Trump's economic victory lap is full of embellishments and exaggerations
The United States economy posted strong growth in the second quarter of the year. Gross domestic product grew at 4.1 percent — its best pace in about four years — and consumer spending, business investments, and exports saw a boost. The numbers are good, and still, some figures within President Donald Trump’s orbit, including the president himself, feel the need to make exaggerations about them.
Trump on Friday touted the Commerce Department’s numbers in an event on the South Lawn of the White House. “We’ve turned it all around,” he said. “Once again, we are the economic envy of the entire world.”
Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, spoke after him. “This is a boom that will be sustainable,” he said. “Frankly, as far as the eye can see, this is not a one-shot effort.”
Trump and Kudlow were right to tout the second-quarter economic numbers — they’re really good. But Trump and others quickly evolved into exaggerations, embellishments, and making promises that perhaps can’t be kept.
Some people (read: Donald Trump Jr.) are just straight lying about it
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, took to Twitter to boast about the GDP numbers on Friday. He claimed Obama “never broke” 2 percent GDP growth. That just isn’t true.
GDP growth hit or surpassed 2 percent on a quarterly basis across more than a dozen quarters under President Barack Obama, and it surpassed 3 percent eight times. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump points out, quarterly GDP growth has exceeded 5.1 percent in 37 months since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, including four times under Obama.
Journalist John Hardwood noted on Twitter that 4.1 growth under Trump in the second quarter of this year would rank as the fifth strongest of the Obama presidency. The best quarter for Obama was in 2014, when in the second three months of the year the economy grew at 5.1 percent.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/factcheck/trumps-economic-victory-lap-is-full-of-embellishments-and-exaggerations/ar-BBLdKnv?li=BBnbcA1
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