American people. Chairman Cassidy looks forward to meeting with Dr. Antoni to discuss how he will accomplish this.”

Cassidy is facing a potentially tough GOP primary in 2026 and has aligned himself very closely with Trump’s agenda this year. Cassidy found himself a target of MAGA vitriol after voting to convict Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021. 

“Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” Cassidy said at the time. “I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.” 

A medical doctor turned-career politician, Cassidy was initially seen as a potential roadblock to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation after Trump nominated Kennedy to become health secretary. The former physician expressed skepticism about Kennedy’s unscientific anti-vaccine beliefs, and questioned him extensively during his hearing before the Senate HELP committee before ultimately voting to confirm him. It’s been reported that Cassidy secured an agreement from Kennedy as part of his vote to confirm that Kennedy would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — without changes,” Cassidy said during a floor speech in February. In June, Kennedy announced he was removing the 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory panel.

No one from Cassidy’s office responded to multiple TPM outreaches regarding Antoni’s confirmation.

Economists across the ideological spectrum have condemned Antoni’s nomination and expressed concern that he’ll politicize the independent agency. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik foreshadowed this concern when he  invalidated the idea of federal statistical independence during a speech earlier this month.

But Groshen said the BLS’s “factory-like” processes would make it difficult for a new commissioner to come in and “muck with the data.”

“The new commissioner would have to come in with a posse of people who are not part of the BLS culture and then they would not come in knowing the BLS processes,” Groshen said. “The BLS employees, the current ones now, I think would resist any changes that would undermine the trustworthiness of the data. And then you’d get turmoil that would be visible from the outside.”

No other nominee expected to join Antoni in the HELP committee hearing faces quite as much public outcry, but each brings their own form of alignment with Trump’s agenda. 

Mayer and Murphy were nominated to the NLRB, which administers the law protecting private sector workers’ rights, after Trump fired former board chair Gwynne Wilcox in January for “disfavoring the interest of employers” in her decisions. The National Law Review said Mayer and Murphy “bring strong management-side credentials to the table.”

Palmieri, nominated as the assistant secretary for labor policy, has spoken against federal regulations and was on the shortlist to lead the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in 2019 according to Politico’s E&E News. 

Meanwhile, Surgeon General nominee Means is a MAHA darling who has said “vaccine mandates are criminal,” “corruption in the FDA is overwhelming,” and “RFK is doing God’s work.” And that’s just from one post on X.