GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

New inflation figures show President Trump's tariffs are starting to have an impact on consumer prices.

Overall inflation held steady at 2.7 percent year over year, but so-called core inflation, which is closely watched by the Fed and does not include volatile food and energy prices, ticked up 3.1 percent.

That's the largest increase in five months.

AMNA NAWAZ: The report was the first from the Bureau of Labor Statistics since President Trump fired its commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, earlier this month, accusing her without evidence of rigging economic data.

That firing came just hours after the release of a weaker-than-expected jobs report.

Late yesterday, the president nominated her replacement, E.J.

Antoni, chief economist at The Heritage Foundation.

That's a conservative think tank.

For more now, we are joined by Michael Strain.

He's the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Michael, thanks for joining us.

Let's just start off with these new inflation numbers, overall inflation holding steady.

It was helped, we should note, by drops in gas and energy prices.

But the fact that core inflation did tick up, how do you look at that?

What's behind it?

And what does it say about the overall economy right now?

MICHAEL STRAIN, American Enterprise Institute: Thank you.

I think it's troubling.

As you say, we saw an increase in core inflation.

This has, I think, become a trend.

I think we can say that we are in an economy where underlying inflation seems to be accelerating.

Importantly, underlying inflation is accelerating from a level that's already too high.

So we have inflation that's well above the Fed's target and inflation that seems to be accelerating.

AMNA NAWAZ: And what's the role of the tariffs in all of this, especially given the sort of staggered rollout we have seen, the on-again/off-again nature of the president's tariffs policy?

Is that fueling some of that inflation here?

MICHAEL STRAIN: Yes, the tariffs are clearly playing a role.

And you can see that some of the goods that are most exposed to tariffs are showing pretty substantial increases in their prices.

I think the worst is yet to come when it comes to tariff-driven inflation.

I think, over the next few months, we're going to see more and more evidence of the tariffs showing up in inflation.

A lot of the inflation that we are seeing in the data is driven by underlying strength in the economy and not necessarily driven by the tariffs.

And so the worry is that we have both happening at the same time.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to ask you too about what we were just reported, how the president has now announced that E.J.

Antoni is going to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the previous head was fired.

We should note Mr. Antoni is someone that Steve Bannon had been pushing for, someone who said on Bannon's podcast that it should be a MAGA Republican that President Trump knows and trusts to lead the agency.

It now looks like he's tapped to do that.

He's also long criticized the BLS and the way that it does the work.

So what do you think about this choice to lead the agency?

Can you trust the numbers moving forward?

MICHAEL STRAIN: I think that we should absolutely go into this trusting the numbers.

I am extremely confident that the previous BLS commissioner, the previous head of the agency did not rig the data.

Part of my confidence comes from the fact that it's just really hard to rig the data.

And it will be hard to rig the data under the next BLS commissioner as well.

So we should have confidence in the data until there's a reason not to.

And that could come in the form of career staff raising alarm bells about things that are happening inside the agency.

It could come from evidence that the information the agency is putting out.

It doesn't match other data we have or isn't internally consistent.

So we should always be alert.

But I think our default assumption should be that the integrity of the data will remain.

AMNA NAWAZ: This is someone we should know, E.J.

Antoni, who in an interview earlier this month with FOX Business Digital suggested that BLS' monthly jobs methodology was flawed.

He went on to say this: "Until it's corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job report, but keep publishing the more accurate, the less timely quarterly data."

He said: "Major decision-makers from Wall Street to D.C. rely on the numbers,.

A lack of confidence in the data has far-reaching consequences."

Do you think -- Michael, do you think that's a good idea to suspend that monthly jobs report?

MICHAEL STRAIN: I think that would be a terrible idea.

And I hope that that was just a throwaway comment that Mr. Antoni gave in an interview and not something that he would attempt to pursue were he put -- were he made BLS commissioner.

I think it's something that senators in the confirmation process need to ask him.

And I think journalists should be asking him about his views on that as well.

And I'm hoping that it was just a one-off comment he made in an interview before he was nominated to this position.

AMNA NAWAZ: I have just got about 30 seconds left, but I need to ask you about President Trump's comments online today about the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell.

He once again demanded online that Powell lower interest rates and also seem to threaten him with legal action related to renovation costs at the Federal Reserve building.

How do you look at this, Michael?

Is this political interference or intimidation?

What's going on?

MICHAEL STRAIN: I think it's absolute political interference and intimidation.

It is a threat to the long-term prosperity of the economy to have the president involving himself in monetary policy in this way, to have the president bullying the Fed chairman.

I think Mr. Powell has displayed an enormous amount of integrity and has dealt with this bullying and harassment very well.

But what President Trump is doing is dangerous, and it should stop.

AMNA NAWAZ: Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, thank you for joining us.

MICHAEL STRAIN: Thank you.