The president is determined to prop up his public image, and concurrently, to prop up the public image of his administration, no matter the cost. If his determination to get a “good” word for himself out there was actually matched by policy moves for the betterment of the so-called “forgotten” Americans, that would be one thing, but lo and behold, it’s not.
On Saturday, the president took yet again to Twitter to tout a positive economic indicator as supposed evidence of the success of his administration. Yet again, the president ignored history and precedent in so doing, acting as though all of the indicators began to improve when he took office and not a moment before.
Writing on Twitter Saturday morning, the president made the simple observation:
‘Jobless claims have dropped to a 45 year low!’
Reuters reports that the president is, in essence correct, with the labor market having tightened to the point of unemployment claims falling to a seasonally adjusted level of about 221,000 for the week that ended February 3. The outlet adds that unemployment claims “fell to 216,000 in mid-January, which was the lowest level since January 1973.”
The concurrent measurement of employment levels — the unemployment rate — also remains at a stunning low, although again, this rate didn’t get to its low point on its own. It began its decline under the Obama administration.
Trump ignores these facts while making his own claims about the economy. His contribution has been to cast the economy even more in corporations’ favor, possibly prompting overheating at some point in the new future, with businesses outpacing consumers with their production.
Saturday morning, he wasn’t finished ranting on Twitter, going on to speak to the Democratic “countermemo” which he recently blocked from being released, claiming it needed to be further pared down.
The “countermemo” was in response to the recently released so-called Nunes memo, produced by controversial House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and alleging abuses of surveillance power on the part of the nation’s justice system perpetrated against the Trump team.
These supposed abuses of power have been undercut by repeated claims from Democrats and the FBI that the memo does not tell the full story.
These claims have not stopped the Trump team from claiming vindication in any and all matters related to the Russia investigation, although the supposedly corrupt surveillance isn’t the only reason that investigation ever kicked off.
The Nunes memo was originally classified and had to, after being voted to be declassified by House Intel members, be approved by the president.
The Democrats’ countermemo has to go through a similar process, and few were likely truly surprised when the president chose to block that memo’s release.
Commenting on his decision on Twitter this Saturday, the president said:
‘The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency. Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!’
To be clear, the “long” memo is reported to have been about ten pages. By comparison, the Nunes memo was about four pages.
Check out Twitter’s response to the president below.
Featured Image via MANDEL NGAN/ AFP/Getty Images
