From CNBC:
I really believe it," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "We're saying 3 (percent) but I say 4 over the next few years. And I say there's no reason we shouldn't be able to get at some point into the future to 5 and above.
Here is a graphical depiction of Trump’s 4% forecast (teal), as compared against the January 2017 CBO projection (red), WSJ April survey (blue), and a time series model.
Figure 1: GDP (black), WSJ April survey mean (blue), CBO January projection (red), ARIMA(1,1,1) estimated from 1986 onward (purple), and Trump 4% growth rate (teal), all in billions Ch.2009%, SAAR. Plotted on log scale. Source: BEA 2017Q1 advance release, WSJ, CBO Budget and Economic Outlook (January 2017), and author’s calculations.
Note that a 4% growth rate collides with current estimates of potential, or “full employment” GDP; by the 3rd quarter of 2017, the economy would be above estimated potential, if 4% growth were to apply in 2017Q2 and onward.
Figure 2: GDP (black), WSJ April survey mean (blue), CBO estimate of potential GDP (gray), and Trump 4% growth rate (teal)), all in billions Ch.2009%, SAAR. Plotted on log scale. Source: BEA 2017Q1 advance release, WSJ, CBO Budget and Economic Outlook (January 2017), and author’s calculations.
A short term boom of 4% growth is possible, in the short term (say quarter or two), given a sufficiently reckless expansionary fiscal policy, but a more durable one will encounter one of two obstacles: a Fed operating on something like a Taylor rule, or barring that, a long run aggregate supply curve that is vertical (the short run might be kinked as well, so that the boom would be even more short-lived).
Now, it’s certainly possible that CBO’s estimate of potential GDP is way too low. Or that potential GDP growth will accelerate rapidly with Trumponomics. The following graph should dispell notions of 3-4% sustained growth:
Figure 3: Contributions to annual growth in potential GDP growth, from labor force augmentation (blue bar), and from labor productivity growth (orange bar). DJT’s target of 3.5-4% shown as pink range. Source: CBO, Budget and Economic Outlook, January 2017, Table 2-3; and Trump-Pence website
I attended a conference recently, where I met an eminent fellow macroeconomist, whose first sentence out of his mouth (after a greeting) was the question: “Is Trump delusional?” If Mr. Trump really believes sustained 5% is possible, a reasonable person would answer that question with a “yes”.
I think, the Trump Administration will do everything it can to unleash private sector growth, along with expanding fiscal policy.
UCLA Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy falls short of true recovery
June 05, 2013
“U.S. real GDP is now 15.4 percent below the normal 3 percent trend. To get back to that 3 percent trend, we would need 4 percent growth for 15 years, 5 percent growth for eight years, or 6 percent growth for five years, not the disappointing twos and threes we have been racking up recently, which are moving us farther from trend, not closer to it. It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.”
PeakTrader: So let me get you on the record: you believe 4% sustained real GDP growth is plausible, and will happen during the Trump Administration.
Menzie Chinn, there’s a lot more optimism, because Trump won. If it materializes, I expect stronger real growth, at least 3% on average, which would be a big improvement.
how big of a deficit are you going to run to achieve this? i know for the past 8 years, conservatives demanded that we reduce the deficit so we could get “growth”-and helped to produce your so called “depression”. are we still going to reduce the deficit, or now that obama is out of office, are you willing to deficit spend again?
I’ve explained before how to promote growth and reduce budget deficits.
And, not all fiscal policy is the same. How much to the national debt did we add for an average of 2% real growth over this “recovery?”
peak, you have avoided the question. now that republican’s are in office, it appears you are inclined to say budget deficits are fine to achieve growth. or are you still against having a budget deficit to produce your growth?
PeakTrader Menzie didn’t ask about 3% growth, he asked if you were on record as believing sustained 4% growth was plausible. There’s a YUUUUGE difference between 3% and 4%.
The President and Congress can control short run growth (assuming an accommodative FED), but those tools work on the AD side. Since the economy is already very close to full employment, it’s hard to see how additional fiscal stimulus gets you to even short-run 4% growth, never mind sustained 4% growth. In order to get to 4% sustained economic growth you have to work on the AS side, and quite frankly no one has a deep understanding of how to push out potential GDP. I suggest you go see Deitrich Vollrath’s lucid explanation as to why it takes a very long time (at least a full generation) for supply side efficiencies to show up as increased growth rates. Demographics do not support higher GDP growth rates. Productivity gains from the Solow residual have been flat for a decade, with no sign of picking up. Growing income inequality is another headwind against higher GDP growth rates. Bottom line: Trump will be very lucky to get 2.5% growth even if we manage to avoid another recession…which I think is highly unlikely.
