The gaslighting over at Trump-TV continues unabated. Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders made an appearance on Jesse Watters' show on Fox "News" this weekend and helped the host attack former President Obama for taking credit for the economy Trump inherited:
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said it's "laughable" that former President Barack Obama is trying to take credit for the booming economy.
During a speech at the North American Climate Summit in Chicago on Tuesday, Obama said “we saw the U.S. economy grow consistently” after he focused on clean energy and carbon pollution regulations.
“We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history by far,” Obama said. “A streak that still continues, by the way. ‘Thanks, Obama.’”
"I think it's laughable that President Obama thinks he has anything to do with the success of where the economy is right now," Sanders said on "Watters' World."
She pointed out that the U.S. gross domestic product growth rate has steadily gone up since Trump took office.
Jesse Watters noted that 228,000 jobs were added in November and unemployment is at a 17-year low.
"This is all a direct result not just of President Trump's swearing-in, but from the minute he was elected, consumer confidence got stronger, businesses wanted to participate in our economy again, because they have confidence in this president," Sanders said.
She added that Trump has also gotten rid of regulations, which has allowed for more job creation and economic growth.
"There's a reason that it continues to go up, and it started when President Trump was elected and when he got into office," Sanders said. "It had nothing to do with President Obama, and I think everybody knows it, including President Obama. And I think it's pretty laughable that he's trying to take credit for it."
As FiveThirtyEight reported earlier this year: The Trump Job Market Looks A Lot Like The Obama Job Market:
During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump and his supporters predicted an economic boom if he won the White House; his critics warned of a recession. Instead, nearly six months into Trump’s presidency, the U.S. economy is … fine. Consumers report being more confident, but their actual spending hasn’t accelerated. The stock market has surged, but key industries, including retailers and auto manufacturers, are struggling. Overall economic growth, sticking to its pattern of recent years, was slow early in the year but has picked up a bit more recently.
The latest jobs data, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, told a similar story. Employers added 222,000 jobs in June, more than in May and ahead of economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate ticked up but remained low at 4.4 percent. Average earnings rose a modest 4 cents an hour.
Overall, the June figures were improved from May, when decent headline numbers masked more troubling details. But neither month’s data did much to change the bigger picture: Years of steady job growth have succeeded in putting most Americans back to work after the Great Recession but haven’t yet translated into strong gains in workers’ paychecks. That was the overarching economic story under Barack Obama, and it remains the story under Trump.
It shouldn’t be too surprising that the economy hasn’t changed direction since the election. Presidents, despite their promises, have limited influence over the economy, especially in the short-term. And Trump, of course, has yet to enact the big policies on taxes, trade and other issues that are most likely to affect the economy, for good or ill. Read on...
How quickly would Trump be blaming Obama if the economy were not doing well? I think we all know the answer to that.
