Reviews of President Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, demonstrate that the liberal mainstream media won’t stop anytime soon in trying to contradict the White House on the booming economy.
CNN complained the pro-business “America First” address sounded more like a “Chamber of Commerce” speech.
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And, of course, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Kevin Liptak led with news about special counsel Robert Mueller rather than what Trump said in the Swiss Alps: “President Donald Trump on Friday pushed his ‘America First’ message abroad as news broke at home that he had tried to fire the special counsel investigating him.”
The Davos address simply flummoxed CNN’s on-air talent, who reported it “sound[ed] at moments like the president of a local chamber of commerce, Trump declar[ing] ‘there has never been a better time to do business in America.'”
Reuters also took the opportunity to note that U.S. economic growth did not hit 3 percent growth in the last three months of 2017, a goal Trump wanted. Federal officials reported Friday morning that the U.S. economy grew at 2.6 percent in the final quarter. The number will be revised at a later date, and historically it is not unusual for such figures to be raised once more data are available.
The Associated Press rushed to print with a “fact check” of Trump’s speech.
Related: Liberals Are Hyperventilating Over Trump’s Warm Reception in Davos
“An APFactCheck finds Trump overstated U.S. economic performance on several fronts during speech in Davos,” AP tweeted. The wire news service claimed Trump’s remark that the nation is “once again experiencing strong economic growth” was an “exaggeration.”
“The economy is doing better by some measures, but data released just as Trump finished speaking shows it hasn’t yet accelerated meaningfully since his inauguration,” AP wrote, citing the fourth-quarter GDP report coming in under 3 percent while playing down the booming stock market and confidence levels.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of Trump’s top accusers, said he was not impressed with the speech. Like CNN’s, Schiff’s tone was condescending even as he avoided dealing with the substance of Trump’s speech.
“Trump goes to Davos, having insulted many of the world leaders there, to tell them to put ‘America First,'” tweeted Schiff. “Apparently this is the difference between a really smart diplomatic strategy and one that is only ‘like, really smart.'”
Independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont did not directly criticize the speech, but used it to call for bigger social programs while deriding business leaders.
“While Donald Trump and the ‘masters of the universe’ assemble in Davos, the six richest people own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population — 3.7 billion people,” Sanders tweeted. “We need a global economy that works for all, not just multinational corporations and the very rich.”
But not everybody focused on negative tidbits in Trump’s speech or his remarks afterward.
Liberals and progressives also took delight in the fact Trump was booed in a question-and-answer session with forum founder Klaus Schwab. Trump couldn’t resist swiping at the U.S. and international media, which he believes are largely negative and biased against him.
Trump was booed when he suggested the cameras were being turned off as he criticized them once again. The moment was the only negative one of the event that otherwise saw Trump warmly greeted and applauded.
“Trump booed and laughed at in Davos for playing the fake news card,” Vice News wrote.
“Trump was booed at Davos for calling the media ‘fake’ & ‘vicious,” tweeted Scott Dworkin, founder of the Democratic Coalition and a frequent Trump critic on Twitter. “What a disgusting embarrassment he is for this country, he should resign.”
But not everybody focused on negative tidbits in Trump’s speech or his remarks afterward. Nigel Farage, founder of the United Kingdom Independence Party, tweeted that “Trump superb at Davos. If only we had a leader that could inspire confidence.”
PoliZette White House writer Jim Stinson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credits, homepage image: CNN headquarters in New York City, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Billy Hathorn)
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