2slugbaits, 4% growth is not sustainable in the long run. However, 3% long run growth is sustainable. The U.S. economy has more productive capacity – idle and underemployed labor and capital – than some believe.
Krugman’s article is relevant. Also, we need more business start-ups and expansions:
Profits Without Production
Paul Krugman
June 20, 2013
“Economies do change over time, and sometimes in fundamental ways.
“…the growing importance of monopoly rents: profits that don’t represent returns on investment, but instead reflect the value of market dominance.
…consider the differences between the iconic companies of two different eras: General Motors in the 1950s and 1960s, and Apple today.
G.M. in its heyday had a lot of market power. Nonetheless, the company’s value came largely from its productive capacity: it owned hundreds of factories and employed around 1 percent of the total nonfarm work force.
Apple, by contrast…employs less than 0.05 percent of our workers. To some extent, that’s because it has outsourced almost all its production overseas. But the truth is that the Chinese aren’t making that much money from Apple sales either. To a large extent, the price you pay for an iWhatever is disconnected from the cost of producing the gadget. Apple simply charges what the traffic will bear, and given the strength of its market position, the traffic will bear a lot.
…the economy is affected…when profits increasingly reflect market power rather than production.
Since around 2000, the big story has been one of a sharp shift in the distribution of income away from wages in general, and toward profits. But here’s the puzzle: Since profits are high while borrowing costs are low, why aren’t we seeing a boom in business investment?
Well, there’s no puzzle here if rising profits reflect rents, not returns on investment. A monopolist can, after all, be highly profitable yet see no good reason to expand its productive capacity.
And Apple again provides a case in point: It is hugely profitable, yet it’s sitting on a giant pile of cash, which it evidently sees no need to reinvest in its business.
Or to put it differently, rising monopoly rents can and arguably have had the effect of simultaneously depressing both wages and the perceived return on investment.
If household income and hence household spending is held down because labor gets an ever-smaller share of national income, while corporations, despite soaring profits, have little incentive to invest, you have a recipe for persistently depressed demand. I don’t think this is the only reason our recovery has been so weak — but it’s probably a contributory factor.”
Hmm, well, allowing the most powerful corporations to become more powerful doesn’t get much growth.
Running fiscally conservative government spending won’t get much growth in the best circumstances. That seems to be the current theme in Congress. (Thanks heritage foundation)
What now?
Deregulate intellectual property. I know, nobody likes that idea because the people/corps behind Congress lobbying love their barriers to competition.
PeakTrader: “there’s a lot more optimism, because Trump won. If it materializes, I expect stronger real growth, at least 3% on average, which would be a big improvement.”
So the confidence fairy to the rescue? I can only assume that the tooth fairy in your childhood was unusually generous which has warped your adult suspension of disbelief.
Economies are made up of people, not tooth fairies.
And, there’s a huge difference between faith (I.e., “I believe”) and fact.
Does that mean you believe in tooth fairies?
I have more faith in people.
and the tooth fairy
Trump is following very closely the models followed by Reagan and Bush.
Their policies did not generate a strong upsurge in potential GDP. Most of Reagan’s strong growth was just recovering from the severe recession at the start of his administration and if you look at employment over his full eight years he came in in the middle of the post war presidents while Bush came in with the worse employment record of any modern president. JFK-Johnston, Carter and Clinton all had stronger employment growth than Reagan.
What do they call it when you keep doing the same thing and expect different results?
You ignore so much. Reagan had the longest peacetime expansion, up to that time, won the Cold War, and set the stage for the 1982-00 economic boom, including the peace dividend of the ’90s. Under Bush 43, we had a very mild recession in 2001 and more growth on top of the boom. The JFK, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts helped spur growth.
We needed a big tax cut for this “recovery,” because of the consumption boom of the 2000s to refund consumers.
And the Reagan deficits in 2017 dollars total? (Correct: $4+ Trillion)
Next?
