Morning Joe’s local economist admitted that Donald Trump was right about Democrat Joe Biden’s border policy failures.
Regular contributor Steve Rattner, 72, made the comments to host Jonathan Lemire as Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski continued their vacation.
The economist opened with a positive assessment of the US economy – before going on to admit that “the border wasn’t Biden’s finest moment,” and that Trump “was right” about his own presidential successes in stopping illegal border crossings.
Lemire then suggested that Trump’s successes on the economy could be attributed to his predecessor, Barack Obama, before claiming the same thing would happen again as the conservative regains power.
As they spoke, a series of charts were presented on the screen, billed as a ‘Year in the Charts’. Compiled by Rattner himself, they contained data that allegedly defined the year 2024.
On the right were several related to the economy, most of which showed growth, apart from one that charted inflation. At the center, there were several addressing border crossings — and how they have increased since Biden took office.
After waxing poetic for several minutes about Biden’s contributions to the U.S. economy, the two took it upon themselves to tackle the unflattering numbers in front of them, flanked by charts showing financial growth and increased use of AI.
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Morning Joe’s Steve Rattner appeared to downplay the effects of Joe Biden’s policies on the border on Thursday — before conceding that Donald Trump was right about the failures on that front
The economist made the comments to guest host Jonathan Lemire as Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski continued their vacation
“Trump is not wrong when we talk about the fairly low number of border crossings,” Rattner said, pointing to a graph showing monthly encounters at the border during both terms.
“When he left office, they were about 74,000 a month,” he continued, pointing to a spike seen in January.
‘They did indeed skyrocket. Some of it was some of the things that Biden said and some of the ways that they put a moratorium on things like deportations,” the longtime journalist, who is also an investor, explained.
‘But in fact we almost reached 300,000 per month. But what people may not fully know is that border crossings have almost returned to levels seen under Trump.
“The number is currently around 100,000,” he continued, glancing at the more than threefold increase under Biden.
“So we went up the hill and we went down the hill. But unfortunately that cost Biden quite a lot of money during the elections.’
The rest of the conversations largely revolved around what the pair painted as a fascist regime that would replace the Biden administration in just over two weeks.
None of the presenters – nor any of the other guests – talked more about the increase in border crossings, not to mention inflation, under the outgoing Biden.
The economist opened by admitting, “The border wasn’t Biden’s finest moment,” after airing a positive review of the U.S. economy. Border crossings skyrocketed after Biden took office
Lemire then suggested that Trump’s successes on the economy could be attributed to his predecessor, Barack Obama, before claiming the same thing would happen again as the conservative retakes the Oval Office.
As they spoke, a series of charts were presented on the screen, billed as a ‘Year in the Charts’. Compiled by Rattner himself, they contained data that allegedly defined 2024. On the right were several related to the economy, most of which showed growth.
Instead, they pointed to statistics surrounding the S&P 500, which is up nearly 100 percent over the past five years.
The two also dished on the country’s GDP under Biden — up more than 2 percent — prompting Rattner to once again admit, “Both Trump and Biden had fairly stable GDP.” During Trump’s first term in office, the measure rose by a more pronounced 3 percent.
“Trump, of course, had COVID,” he admitted, discussing how Trump was tasked in early 2020 with handling the first nine months of the crisis before leaving office.
“But Biden is leading Trump with a really strong economy,” he continued, after it was revealed in October that the US economy has grown 12.6 percent since Biden was sworn into office.
“Even if you exclude the effects of COVID, Biden’s performance on GDP was really quite strong, with growth above 2 percent,” he pointed out. ‘Go in with the wind at your back.
“Also on jobs, Biden has really created a tremendous amount of jobs,” he added, now pointing to another positive graph.
“He created more than seven million jobs during his time in office, about 165,000 per month. More than Trump actually, even before COVID hurt him.”
Before the pandemic, U.S. GDP, the broadest measure of the country’s economic growth, grew at a staggering 33.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter — most of which was wiped out by the declines that came with the crisis accompanied.
In the middle were several addressing border crossings — and how they have increased since Biden took office. On the other hand, there were graphs showing a recent increase in innovations in AI. Finally, Rattner started explaining the unflattering figures in the middle
He said, “Trump is not wrong when we talk about the fact that border crossings were quite low,” before pointing to more failures by the outgoing president. Pictured is an immigrant group trying to cross the Texas border at Eagle Pass in February
None of the presenters — nor any of the other guests — talked more about the increase in border crossings, not to mention inflation, under the outgoing Biden, who recently took credit for a continuation of more than 10 percent of a historic comeback after the pandemic, started by Trump
The economic comeback was almost double the previous record set seventy years ago, after World War II.
In October, Biden claimed a continuation of this trend by more than 10 percent, as the country continues to recover.
Within weeks, Kamala Harris would lose to Trump by a landslide – thanks in part to a resounding increase in the number of Latino voters choosing the former president
He emphatically defeated Harris after being supported by 46 percent of the population – the most of any Republican in modern history.
That contrasted with his meager share of the demographic he saw during his loss to Joe Biden: just 32 percent.
Factors like inflation – and policies around the border – are believed to be to blame, several experts have since said.