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The propagandists at Fox News are trying to find ways to spin Friday’s excellent jobs report and economic news into an attack on President Joe Biden and Democrats. It’s not going well for them.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the July jobs numbers Friday morning as scheduled.
CNN called it a “massive jobs surprise.” Even CNBC’s conservative editor Rick Santelli, who sparked the Tea Party movement with an on-air rant, heralded the jobs report as “a whopper.”
Analysts overall expected the report to find about 258,000 new jobs created, but it was more than double that, with 528,000 new jobs. Unemployment dropped slightly to 3.5%, which is far below the 5% mark economists used to use as a marker of “full employment.”
READ MORE: ‘Ain’t No Recession’: Economists Praise ‘Huge’ Employment Numbers – ‘We’re Back, Baby’
Economists cheered the results, with even those often more pessimistic finding the jobs report excellent news. Overall, many made clear there is no recession, and predicted inflation will come under control as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, and as the price of gas has dropped tremendously, with some stations now selling at under $3.00 a gallon.
Meanwhile, Fox News decided to use the White House’s prediction that the jobs numbers would not be great against them.
The Daily Beast’s media reporter Justin Baragona posted a screenshot of Fox News’s chyron that blasts the White House for not getting the estimate right. A casual observer, say, in an airport, would likely assume the jobs report was bad and blame the Biden administration.
It reads: “WH Misses Forecast on Lower July Jobs Growth.”
lol
here’s how Fox News is currently covering the latest blockbuster jobs report — that the White House “misses forecast” because they anticipated it being lower pic.twitter.com/sngFes3UgX
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 5, 2022
Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld notes how Fox News Business’s Larry Kudlow, a former Trump top advisor, and former Trump advisor Kevin Hassett both predicted the jobs number would come in exactly the same as what the Biden White House predicted, and were preparing since Thursday for bad news:
This is from Fox Business yesterday: Former Trump economic advisers Larry Kudlow and Kevin Hassett dismissed Wall Street expectations of a 250K jobs report for July, insisting in this recession it would be “closer to 100 … way on the downside.”
Numbers just came out: 528K. pic.twitter.com/CH511twjYr
— Eric Kleefeld (@EricKleefeld) August 5, 2022
Similarly, Public Notice’s Aaron Rupar says Fox News is suggesting the jobs report is too good:
Fox News: is the jobs report too good? pic.twitter.com/Z9cxa7AMLT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2022
Attorney Brad Moss, a frequent social media commenter, observed: “Fox News is desperately trying to spin this blockbuster jobs report against Biden. If Trump was in office, they’d be running celebration videos complete with champagne.”
Just after 8:30 AM ET when the report was released “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade immediately mocked President Joe Biden as they shared the numbers.
Fox News Business’ Charles Payne was on set to discuss the report. Looking for the negative spin he announced that the jobs number was the best since March, adding the numbers had “been trending lower since March sequentially.”
Fox News on the massive jobs report: What about people who left the workforce after the pandemic? pic.twitter.com/EK9a01otvj
— John Whitehouse+ (@existentialfish) August 5, 2022
Begrudgingly admitting “it’s a really good number,” he pivoted to “participation” in the workforce. he called it “amazing that we have not gotten back up to the same level of participation” since before COVID.
But as CNBC reported: “private sector payrolls are now higher than the February 2020 level, just before the pandemic declaration.”
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