Last year, as Joe Biden prepared to leave his successor a great American economy, Donald Trump tried to claim credit for robust growth. To hear the Republican tell it, investors and “job creators” were so excited about the mere possibility of Trump returning to power that their gleeful anticipation sent the economy soaring.
After Trump’s second inaugural, however, the U.S. economy struggled, at which point the Republican president changed his mind: The discouraging news, he said, was Biden’s fault.
In fact, in late April, the Commerce Department released GDP data that showed the U.S. economy shrinking in the first quarter of the year (January through March). One day later, Trump not only blamed his Democratic predecessor, he said that the public should probably get ready to blame Biden for the GDP in the second quarter (April through June), too.
At the time, the incumbent president feared that the economy would continue to struggle in the spring and early summer, so he wanted to lay the groundwork early to deflect responsibility. Exactly three months later, however, the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew in the second quarter, and wouldn’t you know it, Trump decided it didn’t have anything to do with Biden after all. CNBC reported:
The U.S. economy grew at a much stronger-than-expected pace in the second quarter, powered by a turnaround in the trade balance and renewed consumer strength, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Gross domestic product, a sum of goods and services activity across the sprawling U.S. economy, jumped 3% for the April through June period, according to figures adjusted for seasonality and inflation.
While the president was predictably eager to tout the data, the details and larger context matter. As The New York Times reported, the figures from both quarters were skewed “by big swings in trade and inventories caused by President Trump’s ever-shifting tariff policies.”
The Times added, “Taken as a whole, the data from the first six months of the year tell a more consistent story of anemic, though positive, economic growth.” A Reuters report came to a similar conclusion, noting that the data from the second quarter masked “underlying weakness” in the domestic economy, adding that the top-line figures “grossly overstated the economy’s health as declining imports accounted for the bulk of the improvement and domestic demand rose at its slowest pace” in two-and-a-half years. With this in mind, I expect to hear Trump trying to explain why he deserves credit for the headline on the new report showing economic growth, but Biden deserves blame for the relevant details in the same data.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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