Trump Doesn’t Think Jobs Numbers Are Fake Now That They’re HIS (VIDEOS, TWEETS)

By
Darrell Lucus
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Donald Trump spent most of Friday beating his chest and yelling to the heavens over news that the economy added 235,000 jobs in February. This is a remarkable turnabout from the presidential campaign, when Trump routinely accused the government of ginning up the monthly employment numbers to make President Obama look better. Well, even though these figures are coming from the very same sources, Trump now thinks those figures are just peachy.

At Friday’s press briefing, CNBC’s Eamon Javers asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer about Trump’s change of heart. Watch here, via PBS NewsHour.

Javers asked Spicer if Trump really believed the jobs report was accurate, given Trump’s claims on the trail that the unemployment rate was as high as 42 percent. Spicer’s reply has to be reproduced in full to be believed.

“I talked to the president prior to this, and he told me to quote him very clearly. They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”

That got a lot of laughs from the assembled press corps. But others see it as yet another con from the Con Man-in-Chief. Among them is CNN political director David Chalian. On CNN’s “At This Hour,” Chalian all but accused Trump of deliberately lying to the American people. Watch here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz8dBXKiTf0

Chalian said that Trump had just done “the most traditional politician thing you can do”–say one thing when an event goes your way, and say something different when it’s not going your way. So a guy who ran on a promise to drain the swamp just did something that many of those swamp creatures do all the time–as Chalian put it, the thing that “most people don’t like” about elected officials. As far as Chalian was concerned, the nation had just witnessed “a total admission of blatant hypocrisy.”

If the reaction from Twitter is any indication, many people are saying the same thing.

https://twitter.com/DonaldJOrwell/status/840296140041990144

https://twitter.com/DavidWFPF/status/840290257178251264

Mediaite’s Jon Levine couldn’t believe that the press corps let Spicer get away with this. He believed that it amounted to “a stunning normalization and acceptance” of the lying and dissembling that has become SOP for this administration. He warned that the press is in danger of becoming “fake news” if they make a habit of this.

Last month, Andrew Sullivan mused that Trump’s blatant lying is a sign that he isn’t willing to accept reality. This latest episode should put it beyond any doubt–we have a president who thinks he can decide what the truth is. To put it mildly, that’s extremely dangerous.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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