Winning the Cold War wasn’t cheap. And, Reagan didn’t get the promised spending cuts from Tip O’Neill’s House. Obviously, you’re another one who wants to blame everything on the Republicans, even in an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government.
Huh? We’re going to go with Russia’s collapse as something Reagan did? You probably ignore the fact the CIA got it exactly wrong for years at the time.
You should thank me for the sun rising. It’s the same thing.
In the 80’s, the buck(s) stopped at Tip ONeil’s desk?i Good to know that Congress played no role in approving defense appropriations, that Reagan did it all. And that if hadn’t been for O’Neil and his gang of wild spenders, balanced budgets would have been the norm.
Then Cheney would have had no need to remind us that Reagan proved deficits don’t matter
reagan began the process of deficit spending to spur the economy. we continue to this day. however, we prefer to build bombs rather than bridges today. while that helps to spur the economy, it results in a lack of investment in domestic america. the crumbling infrastructure we see around the country is a direct result. not saying defense is a waste, but that spending should have had larger real investment components to help future generations.
“longest peacetime expansion, up to that time”. This is completely wrong. Expansions that were/are longer than the 1982 – 1990 expansion:
Mar 1991 – Mar 2001
Feb 1961 – Dec 1969
Jun 2009 – Ongoing
Actually, almost everything about this comment is wrong. Especially “we had a very mild recession in 2001” nonsense. In fact, it took longer for private sector jobs to recover after the 2001 recession than it did for the 2007 – 2009 recession: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AdAFsRiyq-8/VDFn7fUrtsI/AAAAAAAAg04/zCTlQmrl2YY/s1600/PrivateSept2014.PNG
If public-sector jobs had grown the same way in after the 2007-2009 recession as they did after the 2001 recession, job growth would have easily been the highest every recorded in the 2009 – current era.
“Reagan, and Bush tax cuts helped spur growth.”
and they were never paid for. in addition, both presidents created excessive defense spending policies. which were never paid for. result was huge debt. but again, if a republican creates debt it is good. if a democrat creates debt, squawk like a chicken.
It should be noted, between WWII and 1980, the U.S. was a basically a closed economy and had a large share of global GDP, while Europe and Asia rebuilt after the war. Since 1980, we had increasingly larger trade deficits – the U.S. consumed more than produced in the global economy and pulled the rest of the world economies – reaching 6% of GDP in the 2000s, which added to U.S. living standards. In the 2000s, the country was at full employment and trade deficits subtracted from GDP. The U.S. economy was much stronger than reflected in GDP.
Is Trump delusional? Is this a trick question?
I agree that Trump’s growth profile won’t materialize, but what is the POTUS supposed to do – say that growth will be a dismal 1 percent through 2021 and that we will plunge into recession soon?
Trump saying growth is going to be high is a good thing! (And I’m not a Trump supported at all, but I give him props for being optimistic in the face of likely stagnant growth going forward).
Menzie, as president would you tell the American people to expect 1.8 percent growth going forward? I wouldn’t.
Anonymous: Well, I don’t suggest projecting pink unicorns. WSJ mean forecast for the next year is not 1.8%, by the way. A mildly stimulative policy could get growth above potential, by the way. I just don’t think predicting 4% growth is good for credibility. But heck, what am I saying. The Mexicans are going to pay for the wall…
Unfortunately, Americans probably don’t understand that 4 percent growth is the same as pink unicorns. What you hear is 4 percent growth, what most non-economist Americans hear is simply a lot of growth. There are so many reasons to criticize Trump, this time though what he is doing is not that bad and probably even good.
the problem is trump is not knowledgeable enough to understand that 4% and above is not credible. as he repeats this argument, in his mind, it becomes a truth. and then policy is based on the truth inside the head of trump. are you comfortable with policy and presidential decisions based on alternative facts? or would you prefer the decisions made by our leadership, which have a direct impact on you, were based on actual facts and information? people become concerned when actions are taken, which directly affect them, based upon knowingly incorrect information.
Whether or not Trump’s approach could possibly generate 4% growth, the reality is that the heels are dug in and “resist” is the battle cry, so it is highly unlikely that his plans can be implements so we’ll never be able to test the arguments one way or the other.
In other news, if we do what we’ve done, we’ll get what we got… about 2% growth from a deep recession. https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdp-growth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/
That’s lower than the Bush years (excluding 2008-09 recession) and about 1/2 of the Clinton years (OMG 4% in 5 of 8 years).
we’ll never be able to test the arguments one way or the other.
