President Trump and Republicans are heading into the final weekend of the midterm campaign buoyed by another strong economic report Friday, showing that employers created 250,000 jobs in October.
“These are incredible numbers. Keep it going, Vote Republican!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter Friday.
The president noted that the strong performance came despite a hurricane that devastated the Florida panhandle and caused damage in Georgia and the Carolinas.
In an interview with The Washington Times Thursday, Mr. Trump also pointed to wage growth of 3.1 percent in the past 12 months.
“That’s a big stat,” the president said. “People have gone 19 years without a pay increase. Not only that, they’re able to go out and get jobs that they like. They have options now.”
Referring to Democrats’ talk of impeaching him if they win the House majority next week, the president said, “They can only impeach me for having a great economy. I can’t imagine that. When was the last time someone was impeached for creating the greatest economy in the history of our country?”
He added, “The only thing I’ve done wrong is create the greatest economy in the history of our country.”
Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the October jobs report “was a big positive surprise for us” after the devastation of Hurricane Michael.
“We were expecting a number that was way, way below this,” he told reporters. “Job growth has been so broad that no industries lost jobs over the month.”
Mr. Hassett said he was especially glad to see that capital spending by companies grew in October by “a whopping 5.2 percent.”
He called the strong economy and low jobless rate of 3.7 percent “a story that we’ll continue to talk about.” In 2018, employers are creating an average of 218,000 jobs per month.
The president told The Times that the economy is “the real deal.”
“It’s a far better economy now, and it’s not based on zero interest anymore,” Mr. Trump said. “The Obama economy was based on zero interest. The other economy was ’funny money.’ This one is the real deal.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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