BLS Nominee Suggests Major Shake-Up, Markets Rally on CPI News, Redistricting Drama: AM Update 8/13

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Good morning, everyone.

I'm Megan Kelly.

It's Wednesday, August 13th, 2025, and this is your AM update.

We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS is trustworthy and is accurate.

President Trump's nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics floating a new idea to improve government data collection.

And he's already being attacked.

The latest inflation numbers inspiring investor confidence.

Does this mean interest rates will come down?

What the Supreme Court said was that it was perfectly constitutional, and the president had the legal authority to do it.

The Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky breaks down the multi-front battle over congressional redistricting battles.

It goes a lot further than Texas.

All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.

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On Monday evening, President Trump nominating Heritage Foundation economist E.J.

Antoni as the new Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner.

The announcement coming 10 days after President Trump fired the previous Biden-appointed commissioner following a string of massive revisions to the jobs numbers.

The July jobs report coming in softer than expected with only 73,000 jobs added.

It also included a downward revision on May and June jobs numbers by a combined total of 258,000, the steepest monthly downward revisions since May 2020.

Antonio, long critical of the BLS data gathering process, telling Fox News Digital last week, quote, it's a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately.

Antoni adding that until there is a fix, quote, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports, but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely quarterly data.

Antoni adding, quote, 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.

Antoni's nomination predictably draws backlash from anti-Trump critics who say his nomination will further erode trust in the numbers, suggesting Antoni will bend economic data to President Trump's will.

Democrat Senator from Washington, Patty Murray, writing on X, quote, Any senator who votes to confirm this partisan hack is voting to shred the integrity of our nation's best economic and jobs data, which underpin our entire economy.

Much of the concern appearing to come from Antoni's work at the Conservative Heritage Foundation, where he contributed to the infamous Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint, vilified by Democrats in the 2024 election, as Donald Trump's playbook for imposing fascism.

On Tuesday, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt saying the administration has full confidence in Antoni to restore integrity to the BLS.

We want to ensure that all of the data, the inflation data, the jobs data, any data point that is coming out of the BLS is trustworthy and is accurate, which is why the President has restored new leadership at the BLS.

This President wants to ensure that the BLS again is putting out accurate and honest data that the American people can trust since you brought up the new commissioner.

He holds a master's and doctor's degree in economics from Northern Illinois University.

He's the chief economist in the Heritage Foundation's center for the federal budget.

And in addition to his work at Heritage, he has multiple other roles.

He's been widely renowned for his work on economic issues.

He's been called before Congress to testify as an economic expert.

So he's a qualified individual, and the President trusts him to lead this important department.

The New York Times reporting on the nomination this way, quote, past commissioners have typically come to the job with decades of experience in government or academia.

Dr.

Antoni has spent virtually his entire career at conservative think tanks.

His work there has mostly been on fiscal issues such as taxes and social security, not on the labor and macroeconomic topics that are the agency's focus.

This unconventional pick, mirroring other unconventional picks under Trump 2.0, like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and HHS Secretary RFKJ, both with resumes differing differing from typical nominees and with strong previous criticism of the departments they now run.

Despite outcry from the left over the firing of the previous commissioner and the nomination of Antoni, many nonpartisan experts agree BLS data collection methods are outdated and ineffective, especially in the wake of COVID, which led to delayed reporting of jobs numbers and steeper, more concerning revisions.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on CBS earlier this month saying government data collectors can do better.

It's 2025 and the data should be able to be.

They use surveys and things like that, which frankly just aren't as effective anymore.

So if you look at the rate of people who respond to their surveys, it's down from 60% level to 50% level.

You know, we don't use surveys as aggressively we do.

We watch what consumers really do.

We watch what businesses really do.

They can get this data, I think, other ways.

And I think that's where the focus I'd be.

How do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable?

Because what bounces around is restatements.

And that was one of the largest restatements going back five or seven years into the pandemic, five years in the pandemic.

That creates doubt around it.

And so I think the key is let's get, let's spend some money, let's bring the information together, let's find where else in the government money is reported.

