We had a great jobs report yesterday. In May, 223,000 jobs were created, black unemployment reached historic lows, and overall unemployment dropped to 3.8 percent. President Trump tweeted he was looking forward to the numbers. Well, this triggered the news media, calling the announcement unprecedented and possibly illegal. Yeah, you read that right.
Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018
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
Trump's jobs-report tweet broke a protocol designed to prevent giving early hints to investors https://t.co/vLR7LELRXl
— Jim Puzzanghera (@JimPuzzanghera) June 1, 2018
Trump breaks protocol, sends markets a clear signal on jobs report before numbers are released https://t.co/nMM8xhxGEf
— Robert Costa (@costareports) June 1, 2018
Unprecedented? Uh, didn’t then-President Obama do this multiple times? Yes, he did—and it wasn’t rosy news either. It was warning about job losses. Hey, I mean, CNN’s John King dared us to look back and find a time when a president had done this. So, enter February of 2009, where Obama said pain was going to be in the next jobs report. That pain was more job losses on top of the 2.6 million we had lost due to the 2008 financial crisis. In March of 2009, then-Press Secretary Bob Gibbs also alluded that the jobs report wasn’t going to be good (via The American Presidency Project):
MR. GIBBS: Is the President concerned about the economy? Yes. Do we have meetings and discussions on the economy? Yes. Are we focused on getting it turned around, putting people back to work? Yes.
Q: On that point, do you expect any more bad numbers with the jobs report tomorrow?
MR. GIBBS: I don't expect good news. I assume that's part of what the market sees today. But I think the American people understand, as I've said, the decisions that got us to the point -- got us to the point that we're in now didn't happen all at once, they didn't happen overnight, that it's going to take quite some time for us to move forward, and that the only way that we're going to do that is to create jobs and to invest in many of the things that have long been ignored. That's what the President outlined in his speech to Congress -- not just a short-term plan to get the economy moving again that Congress passed, not just a foreclosure plan to stop the spread of home foreclosures, or a plan to stabilize our financial system -- but to invest in many of the long-term things that we need for sustained economic growth.
And there you have it: classic liberal media bias. When a Democratic administration says the jobs report is going to be total garbage, it’s just another news story. When a Republican does it, it’s time to wheel in another special counsel to see if laws were broken for this unprecedented act. The media’s past love affair with Obama was on display.