Donald Trump, Jr. tried to depict the current economic climate as worse than the tail end of his father’s presidential administration, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
“I can’t think of a single metric where anyone is better off now than they were three years ago, even with COVID, frankly,” Trump, Jr. told a crowd Thursday in Iowa, a few days before that state holds its GOP caucuses.
Trump’s comment resembled those from not only his father, but Republican candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis—all of whom are arguing in one way or another that the economy has substantial problems.
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Among the positive economic indicators that Trump, Jr. didn’t mention was the unemployment rate, which sits at 3.7 percent. When Trump left office inIn January of 2021—three years ago—it was 6.4 percent.
Last year saw 2.7 million new jobs, which is smaller than the gains in 2022 and 2021, but still far outweighs the number during the job market contraction in 2020 due to COVID.
Also, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is just about at its highest point ever—a metric that Donald Trump, in his Fox News town hall on Wednesday, insisted was due to the performance of his campaign.
“I think the stock market’s going up because I’m leading Biden in the polls. Every poll. Every single poll,” he said, falsely.
“If I wasn’t leading, the stock market would be 25 percent lower,” added the man who was found to have illegally fudged the numbers in his real estate business.
Trump also said this week that he is actually hoping for an economic crash while Joe Biden is in office in order to boost his election chances.
