Tag: Teasing

President Donald Trump moved markets and busted norms on Friday morning with a tweet about the May employment report more than an hour before the numbers came out. “Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning,” the president tweeted at 7:21 a.m. And the numbers were in fact quite good, showing a better than expected gain of 223,000 jobs and a dip in unemployment to 3.8 percent, the lowest level since April of 2000, sending Dow futures higher. Former Obama administration officials pounced on Trump’s tweet even before the public got to see the numbers, saying it violated rules banning federal employees with access to the jobs data from saying anything at all about it until 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. “There were times when there was a good number and they wanted to send the president out to talk about it, but Air Force One was scheduled to leave at 9:15 a.m. and we would tell them to delay the flight until after 9:30 a.m.” Furman suggested Trump should no longer get the numbers in advance. “I’d suggest that CEA no longer give the president the number. And if they do give it to him and he says anything about it at all before release, they should share all the data with everyone immediately.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNBC that Trump was in fact briefed on the jobs report Thursday night and the tweet was appropriate because he did not put the numbers out early. Larry Kudlow, chair of the National Economic Council, told CNBC he got the numbers Thursday evening and called Trump on Air Force One to share them. I think this is all according to routine.” But even short of offering the actual numbers, the mere fact that Trump would say he was “looking forward” to the release suggested to traders that the figures would be good. “If the president just tipped that the numbers are good, he broke the law,” former Obama CEA Chair Austan Goolsbee tweeted on Friday morning. The White House’s CEA receives the jobs data from BLS around 1 p.m. on Thursday before the official release.