Donald Trump as strongman, riling up his base and investigating his enemies

It’s almost a cliché to say that Donald Trump has accumulated enormous power in the last six months.

He has busted through what used to be guardrails, come close to defying the courts, collected big bucks from ABC and CBS, not to mention $200 million from Columbia, cajoled elite law firms into settlements, and taken over law enforcement in Washington.

One example: Trump fired Erika McEntarfer as commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics when he didn’t like the Biden appointee’s weak jobs number, 73,000 for July.

He has now hired the chief economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation, E.J. Antoni, who has been an outspoken critic of the BLS and has a PhD in economics. He worked on Heritage’s Project 2025, the plan that became a blueprint for the second Trump term, and wants to reform BLS – but his numbers will obviously be pleasing to the White House.

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