Trump claims Obama was causing economic ‘depression’ in misleading Twitter rant
President's claims defy all sorts of facts and figures showing an economy on the rise since Barack Obama's tenure in the White House
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Your support makes all the difference.Despite inheriting an economy on the rise upon assuming the White House, Donald Trump has continued to lambast his predecessor’s administration for supposedly leading the US into a decline with “job killing regulations and roadblocks”.
“We have a great economy DESPITE the Obama Administration and all of its job killing Regulations and Roadblocks,” the president wrote in a Saturday morning tweet. “If that thinking prevailed in the 2016 Election, the US would be in a Depression right now!”
“We were heading down,” he added, “and don’t let the Democrats sound bites fool you!”
More than 11 million jobs were created under Barack Obama, who was sworn into the Oval Office as the nation’s unemployment rate continued to soar and an economic recession was looming. While stocks have steadily risen since March 2009, the deficit to GDP ratio significantly dropped over the course of his eight-year tenure.
And yet Mr Trump has continued to claim the US economy was in a state of chaos in 2016, before his administration “accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions" – the president said last year.
Mr Trump has frequently taken credit for national employment figures throughout his presidency, despite further analysis revealing much of those gains were made under Mr Obama.
“This president since he took office created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed when forced to respond to accusations of racism levelled against the president.
“After eight years of President Obama in office, he only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans,” she continued. “President Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years.”
It was later clarified in multiple reports citing data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics that the majority of job growth for black Americans since the Great Recession had actually occurred under Mr Obama, a trend that has continued under Mr Trump.
The Saturday morning tweet was one of several the president posted to his personal Twitter account. Mr Trump also slammed Democratic lawmakers over televised Congressional hearings on Friday, in which he claimed the party acted “vicious and totally showed their cards for everyone to see”.
He added, “When the Republicans had the Majority they never acted with such hatred and scorn!”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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