Ah yes, the old “if you don’t like the stats, fire the statistician” ploy. Always good advice. See also: if you don’t like the diagnosis, fire the doctor. If you don’t like the weather, fire the National Weather Service. If you don’t like the distance from New York to Miami, fire the mapmakers.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a monthly jobs report that included weaker-than-expected numbers for July, plus major downward revisions of May and June’s numbers.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, the president said the jobs numbers were “rigged” and that he’d asked his team to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer.

“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate,” Trump wrote.

In another Truth Social post, the president added, “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”

And what do we suppose he based that personal opinion on? A thorough investigation of the labor statistics? Or his dislike of the labor statistics on offer?

Denial; it ain’t just a river.

Trump faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Friday when he decided to fire McEntarfer, with several Republican senators questioning whether the firing would actually help the Trump administration improve future jobs numbers.

“We have to look somewhere for objective statistics. When the people providing the statistics are fired, it makes it much harder to make judgments that, you know, the statistics won’t be politicized,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told NBC News on Friday. “I’m going to look into it, but first impression is that you can’t really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting,” he added.

Well, let us know if second impression is that you can really make the numbers different or better by firing the people doing the counting.