We report millions and millions of data points to the government every day.

The data is out there somewhere.

BLS, Commissioner, is a position that requires Senate confirmation, and Tony's hearing date has yet to be determined.

The July Consumer Price Index, the monthly report gauging inflation, coming in slightly better than expected, rising just 0.2% for the month and 2.7% on an annual basis.

As of Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reporting that investors believe an interest rate cut is likely at the upcoming Fed meeting in September.

Traders predicting a 9 in 10 chance of a cut up slightly from Monday.

The SP 500 and NASDAQ closing at record highs off the news.

The Dow Jones also rising.

Press Secretary Caroline Levitt touting the latest numbers on Tuesday.

Overall, inflation has run at a 1.9 average annual pace in President Trump's first six months in office.

Energy prices fell in July, including gasoline, which is down nearly 10% over last year, and propane, which is down 2.5%

over last year as well.

Egg prices fell once again in July and are down 20% since President Trump took office.

Shelter inflation, the largest contributor to overall inflation, is at its lowest level since October of 2021.

Wage growth for American workers is beating inflation once again.

American real wages are up 1.3 percent over last year and have increased each month since President Trump took office.

And small business optimism, according to this morning's report, has also reached a five-month high.

Ignore the pannikins and trust in President Trump.

That is our motto here at the White House.

The America First Economic Agenda is working.

On CNBC, host Joe Kernan noting that President Trump's tariffs have not yet caused the surge in inflation that his critics predicted.

People were thinking this will finally be the time when we see it.

We saw a little, but not that much.

Does that summarize what happened?

Absolutely.

If I look at all the metrics, as I said, we were hotter in the beginning of the year, even on the hottest read on on that year-over-year core.

What it tells me is that if you take it very simple, you summarize very accurately.

There has been a push that things are going to get worse.

You're going to look at a month that's going to be really scary.

But most likely, if you look at the entire regime of the effects of tariffs and the uncertainty, we are definitely over the hump.

And considering that this number isn't worse than expected, I would say moving forward that your interpretation is exactly correct.

Coming up, an attempt to redraw congressional maps in Texas set to spark a red versus blue redistricting war.

Senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky from the Heritage Foundation breaks down that battle.

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What began as a legal skirmish in Texas over redrawing its congressional map now threatening to spark a full-blown gerrymandering war between America's red and blue states.

Earlier this month, a group of Democrat state lawmakers fleeing Texas for friendly blue states to deny the quorum needed in a special session to pass a new congressional map that would likely add five GOP seats in Texas.

The stunt in turn prompting arrest warrants and a legal push by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to declare their seats abandoned and vacant, which, if successful, would allow the governor to fill the seats.

ABC News reporting Tuesday evening the Texas Dems are considering a return now to the Lone Star State just in time for a second special session.

Governor Abbott announcing Tuesday morning he plans to adjourn the current special session early, ending this Friday instead of next week, and then will initiate a second special session.

ABC reporting one source says the Democrats loosely plan on returning this weekend, declaring a victory by having killed the first session.

One source telling ABC plans could change if Republicans go back on their word to end the first session early, robbing Democrats of their symbolic victory.

The Texas House Democrats ex-account posting, quote, members are still assessing their strategies going forward and are in a private meeting to make decisions about future plans currently.

If and when Texas House Democrats breaking quorum decide to go home is squarely dependent on the actions actions of the governor, speaker, and Texas Republicans with regard to prioritizing flood victims over redistricting that hurts Texans.

It is unclear if the Democrats are planning a similar boycott of the second session.

The governor has indicated he will call as many special sessions as needed to bring a vote on these maps.

Also still unclear, if the Dems return, what happens with AG Paxton's legal effort to declare their seats vacated?

The debacle infuriating Blue State governors who are now threatening to retaliate against Texas by redrawing their own maps, aiming to counter the five additional GOP-leaning U.S.

House seats.

Amid this battle, President Trump calling for a new census, one that would exclude illegal immigrants.

