Updated September 19, 2025 at 16:45 PM ET
The Trump administration has put in place a new acting director of the U.S. Census Bureau, NPR has learned.
George Cook, an official at the Commerce Department, was named the bureau's leader as of Wednesday, according to three bureau employees who received a staff announcement Friday and asked NPR not to name them because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
The press office for the bureau redirected NPR's inquiry to the Commerce Department, which, along with the White House, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cook becomes the latest Trump administration official to have multiple jobs, as he is also serving as the Commerce Department's acting undersecretary for economic affairs — a position that oversees the bureau — and as chief of staff to that role, according to copies of the Friday email announcement obtained by NPR.
Cook's new position at the federal government's largest statistical agency comes after President Trump made a controversial call for a "new" census that would, for the first time in U.S. history, exclude residents without legal status. The 14th Amendment requires the "whole number of persons in each state" to be counted in the census apportionment numbers used when redistributing states' congressional seats and Electoral College votes, and legal experts say a new tally before the 2030 census would require Congress to authorize and fund one.
Trump's census call came in the middle of a multi-state congressional redistricting battle that he sparked while preparations for the country's 2030 head count are already underway.
In January, the bureau's previous director — Robert Santos, a nominee of former President Joe Biden — decided to cut short his five-year term. So far, Trump has yet to announce a pick for a permanent, Senate-confirmed replacement.
Federal law requires the agency's permanent director to "have a demonstrated ability in managing large organizations and experience in the collection, analysis, and use of statistical data."
The Friday email received by the bureau's staff noted Cook's work as "an institutional investor and economic analyst."
The email also said that the bureau's previous acting director — Ron Jarmin, a longtime career civil servant — is stepping down to return to his role as deputy director.
It's a move that "raises alarm bells" for Terri Ann Lowenthal, a census consultant who once served as staff director of the former House oversight subcommittee on the census.
"The appointment of someone serving as the chief of staff — who is necessarily and understandably a political loyalist — as the director of the largest statistical agency, without the necessary qualifications the law requires, is extremely worrisome," Lowenthal says. "The usual process would be to keep the career acting director in place until the administration identifies an individual qualified to be the permanent director."
During the final months of counting for the 2020 census, the first Trump administration installed multiple political appointees with no obvious qualifications at the bureau's top ranks.
In addition to the once-a-decade census results that determine political representation and guide trillions in federal funding across the country, the bureau produces much of the country's public data on the U.S. economy and population.
As the Trump administration has pushed to slash the federal government, the bureau has seen a wave of departures by career civil servants that has raised concerns about the agency's ability to produce reliable statistics. Trump's firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner following the release of a weaker-than-expected jobs report has also sparked alarm about political interference with key federal data.
Copyright 2025 NPR
