Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker both argued during Sunday interviews that former President Barack Obama deserves the credit for a good economy under President Donald Trump.
The U.S. Labor Department announced Wednesday that the unemployment rate had hit 3.6%, the lowest rate since 1969. The report did note that 490,000 people left the workforce, but the gain was due in part to an increase in hiring in professional and business services, along with construction and healthcare jobs. (RELATED: Jessie Jane: GDP Growth Shows The Trump Economy Is A Serious Problem For Democrats)
Despite those gains, the pair decided that the credit went to Obama, not Trump, for the dramatic gain in the nation’s economy, during interviews Sunday morning on “State of the Union with Jake Tapper.”
“You know what I’m thinking about? I’m thinking about when we were in that downturn and President Obama came into office and he had to deal with that with the Congress to try to, one, right the financial industry and, two, get us on the road to recovery,” Klobuchar asserted during the interview. “I remember that the Republicans were giving him grief when he took any credit for that. So I think that we have had policies in place starting with President Obama that have aided that recovery.”
Booker then added a similar statement in his interview: “First of all, I love that Trump is taking credit for a recovery that started under Obama.”
The New Jersey Democrat also said that Trump’s numbers on the economy don’t paint the full picture of the economy. “When we walk around my block, you ask people if the numbers that Donald Trump touts are really making a difference in their lives, you have people on my block and they’ll tell you, ‘I have to work two jobs just to try to keep myself in housing,'” he concluded.
The president talked up the economy during a rally in March, saying that the nation’s economy is currently “the best we’ve ever had.”
“What’s going on with General Motors? We have the best economy we’ve ever had, we have the lowest unemployment that we’ve had in 51 years, soon will be the record all time, and what’s going on with General Motors, get that plant open or sell it to somebody and they’ll open it.”