Speaker 1: I have incredible economic data to start today with. And I tell you,
these jobs numbers, not because they are the proof that everything Joe Biden has done has been
correct. These numbers are not proof that Biden has fixed the systemic and structural issues with
our economy, which include inequality and so many other things which we talk about all the time. I
give you these numbers so that you understand that by the same metrics that Republicans use
to judge their presidents, the economy is doing fine. And now fine doesn't mean there will never
be a recession. Fine doesn't mean some people are unemployed. Fine means there is no great alarm
sounding of an imminent Biden induced recession. Let's first talk about the data. 497,000
jobs added in June. You might say, well, I don't know, 300, but 4335 million people in the United
States is 497,000 new jobs in June. Remarkable. It's remarkable in the sense that the estimate
was that there would only be 220,000 jobs added in June. And the real number, 497,000 is more
than double that. More than double that. This is also significantly more than the 267,000 jobs
that were added in May. The leading industries were leisure and hospitality. Some say leisure.
I know people who say leisure and hospitality. Either way, these are jobs paid in U.S. dollars,
no matter what pronunciation you use. 232,000 of that for 97 was leisure and hospitality,
nearly 100,000 jobs in construction, trade, transportation and utilities at 90,000. Also
interesting when it comes to construction, this is an industry that when you talk to two random
people who were supporters of MAGA in Trump's first term, they would say construction is booming
under Trump. And we really think construction is an important leading economic indicator. When
you see more construction jobs, you know that in the future, if it's commercial offices that are
being built, those will eventually be filled with tenants. So that's a leading indicator for a good
economy when you're talking about houses, single family homes and condos. When you see construction
jobs, it means single family houses and condos are being built. And thus eventually when those are
those are built, they will sell and you will have people buying them. These are leading indicators,
they said under Trump, we are seeing construction jobs growing significantly. So what is the
takeaway here? The takeaway is not one about we now have a perfect economy. We've solved
every problem we've ever had when it comes to wages and employment and all of these different
things. The point here is that the right wing media and politicians are trying to spread a
false narrative. That narrative is that the Biden economy is terrible and it's because of Joe Biden
and it is Joe Biden's policies that have hurt the American people. And it's increasingly difficult
to do this. We played a clip for you a few shows ago of Larry Kudlow, a former Trump economic
adviser appearing on Fox News and being asked by the Fox host. Listen. The setup was something like
go check it out for the exact wording, but it was something like we see all of these economic
indicators. They look so good. But explain like, why is the economy actually not so good? And Larry
Kudlow was unable to do so. He said something about AI and technology. It was pathetic. He
failed to make that case. And so what Republicans in the right have been relegated to is cherry
picking data, ignoring context, distorting facts, ignoring history to try to undermine what is a
very solid economy that happens to be taking place when Joe Biden is president and is doing some good
things. It's really important to remember, you know, if you watch shows that play politics with
this economic data, you can go and find them. I don't know which they are. I certainly don't
watch them. But you can go and find those shows. When we talk about economic data and we talk
about economies in general, I try to be crystal clear with you that most of what we see is not
directly related to what the president does. For example, inflation is coming down in just about
every Western, wealthy, industrialized nation, whatever term you want to use, what we call the
OECD countries, inflation has been coming down in all of those countries. So it's not because of
Biden that inflation is coming down, but inflation has been coming down slightly faster in the United
States than in some of those other countries. And we can certainly point to some Biden policies
like the Inflation Reduction Act, which are influencing that inflation would be coming down
anyway. But we can argue that the Biden policy, Biden nomics is helping that along. Similarly
job creation. We are seeing job creation in many Western OECD countries. But we can say that what
Joe Biden has done is making that job creation a little more robust than if we had, for example,
Trump policy in place. It's also really important to remember when we look at the economy that
economies don't perfectly overlap in terms of their movements with presidential terms. It is
true that if you look back at the last hundred years or hundred and 20 years, it is true that
we tend to see higher job creation when there's a Democrat in the White House. We tend to see better
stock market performance when a Democrat is in the White House. We see lower unemployment when
a Democrat is in the White House. We see lower inflation when a Democrat is in the White House.
We see higher GDP when a Democrat is in the White House. These are averages, but it is not perfect.
It is not perfectly aligned. And so we had Joe Biden coming in during the COVID 19 recovery.
We had the American rescue plan put in place. All of these different things and the timing of these
economic movements will not perfectly align. For example, we started to see gas prices go up at
the end of Trump's term. They continued going up during Joe Biden. Then they started coming down.
Is one or the other specifically to blame for those movements? No. And so those are the types
of political games I try to avoid playing with you. The other thing is it's important
to look more broadly at some of the other macroeconomic things that are going on. And again,
these are going on globally. The gloomy picture that the right is trying to paint of the American
economy not only has to be done by removing all context from the United States economy,
but it also has to be done by ignoring broadly what is happening again in the western, wealthy,
industrialized OECD countries. They are all doing relatively well, and that makes it even harder to
believe. Data aside, right, if you ignore the data that says things are looking okay, it's
harder to believe that things are uniquely bad in the U.S. when we see a generally positive trend in
most of these Western economies. So we're going to continue following these numbers. The bottom line
is this is not a terrible economy. It's a pretty good economy. It's interesting that Joe Biden has
been able to actually get done as much as he has given the level of opposition that Republicans
have put forward. And I would actually go further. The economy would likely be even better were it
not for the obstruction of Republicans, many of whom voted against the things that Joe Biden
tried to do and has been able to do. But now what credit for them, as we talked about last week.