The Trump administration announced Monday that it would permanently cancel the release of third-quarter GDP figures, following its earlier decision to withhold employment data after firing the official who calculated it.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis officially scrapped the advance GDP estimate for Q3 2025, marking the third major economic report the administration has blocked from public view in recent months. The Labor Department had previously cancelled October's jobs report, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics scrapped its inflation report, all during a government shutdown that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed on Democrats for "permanently damaging the federal statistical system."
The strategic withholding of economic information comes after President Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August when July's employment report revealed only 73,000 jobs added, substantially below expectations. Trump promptly accused her of rigging the numbers, because as everyone knows, the best way to prove data integrity is to immediately fire the person collecting it when you dislike the results.
Administration officials insist the cancelled reports have nothing to do with the economy contracting 0.5 percent in Q1 before growing 3.8 percent in Q2, leaving 2025's growth rate limping along at roughly 1.66 percent annually. "If anything, these numbers prove we're winning," explained one advisor who requested anonymity to speak freely about figures the public will never see. "That's why we can't show them to anyone."
The administration's innovative approach to economic transparency follows Trump's proven philosophy that problems cease to exist when you stop measuring them. Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the BLS commissioner's firing "the kind of thing you would only expect to see in a banana republic," though administration officials noted that banana republics typically have the decency to fabricate favorable data rather than simply hiding it altogether.
Vice President JD Vance, who voted to confirm McEntarfer in her bipartisan Senate confirmation, issued a statement through a spokesperson saying he "stands by the president's decision," demonstrating the kind of principled consistency voters have come to expect from the administration.
