The White House announced on Tuesday that it has withdrawn its nomination of E.J. Antoni, a conservative economist, who was set to become the new commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The White House looks forward to nominating a new candidate to lead the BLS very soon,” a White House official told NBC News.

Antoni was nominated in August after President Donald Trump fired the previous BLS chief, Erika McEntarfer, in the wake of a poor jobs report.

A significant report highlighted that the U.S. had gained merely 73,000 jobs in July, alongside substantial revisions of figures from previous months. The job growth for May had been adjusted downwards from an initial 144,000 to a minuscule 19,000, and June’s figures had been revised from 147,000 to merely 14,000.

Trump said, without evidence, that the June jobs report was “rigged in order to make the Republicans, and me, look bad.”

Trump made a statement saying, “I have just been told that our nation’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by Dr. Erika McEntarfer, a Biden Appointee and Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who allegedly manipulated the Jobs Numbers before the Election to improve Kamala’s odds of winning.”

The president said that Antoni would “ensure that the numbers released are honest and accurate.”

In response to McEntarfer’s dismissal, several former commissioners of the Bureau of Labor Statistics clarified that the head of labor statistics is not involved in the monthly jobs data compilation and is only informed of the report shortly before its publication.

A contributor to Project 2025, Antoni was backed by Steve Bannon for the post. Antoni has been a skeptic of the data that BLS produces.

As the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Antoni had authored several articles that praised the Trump administration’s strategies and policies.

Questions regarding Antoni’s nomination arose after the White House revealed he had been a “bystander” at the Capitol during the events on January 6, 2021.

An interview he gave to FOX Business Network on Aug. 4, before his nomination, also drew the attention of businesses and the markets. Antoni said that the agency should suspend issuing the monthly job report, instead publishing quarterly data until the reports are more “accurate.”

The White House later said it remained “the plan” to keep publishing the monthly jobs numbers on time.

The data that the bureau produces is considered the gold standard around the world and is massively important to businesses, policymakers and government agencies. Without it, the true condition of the U.S. economy might be harder to determine.

Due to the scale of the U.S. economy and response rates to BLS surveys, there can often be lags in data collection. But that lag does not imply any wrongdoing or manipulation.

Antoni did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said, “Dr. E.J. Antoni continues to be one of the sharpest economic minds in the country. E.J.’s immense capabilities and insightful economic analysis have not changed—and we are very proud to have him on our team.”

Roberts said Antoni “will keep calling for” reform at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.