False. The economic plans posted, so far, are all heritage foundation boilerplate. It didn’t work under Reagan and it’s not going to work now.
I am thinking the business cycle rolls over right here.
agree: a october 1987 scenario: two-four week for crash
Hmmm
Getting 4-5% real growth would be much easier if we were riding unicorns (of whatever color). But does the Trump camp even understand the difference between nominal and real growth? To be fair, a majority of Trump-haters probably don’t either, and of course it’s real growth that’s reported. But could this be a future “fake news” tweet: “BEA sez growth only 2%, but they ignore nominal side. Sad!”
PS
This blog should be renamed #fakenewsbrowser.
Of course, CNBC is spreading #fakenews with its phony Trump quote and Menzie dutifully passes the #fakenews along with #fakecharts and #fakeanalysis.
CNBC misquoted Trump to make it sound like he was predicting 4% growth over the next few years. But he said no such thing. That #fakequote was pulled from the interview he did with Fox news host Martha Maccallum. What actually happened is that Trump said that “We’re saying three but I say four.” At that point, Maccallum interjected a question, “Four by when?” And Trump replied “over the next few years.”
So Trump was actually saying that he believes that we will hit 4% sometime over the next few years, not that growth will be 4% over the next 4 years. CNBC dishonestly left out Maccallum’s interjected question to make it look like Trump was predicting 4% continuous growth.
Conservatives should understand that to a good approximation everything the news media says about Trump is #fakenews.
Rick Stryker: Let us stipulate you are right (I’d love to see the clip; I’m sure it’s right next to where the President affirms Andrew Jackson was alive at the outbreak of the Civil War, and once again notes the great job Frederick Douglass is doing, and getting more and more recognition day by day!!!!). So it’s 4% in 2020…you believe that? Please confirm — I want to get you on virtual paper again, just like your assertion that 500,000 jobs/mo is entirely in line with expectations (or is it aspirational — your assertions changed over time). Give it up, Rick.
Menzie,
You can look at the video interview here, starting at about 6:15 and you’ll see that Maccallum interjects “4 by when?” which CNBC left out of the quote.
You are living again living up to the moniker #fakenewsbrowser when you spread the #fakenews that Trump said Andrew Jackson was alive during the Civil War. Here is what Trump actually said:
“TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, and he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, “There’s no reason for this.” People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why?
ZITO: Yeah —
TRUMP: People don’t ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
No doubt you heard from the progressive #fakenewsmedia or read in some left wing blog that Trump said that Jackson was alive during the Civil War but didn’t see the quote yourself. Of course, Trump didn’t say that, since he said “if Jackson had been a little later.” You believed it because like so many on the Left you don’t realize that Trump is smarter and more knowledgeable than they are. Anyone who knows American history (as Trump does) would have understood what he was talking about. There were many events leading up to the Civil War and many close calls that could have resulting in the war starting sooner. One such famous case was the Nullification Crisis during Jackson’s presidency in which South Carolina asserted the right to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. South Carolina threatened secession and armed conflict if the Union attempted to enforce the tariffs. Jackson, in a deft carrot and stick approach, issued his Proclamation to the People of South Carolina, in which he asserted Federal authority and warned that secession by force was treason. At the same time, Jackson compromised and reduced the tariffs, which averted the crisis.
On your claim that 4% growth is delusional, maybe you should discuss your theory with this guy.
Rick Stryker: So, this line from your quote:
implies he would have been angry, looking down from Heaven?
On 4% growth, you’ll note that two of the (many) requisite conditions for hitting 4% is free immigration/free trade. With this Administration, I’ll just suggest that these are unlikely(!!!!) to be implemented with the current Administration.
Menzie,
Yes, Jackson was angry as anyone who knows anything about Jackson understands. Secessionist sentiment did not start with the Civil War. It was prevalent 30 years earlier when Jackson was President. Jackson felt very strongly that the Union must survive and was bitterly opposed to secession. Jackson’s Proclamation to the People of South Carolina that I referred to sets out Jackson’s legal, moral, and political philosophical arguments as to why states do not have the right to secede from the Union. Jackson saw secession as a real threat, having successfully dealt with a potential Civil War, and he was angry about it. Trump’s right about that.
