MSNBC hosts school President Trump's economic misinformation

Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle slam “nonsensical” and “disingenuous” talking points on GDP growth, stock market, and manufacturing

From the August 2 edition of MSNBC Live

Video file

ALI VELSHI (CO-HOST): President Trump mentioned that the Dow (Jones Industrial Average) is above 22,000. You see that in the bottom corner of your screen. We have never covered that before today until he tweeted the other day that the mainstream media doesn't cover the Dow -- I don't know what I've been doing for the last 22 years of my career. I never talked about the Dow.

STEPHANIE RUHLE (CO-HOST): So much sass.

VELSHI: So here's the thing. The immigration part, we are going to talk to Peter Alexander about that in a second. But that stuff that President Trump just came back to say, we need to put this to rest. He's been saying this all the time and if anyone who has anything to do with President Trump is watching please send him this message: This 2.6 percent economic growth, it is for one quarter, you can spike growth for a quarter all sorts of times. In fact, you know how many times during President Obama's eight years growth was 2.6 percent or higher? Fourteen quarters, 14 quarters.

RUHLE: One more time. Say it again.

VELSHI: Fourteen times during President Obama's administration growth was 2.6 percent or higher. Eight times it was 3 percent or higher. So Donald Trump just has to get off of this GDP kick. It is just nonsensical and it is disingenuous. I don't know how many different ways I can say this.

RUHLE: But more importantly, he needs to get off of it to save himself.

VELSHI: It is just not true.

RUHLE: If he puts himself in a situation -- if we budget the U.S., if Mick Mulvaney puts a budget in place assuming that we are going to face 3 percent GDP, we're not going to. That is a goal, not a baseline. And if you want to disappoint the American people, tell them they're going to get that, because, guess what? That's not real life.

VELSHI: We're going to talk about immigration in one second, but another point to make, he talked about, we're going to make more product in the United States. It is important to understand we have not stopped making product in 40 years. We have made more product almost every year, we are doing it with fewer workers. That is the legitimate problem and it is worth talking about. But we don't make more product. We make more stuff with less people. We have not suffered on that front. This Foxconn thing in Wisconsin, I don't know if any of you live in Pennsylvania, but you may remember that there was a promise to build a Foxconn plant in 2013 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Let somebody from Harrisburg tweet me and let me know how that factory is coming along. Foxconn doesn't keep its promises.

RUHLE: We should also point out that the Foxconn plant that is supposed to be built in Wisconsin. The tax breaks that go along with it, and guess what? Tax breaks--

VELSHI: $250,000 per employee, if they employ all those people.

RUHLE: Tax breaks are assumed. We know that in order for a company to break ground and do something like this, there has to be some level of tax incentives. The tax incentives that have been agreed upon for Foxconn far outweigh, outsize anything that has been done before in that state.

Previously:

An overwhelming majority of economists are predicting failure for Trump’s tax cut agenda

8 times media debunked Trump’s outrageous statements on the economy in 2016

370 economists debunk Trump's right-wing media myths on the economy