Walmart, Apple, and Amazon, the most successful companies in the US, base their corporate strategies on data: consumer behavior data, market research, financial, product, and competitive analysis data.

Any CEO who deliberately relied on falsified data, or who demanded cooked books, would be fired immediately, and likely sued by the Board of Directors. Any CEO of any company who tried to manipulate the appearance of short term success for his own personal gain, at the expense of long term viability for the company, would also be fired and likely sued for malfeasance, and worse: A successful CEO knows that falsifying economic or financial data can lead to charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, and other financial crimes, because false data can ruin investors, corporations, and markets overnight.

Enter Donald Trump, whose self-proclaimed governing philosophy is ‘running the country like it’s a business.’ Debunking the lie of his own manufactured image as a ‘successful businessman,’ last Friday Trump angrily fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner because he didn’t like her data, even as he wears 34 felony convictions for falsifying records.

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Trump knowingly and intentionally lied about the Labor Market Statistics Commissioner in a manner that directly conflicts with the Department of Labor’s statutory mission; as such, it was not a ‘core Constitutional function.’ Announcing that previous labor reports were “falsified” causes immediate reputational harm to the Commissioner, the Department of Labor, and the US economy overall. It directly impedes the accurate compilation of labor data, a charge mandated by the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933 as well as the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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