Trump claimed in a series of lies at the former president’s Wisconsin rally that he gave Biden the current economy, which was a complete lie.
Trump said, “Joe Biden inherited the fastest, strongest economic recovery in history, and I gave him
The greatest economic recovery in history, it’s called the rebound, and we’re ready. We have the greatest economy in the history of the world. COVID came and we did an unbelievable job and when we finished, we gave him the greatest rebound ever. Guess what, he blew it to smithereens and that’s where we are now.
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Trump tried to take credit for Biden’s economy, saying, “Joe Biden inherited the fastest, strongest economic recovery in history; I gave him the greatest economic recovery in history; that’s called the rebound, and we’ve Ready. pic.twitter.com/4JdkShCKWW
— Sarah Rhys-Jones (@PoliticusSarah) June 18, 2024
Trump is trying to steal credit for Biden’s economy, but here are the facts from FactCheck.org:
There were 142 million U.S. jobs employed in December, 3 million fewer than when Donald Trump took office and 9.8 million fewer than the pre-recession peak in February.
The unemployment rate was 6.7% last month, well above the historical norm of 5.6%, which is the median unemployment rate for all months since 1948.
Even before the recession, economic growth was relatively modest—real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product grew 2.2% in 2019, down from 3.0% the year before, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This year was the best year of the Trump administration.
But last year’s GDP was almost certainly negative, wiping out all or almost all of last year’s growth.
Federal Reserve members and the Fed president believe that the economy will shrink in 2020. The median forecast they released on December 16 was a decline of 2.4% from 2019, with a forecast range of -1.0% to -3.3%. A Wall Street Journal survey of more than 60 private sector economists this month showed the average decline in 2020 was 2.5%.
Trump leaves Biden with a country still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, while the economy has slowed and headed toward recession. In short, Trump has left Biden with a dumpster fire. The Biden administration turned the economy around, and now Donald Trump is back with the expectation that he should take credit for fixing a problem that he badly screwed up.
Donald Trump did the same thing in 2016, when he tried to take credit for former President Obama’s achievements.
Trump cannot campaign on his own real record, so he must campaign on the achievements of others.
Biden needs to own and tell his economic story before Donald Trump can claim it as his own.
