President Trump, who loves training with the press, asked no questions.
That was a clear sign that he wanted the message of the day to laser-focus on the economy, without the distractions of journalists asking about Russian rewards or other controversies.
The economic news was so good yesterday, and much better than expected, that the President would have been guilty of political malpractice had he not gone out to brag about it. And if the encouraging numbers help your campaign and hurt Joe Biden, so be it. This is great news for the country, and Democrats should not fall into the trap of encouraging calamity to push their candidate forward.
PARTIDANS SPLIT ON DEEPENED VIRUSES AS REPUBLIC PUSH TRUMP IN MASKS
The economy added 4.8 million jobs in June, a positive fact that cut the unemployment rate from just over 13% to 11.1%. (Another 1.4 million filed new unemployment claims).
It is “spectacular news,” Trump said at a briefing called the White House, the largest monthly job increase in US history. The economy is “booming” and “the stock market is skyrocketing.” Then there was a riff on how no other president could have done this, and a not-so-veiled shot at Biden.
“If you want to raise taxes, your 401Ks will drop to nothing and your stock market will drop to nothing,” Trump said with extreme hyperbole.
Undoubtedly, the American economy has been in a very deep hole, caused by the coronavirus-inspired shutdown. The nearly 5 million jobs that were obtained are but a foretaste of the more than 40 million that were lost when the pandemic occurred.
And there’s another set of numbers in the headlines: the more than 52,000 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday that broke the daily record for the fifth time in just over a week.
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The New York Times headline is like a split-screen moment: “The United States added 4.8 million jobs in June, but a wave of viruses is looming.”
And that’s the question: how much is looming, and could it spear nails under the road of the recovery car?
After all, among the worst-hit states, California has ordered restaurants, bars, and shops to shut down all indoor activities before the holiday weekend. Arizona has asked the federal government for 500 health care workers. In Florida, Miami’s beaches have been closed and Jacksonville (RNC convention site) has ordered masks indoors. In Texas, the overwhelmed hospitals in Houston are transferring patients to other regions. All of this will probably make recovery difficult.
Trump hasn’t wanted to talk a lot about Covid-19 lately, he didn’t attend last week’s working group briefing, the first in two months, but he didn’t have much choice in yesterday’s briefing.
He said the “incredible news” is the product of his efforts, with Congress, “to rescue the American economy from a horrible event that took place in China and came here. And they could have stopped it. They could have stopped it. No one likes to write that, but they could have stopped it. “
The president also referred to the outbreaks as “temporary hot spots” and said that without it “millions of lives would have been lost.”
In an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, Trump said: “I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think, at some point, that will go away, I hope.
The language of “disappear” allowed numerous cable programs to replay a series of clips, dating back to February, in which Trump either rejected the virus as a major threat or predicted its disappearance.
In cold political terms, the president wanted to project an optimistic message, shining a spotlight on the increase in jobs and pushing the virus into the shadows. But the two are inextricably linked.
