Trump’s trade adviser spars with CNN anchor over who’s responsible for the economic boom

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro during an appearance on CNN Tuesday said that the economy was “horrible” under the Obama administration, prompting pushback from the network’s anchor Poppy Harlow.

Harlow highlighted Department of Labor statistics showing Obama averaging 227,000 jobs created per month during his last 35 months in office versus Trump’s average of 191,000 jobs per month during his first 35 months in office.

.@PoppyHarlowCNN after President Trump accused Obama of trying to “take credit” for the economy: “It’s a great economy now. All I’m asking you is, wasn’t it a good economy then as well?”

WH trade adviser Peter Navarro: “No…It was a horrible economy during the Obama years.” pic.twitter.com/A6LutR01P4

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) February 18, 2020

“Don’t both presidents deserve credit for good economies?” Harlow asked Navarro.

“If you lived through the Obama years … [people] remember what it is was like,” Navarro said. “What President Obama did was double the debt from 10 trillion to 20 trillion dollars … swell the balance sheet of the Fed, and tried to use Keynesian tools to pump up an economy.”

Navarro said Trump’s solution is solving structural problems, such as offshoring jobs, high regulation and high taxes.

“He fixed those structural problems that have set off the economic boom we’re in right now … back in the Obama-Biden years, it was horrible,” he said.

“Peter, I’m sorry, I can’t,” Harlow replied, going on to reference statistics from BOL showing that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 4 percent to reach its highest peak of 5.5 percent in 2014 under the Obama administration.

“We have not seen growth above 4 percent on a quarterly basis under President Trump,” Harlow said.

Navarro argued that Trump’s economic plan was hindered by the Democratic-controlled House during the creation of the last budget deal, leading to unintended expenditures for the administration.

“The economy is doing great; we’ve got a great economic plan to do it [and] if we get back the House of Representatives we’ll have a lot better fiscal situation than we do now,” Navarro said. “The bond market doesn’t seem to be worried about the prospect of a large fiscal deficit, which I think is supportive of President Trump’s economic policies … that our country will grow faster because of the Trump policies.”