The good news is, America’s premier statistics agency will prove impervious to Donald Trump’s worst impulses. So will the Fed.

That’s according to Trump’s first BLS chief, William Beach, and Trump critic Bill Dudley, both of whom weighed in on what, if I may, is a cartoonishly transparent attempt on the part of The White House to turn the US economy into a Potemkin village propped up by artificially-depressed interest rates.

I know what you’re thinking. Especially those of you who haven’t taken the time to read the Monthly Letters. You’re thinking: “Gosh, man, you just described the post-GFC, pre-COVID economy! Obama’s America was a Potemkin village propped up by artificially-depressed interest rates! How clueless are you?”

To which I’d reply, “Au contraire! I spun, or helped spin, those yarns about Obama’s economy, and the man with whom I conspired in that effort made himself a multi-millionaire feeding that spin to the public long before he enlisted my services in the effort.”

In other words: If you’re inclined to that sort of derisive interpretation of the macro landscape under Barack Obama, chances are, your opinion’s “informed” (which is to say misinformed) by propaganda I wrote once upon a 2015/early-2016. So, joke’s on you. A belated apology for poisoning your mind.

Anyway, I’m reformed now. Now I tell the truth. And the truth here is that while the US economy pre-Trump can, in some contexts, be characterized as a Potemkin village propped up by artificially-depressed interest rates, what Trump’s doing (or trying to do) at the BLS and Fed risks making that characterization accurate in a more literal sense. That’s no good.

“Uncertainty about the quality of US data is not a good look for US asset markets and could add some more risk premium both into the dollar and Treasurys,” ING’s Chris Turner said Monday.

As the figure shows, the dollar was down ~1.3% or so over just one and a half business days as of early Monday. If that held, it’d be the largest two-day decline since the wild cross-asset swings around Trump’s botched April tariff unveil.

To be clear, most of this most recent dollar drop is down to the policy read-through of Friday’s shock downward revisions to the jobs data and Adriana Kugler’s early resignation from the Fed Board. The fact that Treasury yields are down sharply since last Thursday (i.e., falling alongside the dollar) means the greenback slippage isn’t a “fake data” risk premium. Not yet.

“The theatrics of the staff shuffling [at the BLS and Fed] does create a slightly different tone to the process beyond the more typical ‘business as usual,’ [but] we do not expect that either of these announcements will trigger price action in the US rates market,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen said. “After all, the September 17 FOMC meeting is, for all intents and purposes, comfortably pricing in a cut.”

In other words, September’s a lock anyway. For the purposes of that meeting, whether Jerome Powell stays or goes, and who Trump chooses to fill Kugler’s seat, is irrelevant. The Fed’s next move is a cut. And the delicious (or decidedly bitter if you’re her) irony is that Trump has Erika McEntarfer to thank. Prior to the July jobs report, September’s FOMC meeting was priced at just ~35%. Now it’s nearly 85%.

So what about institutional credibility? Well, Dudley said the Fed will “be just fine.” “Powell, not Trump, is in control,” he wrote, for Bloomberg Opinion, adding that “Whoever succeeds Powell might not obey Trump once in office.” Dudley also expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will hold the line when it comes to any attempts to dismiss a Fed Chair for something other than cause. Dudley’s Op-Ed was, in a word, naive. Which is odd coming from him.

As for Trump’s first-term BLS boss, Beach told CNN he’ll still trust the data going forward. “I will, because I know the people who work there,” he said. “They are some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine and they’ve worked in every kind of political circumstance.”

With respect Mr. Beach, Trump appointees are loyal to Trump, not the country. And no, BLS statisticians haven’t served in “every kind” of political “circumstance.”