White House: Sorry Not Sorry For Fake Job Numbers

The Washington Post reports:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologized late Tuesday for wrongly stating that President Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as President Barack Obama did. At a news conference Tuesday, Sanders said Obama created 195,000 jobs for African Americans during his eight years in office.

“When President Obama left after eight years in office — eight years in office — he had only created 195,000 jobs for African Americans,” Sanders told reporters. “President Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years.”

Sanders’s statement was false. According to official statistics, black employment in the United States increased by nearly 3 million jobs from January 2009 through January 2017. From January 2017 through July of this year, black employment has increased by about 700,000 jobs.

Correction from today’s briefing: Jobs numbers for Pres Trump and Pres Obama were correct, but the time frame for Pres Obama wasn’t. I’m sorry for the mistake, but no apologies for the 700,000 jobs for African Americans created under President Trump https://t.co/EXGvbliwlS

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) August 15, 2018

“I’ve never heard him use that term or anything similar” but “I can’t guarantee” that President Trump hasn’t used the n-word, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says pic.twitter.com/nyBWLCeCgj

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 14, 2018