His crowing on new jobs rings hollow
Previously, Trump had personally asked Bharara to stay on the job. acknowledges FBI is investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia and knocks down Trump tweets that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Trump takes to Twitter to repeat baseless claim that the Obama administration had illegally surveilled his campaign. Assad regime mounted chemical attack. Trump tells Xi of the strikes over dessert. Trump hosts a downsized annual Easter Egg Roll. Melania Trump appears to remind the President to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem. PRESIDENT TRUMP has eagerly claimed credit for the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs since he took office. But in nearly all of the cases, the companies in question would have made those hires anyway.
While the economy added about 317,000 jobs in February and March, according to Labor Department statistics, many of the companies laid the groundwork for their hiring plans months, and sometimes years, earlier.
On Feb. 8, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced his company would invest $7 billion in a new Arizona facility, creating 10,000 new jobs. Krzanich made the announcement at the White House, giving the appearance that Trump was integrally involved. Trump even said during the announcement that Intel was moving “ahead with a new plant … that it was probably never going to move ahead with” if it weren’t for him.
But while Krzanich said the plan was put in motion “in support of the tax and regulatory policies that we see the administration pushing forward,” his company had actually announced a similar $5 billion investment in the same facility with former President Barack Obama in 2011, which helped kick off construction on the new factory.
On March 6, ExxonMobil announced it would invest $20 billion in its U.S. Gulf Coast operations, a move the oil giant said was expected to create 47,000 American jobs.
The White House quickly took credit, even issuing a press release claiming the energy giant made the move “because of our policies and the policies of this new administration.”
In reality, the investment was part of a much broader Exxon corporate effort called “Growing the Gulf,” which started back in 2013 and is slated to run through 2022.
Later in March, GM announced it would bring back 900 jobs to Michigan over the next year, prompting Trump to say at a Detroit event that the jobs “would’ve been heading down big league if I didn’t get elected.” A GM spokesperson, however, told CNN the move was simply a result of a “strong economy with a strong manufacturing sector.”
Ford announced March 28 that it would invest $1.2 billion across two plants and a data center in Michigan, prompting Trump to tweet a message giving the impression he was to thank.
“Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!” he tweeted. But the investment was agreed to in 2015, as part of a labor deal between Ford and the United Auto Workers Union.