MSNBC fact-checked a Trump supporter live on-air Saturday as he tried to credit the current president with low African American unemployment.
In a discussion with MSNBC’s Alex Witt, Pastor Darrell Scott applauded Donald Trump for the low jobless rate for African Americans.
Witt and the crew at MSNBC plastered a handy graph on-screen as Scott spoke, showing that black unemployment has been falling since 2010. It underscored just how effective the former president was in turning the economy around.
MSNBC Makes Live Fact-Check As Trump Backer Credits POTUS With Low Black Unemployment pic.twitter.com/D69q6ehO8V
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— Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) February 24, 2018
The discussion between Alex Witt and Pastor Darrell Scott:
SCOTT: It is the lowest black unemployment in history right now. If it was on another president’s watch they would take credit for it as well. I see nothing wrong with this president taking credit for it. It’s not disingenuous, it’s a reality. Let me tell you something. We have more jobs in certain areas right now than we have people to fill them. I know people — there’s a company that came to me and said I have 2,000 jobs to fill, can you help me fill them? So jobs are there. They’re available to be had, more so than at any other time in recent American history. If I were the president, I would take credit for it too.
WITT: You know, that’s the way politics works, the president takes credit for this particular moment. But he has never given credit to the fact that President Obama, his predecessor, took black employment from a high of around 16 percent down to these lows that President Trump inherited.
Trump is now taking credit for an economy he campaigned against
For months, Donald Trump campaigned against the U.S. economy. At campaign rallies, he repeatedly talked it down and told his supporters that the country’s finances were a mess. Only he could fix things, he claimed.
But for just over a year, the president has accomplished very little. With complete control of Congress, he has only been able to ram through one substantial piece of legislation – a tax cut for the wealthy.
Ultimately, the economy has remained just as strong as former President Obama left it. The only difference today is the tone of Trump and his allies in right-wing media. The same Obama economy they attacked before Jan. 20, 2017 is now being praised with Trump in the White House.
Luckily, there is such a thing as facts. They matter. No matter how hard this president and his supporters try, they can’t escape them.
Barack Obama did the hard work of transforming a collapsing economy into a strong one. Trump does not get credit for that.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