Trump is a bit of a Civil War buff with a strong interest in Jackson. Trump hung Jackson’s portrait in the Oval Office (so did Lincoln), has a copy of Jackson’s biography on his desk, and visited Jackson’s tomb in March. It’s amazing how progressives and their media allies try to twist Trump’s obvious real knowledge of Jackson into ignorance. This is the essence of #fakenews.
Good to see you have shifted away from the stance that 4% growth is delusional to the more pertinent question of whether Trump’s policies will move us in that direction. As I’ve said many times, I regard these pronouncements about growth to be aspirational rather predictive and I believe politicians should set these goals. No, Trump’s immigration policies will not move us closer to this goal but his other policies might. But I’d much rather have Trump setting goals and trying to move the country there than the previous President, who didn’t seem to care about economic growth at all as long as the government got a very large share of the small pie.
“I regard these pronouncements about growth to be aspirational rather predictive and I believe politicians should set these goals. ”
on the other hand, when obama made such aspirational goals regarding affordable health insurance, you denounce him and call him a liar. hack.
the fakenews rallying cry! when reality interferes with ones ideology, it is simply fakenews. interesting how the fakenews leader, faux news, is losing all credibility. but no comments from rick stryker and company in that regard.
Is the quote accurate or is it not? Funny how you avoid that question in your rant.
the quote accurately conveys the position of trump. we will return to 4% growth annually. he was not intentionally dancing with words, the way rick stryker plays lawyer. he was simply making a bombastic statement devoid of reality. he feels hyperbole and exaggeration and deceit are acceptable in the white house. but i understand your lack of interest in correcting him, rick, because you have already said it is ok for the current president to make intentionally false statements to achieve his goals. why would we really expect you to deviate from this position now?
Rick,
The President is not just some talking head on TV. What he says matters, and he does not have the luxury of being loose with his words. The President’s words influence behavior and commit the prestige of the country.
To quote Don Corleone: “I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless. But not men.”
Steven,
You are blaming the victim. It’s clear what Trump is saying if you listen to his actual words. But the partisan mainstream press, in its inexorable effort to destroy Trump, continually misleads the public every chance they get. Obama and Hillary were generally much less precise than Trump and often downright wrong but they did not get the same treatment. You should be denouncing the press, not blaming Trump. Trump is delivering for conservatism despite the vicious, dishonest attempts to stop him.
Rick Stryker: I ran into this obscure passage:
That passage is from the Trump White House website. But thank goodness you are on the job to set the record right, that President Trump absolutely, positively, does not believe in 4% sustained growth.
I must say, I do admire your determination to defend to the end the indefensible.
So what? They want to return to 4% annual growth at some unspecified time over the next decade. Like I said, if you think that goal is so outlandish, take it up with this guy.
You are attempting to divert from the issue at hand, which is that CNBC dishonestly removed an interjected question from a reporter to make it sound like Trump was predicting that 4% growth would start today and last over the next few years. You produced a chart based on that #fakenews. That’s the issue.
“Trump saying growth is going to be high is a good thing! … There are so many reasons to criticize Trump, this time though what he is doing is not that bad and probably even good.
But Trump isn’t just innocently exaggerating a little to cheer-lead the economy. His administration is actually using the 4% number in budget calculations to justify his tax cuts.
These very words actually came out of the mouth of Treasury Secretary Mnuchin: “The plan will pay for itself with growth.”
He’s literally using the 4% number as justification. That isn’t cheerleading. That’s either dangerous self-delusion or deliberate malevolent deception. You pick.
it is also how a company ends up in bankruptcy proceedings. management becomes delusional in its balance sheet. but that has never happened with a trump company, right?
Lyin’ Joseph,
Will you ever get anything, anything, right? Mnuchin has not been using 4%. He is using 3% and saying that 3% growth is probably 2 years away.
So was Obama delusional when he said the average family would see their premiums decrease $2,500 a year under the ACA? Or was he just, you know, being a politician?
Obama’s not president.
You cry about that statement all the time; you are epically butthurt over it, yet use it as justification for Trump lies. Why is that? Two wrongs make a right? He did it so I can do it 10 times more?
Once again, Megapixel Stryker leaps to the defense of his Dear Leader with cries of “Fake News!” Recall that Stryker is the guy who claimed that he had color glossy photos, megapixels of them, that proved that Trump had the largest inauguration crowd in history and any statements otherwise were fake.
