MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Tuesday credited former President Obama for the current strength of the economy, arguing that “Barack Obama’s economy was much stronger than Donald Trump’s economy.”
The opinion from the former GOP congressman and co-host of “Morning Joe” comes as both Obama and Trump have taken credit for an economy that includes the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, rising wages and a soaring stock market.
“Eleven years later, the unemployment rate is down, the stock market is up and President Trump is raging on Twitter. He’s not happy,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said, referring to the 11 years that have elapsed since the end of the Great Recession.
“Here are the facts,” Scarborough added. “We’ve had 11 years of uninterrupted economic growth. It started with the majority through the Obama administration, and if you just take the three years that Donald Trump has been in office, you take that time period and you compare it to Barack Obama’s final three years, by just about every measure, Barack Obama’s economy was much stronger than Donald Trump’s economy.”
“What’s fascinating is,” he added, “the media runs around all the time, and they’ve been doing it for years … parroting what Donald Trump says about how great the economy has been. Yes, this is a recovery that began 11 years ago.”
A recent Gallup poll found that more than 6 in 10 Americans said they are better off now than they were three years ago. Thirty-six percent said they are definitely not better off than they were when Trump took office, while just 3 percent said their economic situation was the same.
At the same point in the Obama presidency, 45 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted at the time said they were better off than they were three years earlier.
The more recent Gallup poll, released Thursday, found that 62 percent of respondents said Trump should get credit for improving the economy, while 51 percent believe Obama deserves a fair amount of credit.
On Monday, Obama marked the 11th anniversary of his signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which played a key role in mitigating the effects of the Great Recession.
“Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history,” he tweeted to his 113 million followers.
Trump responded later in a series of tweets.
“He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing. NOW, best jobs numbers ever,” Trump wrote. “Had to rebuild our military, which was totally depleted. Fed Rate UP, taxes and regulations WAY DOWN.”