It doesn’t take much to get the rapid, anti-Trump media going these days, it could be something as simple as a short tweet anticipating the release of job numbers.
Which is precisely what happened Friday, with CNN leading the charge, reporting it was a “quite strange thing to see President Trump tweeting that he’s looking forward to seeing the employment numbers.”
“Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning,” Trump said in the early morning tweet.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1002510522032541701
No data was released in the tweet, no mention of numbers, just anticipation. And with that, the media was off and running.
Forget about trumped up charges of Russian collusion and obstruction of justice, news agencies declared President Trump had potentially violated federal guidelines barring government officials from commenting on sensitive economic data before its release.
From NBC News reporter Peter Alexander:
Another norm-breaking tweet: Trump sending a signal to the markets about the jobs numbers an hour before they are made public. https://t.co/urENVUo2G5
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) June 1, 2018
And Bloomberg’s Lisa Abranowicz.
This is…unusual. Trump tweeted about jobs day at 7:21am EST, suggesting he knew the numbers would be surprisingly good. https://t.co/k35UPSEPI6 That's how the market took it anyway, with U.S. yields taking a leg higher right after. Raises a lot of questions. pic.twitter.com/TcN9oLNYqU
— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 1, 2018
Don’t count out CNN political commentator Keith Boykin:
Why do we even have laws anymore when Trump routinely violates them & Congress refuses to hold him accountable? #JobsReport
"Employees of the Executive Branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time." https://t.co/gWRKTsqTkS https://t.co/TyJQdSfh7e
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 1, 2018
“[T]hey found the leaker,” tweeted MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber.
they found the leaker https://t.co/YRooBO81Si
— Ari Melber (@AriMelber) June 1, 2018
President Barack Obama’s former economic adviser Austan Goolsbee all but declared that Trump broke the law.
“If the president just tipped that the numbers are good, he broke the law,” he tweeted.
If the president just tipped that the numbers are good, he broke the law https://t.co/8MDJZAS22j
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) June 1, 2018
Goolsbee also pointed out the data is classified information — where the heck was Goolsbee during the Hillary Clinton email probe?
It’s classified information. The CEA gets the number the day before and even internally can only discuss the info on an encrypted line before release. https://t.co/ykiw5CM2nS
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) June 1, 2018
And on and on it went. You can expect wall-to-wall coverage on CNN all weekend long on how Trump broke federal guidelines.
As for the numbers, 223,000 jobs were added in May and unemployment dropped to 3.8 percent, according to the jobs report. That’s an increase over the number of jobs predicted and the left and their media allies must distract from all the damn good news.
Tony Fratto, a CNBC contributor who was an Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Treasury and served as White House deputy press secretary under President George W. Bush, had a different take on Trump’s tweet.
“I’m not aware of any statute that would prevent a POTUS from announcing the jobs #s himself if he wanted to,” Fratto tweeted. “But it’s obviously pretty bad practice to hint at the number. Market participants rely on consistent, predictable release of our data.”
I'm not aware of any statute that would prevent a POTUS from announcing the jobs #s himself if he wanted to. But it's obviously pretty bad practice to hint at the number. Market participants rely on consistent, predictable release of our data.
— Tony Fratto (@TonyFratto) June 1, 2018
Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne may have gotten it right when he jumped into the fray to suggest that Trump “is gaming” the mainstream media again.
The headline is Trump tweeted about the jobs report but very little about the jobs report…I think he's gaming them again. The mainstream media is always happy to have any reason to ignore good news and every time they do its speaks volumes…about them. #justsaying https://t.co/Ktg8mzVwb3
— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) June 1, 2018
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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