And now he is back again, crying “Fake News” about Trump’s claims of 4% growth when it is written in black and white right on the White House web page. “Who you gonna believe, me and my alternate facts or your own lying eyes?”
Megapixel Stryker: “Heil, mein Führer!”
There goes Lyin’ Joseph again. Of course the truth was that I gave three reasons why Obama’s 2009 crowd would likely turn out to be bigger than Trump’s crowd.
I keep waiting for Joseph to get something, anything, right.
fakenews is the common response from trump and his supporters to cover something they did or said that was simply stupid. every time you hear fakenews, you can recognize it as an excuse for stupidity.
Anonymous: “So was Obama delusional when he said the average family would see their premiums decrease $2,500 a year under the ACA? Or was he just, you know, being a politician?”
The fact is that the growth rate of insurance premiums has decreased since Obamacare was passed in 2010 so that premiums are about $2000 less than projected. So families are indeed seeing a reduction in their premium costs. People can argue about the reasons for those reductions but you can’t say that Obama was just blowing smoke. Reductions might be even more if Republicans hadn’t neutered some of the Obamacare cost saving provisions.
Rick Stryker
Nice attempt to come to the Trumpster’s defense, but I’m afraid it won’t cut it. This is hardly the first time that King Donald the Simple has mentioned the 4% growth target. Hey…he even put it out on the WH website on 22 Jan 2017. It specifically and unequivocally promises a 4% sustainable growth rate by 2020:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/bringing-back-jobs-and-growth
Trump is very clearly predicting a sustainable 4% growth rate by the end of his first (and hopefully last) term. And that bold prediction led his Treasury team to try and dial it back to something only slightly less crazy, like 3.5% or 3%:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-economic-growth-promise-2017-2
Now, let’s go back to the interview. Trump is saying that his economic team thinks 3% is an appropriate target, but he is disagreeing with his own team and saying that 4% is sustainable. Go read the transcript. He’s arguing with his own economic team. And both the WH website and his economic team are talking about sustainable growth rates, not one-and-done shocks. Trump’s 4% growth rate is unhinged from reality. His economic team’s 3%-3.5% growth rate is merely skating very close to the edge of crazy.
Why are you even wasting your credibility on defending Trump’s clearly ludicrous statements? This is typical Trump craziness. He makes some ridiculous claim and then leaves it to his staff to clean up the mess. And the usual way the staff cleans up his messes is by trying to strike some middle ground between reality and fantasyland. His Treasury secretary was left trying to dial things back by saying that 4% really only meant 3%….maybe 3.5%. We saw it again with his economic plan. Trump made some stupid promise that caught his economic team flatfooted, so they had to embarrass themselves with a one page, double-spaced wish list that they sheepishly called a plan.
I shudder to think that Trump might actually sit down with North Korea’s Son-of-Dear Leader. Trump might take seriously one of Kim’s Five Year Plans for economic growth. I can sew it now, Comrade Trump promising 10% growth and a Great Leap Forward.
2slugs,
I dealt with your points in my answers to Menzie.
The issue is that CNBC removed a reporter question from the Trump quote to make it sound like Trump was predicting 4% growth starting now and lasting over the next few years. That’s #fakenews.
You are confusing the #fakenews issue with the question of whether it’s crazy to believe that 4% growth over some period is possible. See the link in my Menzie comment on that question.
Oh, my. Megapixel Stryker weaseling again. He’s denying that he said that he had megapixels of pictures to prove that Trump’s crowds were bigger. He tediously tries to parse Trump’s words in the most tendentious manner to argue that Trump didn’t say what he actually said. He ignores the fact that Trump’s words don’t come in a vacuum. He ignores the fact that Trump sent Spicer out the next day to argue exactly the points that Stryker denies Trump said.
Likewise regarding the growth numbers. He tediously argues that Trump’s words were ambiguous when we have very clear written words on Trump’s web site that remove all ambiguity.
Megapixel Stryker is an embarrassing sycophant — a bootlicker, a lickspittle, a flatterer — for Trump, using his alternative facts to justify his conspiracy shrieking about FakeNews.
Stryker has been exposed for his screw ups so often you would think he would slink away and hide in shame, but I don’t think he is smart enough to recognize how much of a clown he appears. In that way, he is much like his Dear Leader.