From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
White House pulls nomination of economist who praised Nazi warship
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The Trump administration has withdrawn its nomination of a conservative economist who has expressed an affinity for Nazi-related imagery.
President Donald Trump had nominated EJ Antoni last month to serve as head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is part of the Department of Labor and produces statistics closely watched by the markets. Trump had earlier fired the agency’s head, Erika McEntarfer, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the bureau’s figures.
The White House announced on Tuesday that it pulled the nomination.
“Dr. EJ Antoni is a brilliant economist and an American patriot that will continue to do good work on behalf of our great country,” a White House official said in a statement, promising the president will announce a new nominee “very soon.”
Antoni currently serves as chief economist at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and has been a critic of the BLS, whose monthly job market and inflation report is used by a global audience of economists, investors, business leaders, public policymakers, and consumers.
Antoni’s nomination raised concerns among economists about the quality of BLS data.
In addition, NBC News reported that Antoni was in the crowd outside the US Capitol during the pro-Trump January 6, 2021, riot there. And observers found that the wall art behind Antoni during interviews on TV was of the German battleship Bismarck used by the Nazis in World War II.
He has also engaged in multiple friendly X conversations about German victimhood with the pundit Candace Owens, even as large swaths of the right began to isolate her last year over her growing, vocal antisemitism.
The Times of Israel Community.