We spoke to senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Hans Bons Bakovsky, who says this Texas fight is not merely political gamesmanship.

It's a legal mandate set by the DOJ.

They received a warning letter from the Justice Department in July telling them, listen, you've got four districts that are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

You've got to fix it.

Because of a court decision last year in the Fifth Circuit U.S.

Court of Appeals.

In 2021, the Texas legislature created four congressional districts, really at the behest of Democrats to elect Democrats, which was made up of what they call coalition districts.

So what they did in these coalition districts, they combined two different racial groups, Black voters and Hispanic voters, so that they together would constitute a majority of the vote in those districts.

And what the Fifth Circuit said last year is that the Voting Rights Act does not protect political alliances of those type.

The bottom line is those districts were drawn up based on race.

That was the primary factor used to draw the boundary lines.

That makes them unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

That is something you cannot do under the Constitution.

Democrat governors, including Gavin Newsom in California, Kathy Hochl in New York, and J.B.

Pritzker in Illinois, floating redistricting efforts of their own in retaliation, even more than their states have done in the past.

And that's saying something.

Spikovsky, noting the irony of Democrat outrage as gerrymandering was invented in a blue state and perfected thereafter in blue states.

Democrats really have have perfected gerrymandering in New England.

The blue states, you know, the term gerrymandering comes from Massachusetts, from the former governor in 1812, Elberg Derry, who basically approved the first gerrymander there.

And Massachusetts has carried on that tradition, the Democrats there.

Today,

even though 35% of the statewide vote has been Republican in past elections, Out of the nine congressional districts, there's not a single one that a Republican holds.

And that's typical throughout the New England states.

And Illinois, 45%.

The statewide vote is Republican, yet out of 17 congressional seats, only three of them are held by Republicans.

And that is directly the result of some of the most, if I can call it the best, most skillful redistricting in the country.

Amid this battle, President Trump earlier this month said he was ordering the Commerce Department to conduct a new census, the last one done in 2020.

Census results decide how the 435 House seats are divided among the states and help determine the number of electoral college votes a state has.

Mr.

Trump posting to True Social, quote, people who are in our country illegally will not be counted in the census.

Many on the left in states benefiting from higher illegal immigrant populations for greater representation, decrying the move, saying the Constitution requires, quote, all persons, not just legal citizens, to be counted.

And they say the president cannot simply order a new census.

Critics also pointing to a Supreme Court ruling under Trump 1.0, in which the High Court rejected a Trump administration effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Spikovsky saying much of that criticism is inaccurate.

What the Supreme Court said was that it was perfectly constitutional and the president had the legal authority to do it.

It's simply that he

administratively did not give a full and sufficient explanation of why he wanted to do it.

It was a process issue.

They simply didn't have time to then go back and do that as the Supreme Court told them to because they had to get the census forms printed and distributed.

I've heard some folks say that the president doesn't have the power to do a second census.

They are actually wrong about that.

Back in the 1970s, Congress actually

amended the federal statute on the census and directed the Commerce Department to do a mid-decade census.

They've never done it before.

So the president actually has all the legal authority he needs to do it.

Spikovsky detailing how removing illegal aliens from the census will affect how congressional congressional districts are drawn.

If you get a new census, one that provides citizen population as opposed to total population, and if states were to use citizen population instead of total population when they're drawing boundary lines, it would also shift seats to Republicans.

Probably a good example of that is New York.

The largest number of illegal aliens and legal aliens in the state of New York all live in New York City.

So if they were not being included in the redistricting process, it would move the boundary lines of multiple congressional districts out of New York City and into the rest of the state.

And that would favor, tend to favor Republicans because the Republican vote is in the rest of the state.

The timeline on creating and conducting a new census is unclear.

The process itself will take time and will face legal challenges along the way.

For now, the redistricting battle continues.

And that'll do it for your AM update.

I'm Megan Kelly.

Join me back here for the Megan Kelly Show, live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at Noon East, on youtube.com/slash Megan Kelly and on all podcast platforms.

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