Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
In another context this would be considered an example of evasion, deflection and, well, bullsh*t, but this is simply indicative of the way Trump World tries to deny reality:
On January 2 The Washington Post ran a story titled “Trump says the job market is booming for US-born. The data doesn’t show it.”
Two key words there: “says” and “data.” One is a claim. The other is quantifiable.
So here are three paragraphs from the story by Lauren Kaori Gurley, paragraphs taken from the story as presented, not cherry-picked for some rhetorical advantage:
“In fact, data shows that US-born workers are doing moderately worse under Trump than they were under President Joe Biden because the labor market has weakened — partly due to a sharp slowdown in immigration.
“’The unemployment rate has been rising for both native-born and foreign-born adults,’ said Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Commerce Department economist.
“Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Washington Post that ‘mindless nitpicking doesn’t change the simple fact that President Trump has done more for American workers than any president in history by cracking down on visa program abuses, successfully negotiating new trade deals, securing our border, and carrying out the largest mass deportation of illegal aliens.’”
So let’s review:
The issue is jobs for US-born workers.
Kolko refers to jobs data. According to information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve Economic Data, the unemployment rate for US-born workers is 4.3%. It was 3.9% last year.
For foreign-born workers the unemployment rate is 4.4%. An 0.1% difference.
But what about Rogers? What is it she talks about? What is “nitpicking”? Citing data?
How is this “mindless,” when mindlessness would seem to be more along the lines of just saying stuff and hoping that some of it may be true?
How many US-born workers have been displaced by visa program abuses or have benefitted from “the largest mass deportation of illegal aliens”?
Why is there no substance behind these claims?
“Ah,” you might think, “the Post (or Macaulay) conveniently left them out.”
Yes, so Trump World would wish.
One of the things that the “trade deals” and the tariffs were supposed to achieve is an increase in manufacturing employment.
According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 73,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the US between November 2024 and November 2025.
No, these jobs weren’t loss en masse before Biden woke up and packed up. The largest percentage occurred after “Liberation Day.”
And let’s consider jobs across the board.
On December 4, 2025 global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that US-based employers announced 71,321 job cuts in November. That’s a 24% increase over the number of job cuts announced in November 2024.
Yes, job cuts.
If Trump World could get any solace in that number it is this: In October there were, Challenger, Gray & Christmas calculated, 153,074 who lost their jobs.
What’s more — and it is a lot more — the firm noted that through November, “employers have announced 1,170,821 job cuts, an increase of 54% from the 761,358 announced in the first 11 months of last year.” Yes, the last year of the Biden presidency.
That 1,170,821 is the highest number since 2020, when the number was 2,227,725, the last year of the first Trump presidency.
When Donald Trump talks about jobs, make sure your resume is up to date.
Listen to any spokesperson or Cabinet member or Congressperson answer a question related to something that Donald Trump has or hasn’t done and you’ll hear a full-throated encomium about the wonders that he has achieved. There will be little, if any, substance to back that up.
After all, that’s probably just nitpicking.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.