On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned the White House Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn about their claims of a great jobs report when Trump called those numbers "phony" throughout the campaign.
The shamelessness with which the Trump administration lies and obfuscates is unconscionable and frankly, unreal.
During the 2016 presidential campaign Trump said, "Don't believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 percent and 5 percent unemployment. The number is probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently, 42 percent."
Wallace points out to Cohn, "So, if that's true, why should we believe these numbers? And the fact is, didn't you inherit an economy that has been for the last 18 months somewhere between 4.6 percent and 5 percent unemployment?"
Cohn had no real explanation as to why America should believe these numbers now even though they've always been true and since he had no real facts or data to say why they are true now, Cohen used the Kellyanne Conway trick of subterfuge through a barrage of meaningless talking points.
Cohn said, "Chris, look, the economy continues to grow and we’re doing our part. We are doing more than our part to have the economy grow."
But didn't Trump say that the economy was horrible, the jobs reports were all phony and he inherited a complete mess from Obama?
Cohn played the confidence fairy card and said, "I’m sure you've noticed all of the CEOs that have been into the White House recently and all the announcements that the CEOs have made, including last week, when Exxon was in and talk about a multiple billions, tens of billions of dollar investment in the Gulf of Mexico where they’re going to create 45,000 new jobs."
He continued, "We’ve had many other CEO announcements in the White House, and all of them have said to the president, when they talked to the president, we are creating these jobs because you, Mr. President, and your policies."
Trump hasn't put any policies in place yet so how did he create any new jobs at all? Oh, right, his presence drove the unemployment rate down from 42% to 4.6% in less than sixty days.
My bad.
Throughout President Obama's entire presidency, the conservative media, CNBC, Fox Business and Republican economists followed Mitch McConnell's lead and always attacked the jobs report when they showed the country made great gains in employment or in the stock market and created the narrative that the reports weren't real.
Trump and his campaign pounced on that during the campaign, with Trump constantly calling the jobs report numbers phony, especially when they said America had a 4.7 unemployment rate.
And then on Friday, WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer made believe the same jobs report that the Obama administration used was now completely accurate and Trump was responsible for the low unemployment numbers.
After Spicer made those amazing remarks, a journalist called him out for now claiming the jobs report numbers were suddenly legitimate and he shockingly responded, "I talked to the president prior to this and he said to quote them very clearly. 'They may have been phony in the past but they're very real now."
That got a laugh out of the press gaggle, but it's another despicable lie told by the Trump camp.
