Washington, DC – The United States economy under the presidency of Donald Trump continued to thrive in April, with the unemployment rate dropping to 3.6 percent—the lowest unemployment rate since December 1969, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) household survey. Statistically, April also marked the 14th consecutive month of the unemployment rate being at or below 4 percent.
The White House in a statement noted that the rapidly growing economy continued to benefit a wide range of demographic groups. The White House also noted:
The unemployment rate for adult women (20+) reached 3.1 percent in April, its lowest rate since 1953. The unemployment rate for Hispanics fell to 4.2 percent—the lowest rate since the series began in 1973. The unemployment rate for individuals with only a high school degree fell to 3.5 percent—matching the lowest rate since 2000. The unemployment rate for those with a disability fell to 6.3 percent in April—the lowest rate since the series began in 2008. Additionally, the unemployment rate for veterans fell to 2.3 percent—the lowest rate since the series began in 2000.
The booming economy is just one but very essential segment of the Trump presidency.
The political turmoil, as reported by most leading deep pockets media is on whatever Trump did or does. The twist on different cable channels is amazingly a wide spectrum – some which are praised by Trump in his tweets while most are dumped as Fake News.
One point which doesn’t stand the test of time is lack of interaction with the media. We don’t have daily press briefings in the claustrophobic small Brady Press Briefing room, but we see President Trump stopping at every available opportunity to address the gathered media colleagues.
Kellyanne Conway has emerged as a parallel spokesperson for the president and can be seen at press points around the White House. The overall canvas of exchanges between the White House media and President Trump and his proxies is widening and is not concentrated in the daily press briefings which hardly ever happen anyway.
The much-awaited report by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation was “unable” to conclude that obstruction of justice occurred or that there was criminal collusion. Compare that to months of speculative reporting among cable-news pundits during Mueller’s long investigation.
Even the redacted version of the report, when released, failed to establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller’s findings also did not exonerate or implicate Trump on obstruction of justice charges.
“With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” Mueller wrote.
With the House under Democratic Party control, the members have the option to act on Mueller’s non-conclusion on obstruction. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Democrat Jerry Nadler from New York seized on the opportunity and issued a subpoena for the special counsel’s unredacted report.
With Congress taking its course on the Mueller report, the question arises: Are the cable-news pundits feeling frustrated that their long diatribe against Trump and umpteen decibels of airtime fell flat on the driveway of the White House?
President Trump put it in perspective tweeting: “The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to stir up and anger the pols and as many people as possible seldom mentioning the fact that the Mueller Report had as its principle conclusion the fact that there was NO COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA. The Russia Hoax is dead!.”
“The end result of the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history is No Collusion with Russia (and No Obstruction). Pretty Amazing!” Trump said in a subsequent tweet.
Time for media to start showing some real news both domestically and from an international perspective. One gets only anti-Trump news and most of the time, speculative with spin on-air when tuning to the US national cable channels except a few while the small TV outlets across the US are more adept at covering news-worthy subjects.
The elected President Trump for now, is going nowhere, and let’s concentrate on news instead of mud-slinging along the way to 2020.
Tejinder Singh, Editor, India America Today & White House Correspondent