Experts and pundits aren't buying former President Donald Trump's proof that he "crushes" Kamala Harris when it comes to creating manufacturing jobs.
The vice president has torn into Trump as "one of the biggest losers of manufacturing jobs in history" in her campaign statements. The Trump campaign hit back with an ad that purports to compare the record of the Trump administration with the Biden-Harris administration on manufacturing.
The online ad, titled "Trump CRUSHES Kamala on manufacturing job creation," shows a graph that says "MANUFACTURING JOBS CREATED IN FIRST 38 MONTHS IN OFFICE," asserting 184,000 manufacturing jobs created under "Harris" and 414,000 created under "Trump."
But right away, knowledgeable pundits and experts noticed something was off about this graph.
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"Huh, was not aware presidents only serve 38-month terms," wrote The Washington Post's Catherine Rampell.
A presidential term is four years, or 48 months.
But it was even more deceptive than that, noted former Biden administration economic adviser Brendan Duke. The graph was actually offsetting significantly higher job gains under the Biden administration by subtracting out job losses from the COVID pandemic between February 2020 and January 2021 — even though it was Trump who was president during that time.
"Aside from the 38-month thing, there's a whole other level of cherrypicking in this graphic," wrote Duke. "Over Harris's first 38 months, 769k manufacturing jobs were created. The 184k number is based on Feb 2024 relative to *Feb 2020* to avoid giving credit to Harris for 'COVID bounce back.'"
"Upgrading this chart crime to a chart felony," Rampell wrote in response.
The former president has run in part on a pledge to shift U.S. economic policy, although for months now most major economic indicators have already been bullish. His proposal to replace most of the federal tax code with broad-based tariffs on nearly all foreign-produced consumer goods has drawn sharp criticism from most economists, who warn it will contract the economy and raise consumer prices.
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