In between sending out furious tweets denouncing Robert Mueller, Black athletes and his own attorney general, Donald Trump took time out from his “working vacation” last week to make a bold prediction to 30 business executives meeting at his New Jersey golf club. Soon, he said, U.S. gross domestic product — which has been growing at an average annual rate of between 2 and 3 percent — will be “in the fives.”
The boast came more than a week after the U.S. Commerce Department estimated that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of this year from April through June. But GDP could “go much higher once we get new trade deals,” Trump said.
Trump’s rosy prediction also came on the heels of two consecutive monthly reports putting the unemployment rate at the lowest level since the early 2000s.
With the economy seemingly doing so well, how is it that Trump’s approval rating — locked in a tight band around 40 percent virtually since his inauguration — doesn’t seem to reflect this? Most presidents with the top-line economic numbers that Trump has touted — unemployment down, stock market up, economic growth picking up — would be banking majority support. Why not Trump?
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