Here we go with the nitwit-ness. It’s a bad idea, and we’ll get to why, but just because he can, President Trump on Friday broke with decades of protocol and commented publicly about the highly anticipated jobs report data 69 minutes before they were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Treasury yields moved sharply higher within seconds of a tweet from Trump that said he was “looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.” He had never issued such a tweet before. Bloomberg News data also showed that the value of the U.S. dollar moved sharply higher after the Twitter post compared with previous trades the mornings jobs data are released. That means traders were probably making investment decisions based on signals they took from Trump’s post.
Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018
Here’s more from the Washington Post:
One hour and nine minutes later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 223,000 jobs were created in May, beating expectations, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent.
White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said on CNBC on Friday morning that he briefed Trump on the details of the report Thursday evening, calling him on Air Force One. That means Trump had detailed knowledge of the specifics of the jobs report, knowing that it would be strong and better than expected.
The jobs data come out once a month and often can lead to massive buying or selling trends on Wall Street, depending on how the information is received. It is extremely closely held and kept under tight control until it is released at 8:30 a.m. on the first Friday of each month. A select number of administration officials receive the data the day before, but officials are prohibited from tipping their hand about what the numbers reveal.
“He chose to tweet,” Kudlow said, downplaying the matter. “You can read into that 10 different things if you want to read into it.”
Kudlow said of the way he personally handled it, giving it to Trump the evening before, “by law and custom, that is correct.”
But it led to an outcry from Democrats and Republicans, particularly veterans of past White House teams, who said the restrictions in place are meant to both prevent the politicization of these reports and leaks of market-moving information. Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary to President George W. Bush, said of Trump’s post: “This certainly was a no-no. The advance info is sacrosanct – not to be shared.”
Get the rest of this report at Washington Post.
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