By Steve Benen
{MSNBC Online} – On “60 Minutes” the other day, Donald Trump eventually took a break from talking about himself and offered some praise for his new running mate. “Unemployment? What a great job he did,” Trump said of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R).
Trump made a similar comment during his VP announcement speech on Saturday: “Indiana, their unemployment rate has fallen, when he was there, when he started, 8.4% when he was governor, when he took over, to less than 5% in May of 2016.”
The problem with this rhetoric, of course, is that by Trump’s reasoning, President Obama has also done “a great job” with the U.S. economy – which saw the unemployment rate reach 10% during the Great Recession, only to fall below 5%.
In fact, while Indiana’s economy has done very well in the Obama era, the unemployment rate in the Hoosier State is actually slightly higher, not lower, than the national average. If Pence has done a great job producing economic results, by Trump’s own reasoning, it’s hard not to consider Obama an amazing success.
Of course, it’s not just Indiana. Politico’s Michael Grunwald reported today that tonight’s Republican National Convention theme is “Make America Work Again” – a curious choice in a country with 4.9% unemployment – but as he found talking to delegates in Cleveland, convention attendees think the economy in their area is actually terrific. READ MORE OF THIS REPORT
