If there’s anyone who is least qualified to kick up a stink over anybody initiating a so-called “war on facts,” it's New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.
The August 4 print edition of The Times had Baker’s latest anti-Trump drivel disguised as “news analysis” splattered onto its front page:
In 2nd Term, Trump Pushes War on Facts
Authoritarian Echoes in Jobs Report Firing
Baker was up in arms over President Donald Trump’s firing of Biden-appointed Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer, after an abysmal July jobs report that saw hundreds of thousands of jobs evaporate from prior reports in a supposedly massive error. It is worth noting that this is the same person who oversaw another massive mistake in 2024 when the BLS conceded it grossly over-estimated job growth under former President Joe Biden by 818,000 jobs. Baker had an excuse for that one: "While revisions of job creation estimates are normal, [Trump administration officials] argued without evidence that recent ones indicated a problem." Um, what? For the egomaniacal correspondent, Trump firing McEntarfer was giving off “authoritarian echoes.” Oh please.
“An old rule in Washington holds that you are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. President Trump seems determined to prove that wrong.” This is the same chowderhead who tried telling voters that the inflation-rattled Biden economy was chef’s kiss, even if they “remain unconvinced.” But Baker wants to lecture the Trump world about “facts?” Gag us with a spoon!
Funnily enough, Baker’s readers wouldn’t even know until the 29th paragraph of his ridiculously long Page One editorial that McEntarfer was even appointed by Biden to begin with. Also missing from Baker’s rant was disclosure of FEC data suggesting that McEntarfer donated to Democrats while she was an economist at the Census Bureau between 2018 and 2020, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the left-wing fundraiser hybrid PAC Swing Left.
This certainly adds meat to Trump’s general assertion about McEntarfer having an innate political bias, which Baker simply wrote off as being based on a specific allegation that was “flatly untrue” without investigating the broader issue for himself.
As RedState columnist Brad Slager wrote in a post on X, “Biden had his jobs numbers inflated only to go through steep revisions months later. The media outcry was drowned out by crickets.” To be as wrong as McEntarfer's BLS has historically been on the jobs market only implies two conclusions: Either she’s purposefully distorting jobs figures for political ends, or she’s just overtly inept at her job. Both conclusions — like for any other business worth its salt — are grounds for termination of employment.
You mean like a
— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) August 3, 2025
Compliant press hiding a president with sliding mental faculties?
Biden had his jobs numbers inflated only to go through steep revisions months later.
The media outcry was drowned out by crickets. https://t.co/3KiOitVq9W
But Trump’s so-called “message”, wrote Baker, was “unmistakable:”
Government officials who deal in data now fear they have to toe the line or risk losing their jobs. Career scientists, longtime intelligence analysts and nonpartisan statisticians who serve every president regardless of political party with neutral information on countless matters, such as weather patterns and vaccine efficacy, now face pressure as never before to conform to the alternative reality enforced by the president and his team.
Seems the statistician's Democrat contributions blow up the “nonpartisan” label, eh? It’s also obviously hypocritical for Baker to kvetch about “alternative reality” when he’s the same supposed journalist who victim-blamed Trump in 2024 for the second assassination attempt on his life at his West Palm beach golf course in Florida, which happened just weeks after the first assassination attempt at Butler, Pennsylvania. “The latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president indicates how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him,” Baker spewed at the time.
Now, Baker pretended to be some kind of gatekeeper of facts while engaging in blatant anti-Trump sensationalizing for what is clearly an op-ed, not a news item. “This second term, however, has seen Mr. Trump go further to force his facts on the government and get rid of those standing in the way.”
As if The New York Times doesn't try to "force their facts on the government" and aim to "get rid of those standing in the way" (Republicans).
MRC Business reached out to the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for comment but received no response as of the publication of this article.
