The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ, CBS News or Paramount Global. 

President Donald Trump's recent firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after she revised employment figures for May and June sharply downward sparked a political uproar over the potential damage to the integrity of government data. But the fuss may have partially obscured the grim economic implications of the reported trends, said Massachusetts' senior Senator Elizabeth Warren in a WBZ-TV interview.

"The economy is in a lot shakier condition than the earlier numbers had reported," said Warren, who fixes blame on three major Trump administration policies. "Trump decided first of all just to cause tariff chaos, right? So tariffs are up, tariffs are down. And what that does is every employer in America who's in manufacturing, anything that might [involve] import or export, says 'I don't know what it's going to look like.' So they all hold back. They don't build new buildings, they don't hire, they don't buy new tools. And that starts to have an effect on the economy, as well as pushing prices up in areas where tariffs are beginning to bite."

Warren also cited the Elon Musk-led firing of thousands of federal workers and the termination of research grants as damaging to the economy. 

"And then they pass their signature piece, which is this bill to take away health care from 17 million Americans and drive up the cost of health care for others, so you can do tax breaks for a handful of billionaires. And I say all this because those three things together, any one of them would have created choppy water for the economy. The three of them together means it's serious wave action now."

Cape Cod bridges and Mass Pike project

Closer to home, we asked Warren about the future of two major local infrastructure projects - the replacement of the two aging bridges over the Cape Cod Canal, and the reconstruction of the Mass Pike extension in Allston - that rely heavily on federal funding.

On the Cape bridges, to which $1.72 billion in federal funds have been dedicated, Warren said the money is not legally subject to clawback by the administration, so "we're going full speed ahead, and that's exactly as it should be. On the other hand, the Trump administration in other areas has shown that it is perfectly willing to ignore the law and try to pull back research grants, try to pull back investments throughout the country."

And the situation with more than $327 million pledged for the Pike project that has now been pulled back by the feds is "bad," said Warren, who offered no hope of a reversal of the federal decision.

Warren also discussed her ability to deal with executive branch agencies on issues like Social Security services in the interview, which is the first of two parts with the senator. 

You can watch part one in the video above. Tune into WBZ-TV every Sunday morning at 8:30 for the weekend edition of Keller at Large.