CNN data analyst Harry Enten raked President Donald Trump over the coals on Friday following the dismal new jobs report, taking the president to task for taking every possible opportunity to blame someone else for his woes while pushing ahead with aggressive tariffs and other policies the business world warns are constraining growth.
"Let's dig into those numbers a little bit, take a closer look at what the jobs report tells us," said anchor Erica Hill. "So, Harry, first of all, give me the big takeaways, my friend."
"Well, I think one of the big takeaways, at least according to the Trump administration, is the buck stops way, way over there whenever there's bad news. It's not their fault. It's somebody else's fault!" said Enten, roasting Trump. "But when you take a look at what we're seeing here, I mean, here's the big takeaway. It's not just the 22,000 jobs that are added in August. It's just been a very weak four months, 79,000 jobs in July. You know, we mentioned the downward number that we saw in June, losing 13,000 jobs, and then 19,000 jobs added in May."
Previously, the president responded to the weak numbers in July by firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief, causing a massive outcry among experts who fear a chilling effect on honest statistics-gathering by the federal government.
"I went back through the record books," Enten continued. "The last time there were four months, at least four months in a row where you had less than 100,000 jobs gained in each of those months, you got to go all the way back to 2010, back when I was in college, back during the Great Recession. You know, that's a long time ago. So it's not just this month, it's the last four months. It's an ugly duckling, Erica."
"It certainly is," said Hill. "And how does this compare to President Trump's first term, Harry?"
"So, you know, they were blaming the Biden administration, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you couldn't expect a change," said Enten. "But let's compare Trump versus Trump, okay. Median monthly jobs added during Trump so far during the second term, you got 91,000 jobs dating back since January. In his first term, look at this, it was more than double that number, more than 200,000 in the median month added. So Trump is doing, get this, get this, he's adding less than 100,000 jobs this month. He was adding two during this term. During the first term, over 200,000 jobs. So less than half the level that we're talking about."
"So versus himself, he's doing horribly," Enten added.
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