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Trump Goon Admits He Might ‘Concoct’ Jobs Numbers

Kevin Hassett gave a shocking response when discussing the missing October jobs data.

The White House’s economic adviser revealed on Thursday that there will be no official unemployment rate for October due to the government shutdown but that the Trump administration might “concoct” some numbers.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox News that the government would release its employment report for October, but without the jobless rate.

“The household survey wasn’t conducted in October, so we’re gonna get half the unemployment report,” Hassett, 63, told America’s Newsroom. “We’ll maybe be able to concoct something, but we’ll never actually know for sure what the unemployment rate was in October.”

While some may have thought Hassett simply chose his words poorly, he used the same wording when speaking to reporters later on Thursday.

“I think we’ll be able to concoct the correct number after we look back, but we will never know what the unemployment rate was in October, because there wasn’t a household survey with that,” he said.

Hassett also said that September’s jobs numbers were “cooked”—meaning they were ready for release, but commenters were quick to note that “cooked” could mean “fabricated.”

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Hassett’s poor word choices did not go unnoticed.

“When it comes to the most trusted data source in the American economy, can we not use the verb ‘concoct’?,” posted Ian Mariani, the communications director for Senator Adam Schiff.

Hassett did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

In July, President Donald Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) chief Erika McEntarfer because he was unhappy with the jobs reports the agency put out. He did not commit to assuring the public that future jobs reports would be “credible” after the shocking firing. Trump also nominated and then withdrew E.J. Antoni as a potential replacement for McEntarfer.

The numbers haven’t improved since McEntarfer’s July departure. In August, the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3 percent, and the economy added only 22,000 jobs, well below the triple-digit increase forecasted by the White House.

Hassett’s comments came after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that October’s jobs report would likely never come out because the government shutdown forced the Bureau of Labor Statistics to “go dark” for the month.

“The October CPI and jobs reports are likely never being released, and all of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policymakers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period,” she told reporters.

POINTING FINGERS

White House Blames Dems Over Jobs Report ‘Never’ Coming Out

Julia Ornedo

Economists are not optimistic about how America’s jobs situation fared in October, even without a BLS jobs report. Goldman Sachs estimated the country lost 50,000 jobs. Economists told Dow Jones they expected the jobs report would have shown a decline of 60,000 jobs and an unemployment rate increase to 4.5 percent, up from 4.3 percent in August.

Hassett also told reporters that the Council of Economic Advisers estimated the 43-day shutdown, which ended on Wednesday night, cost the economy about $15 billion a week. That is set to hit annualized gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter by as much as 1.5 percentage points.

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Adam DownerBreaking News Reporter

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