President Donald Trump lashed out at Jay-Z with misleading claims about how his policies have lowered unemployment for African Americans after the rapper shared that he was ‘disappointed and hurt’ by Trump’s ‘s***hole countries’ comment.
The president used his Twitter fingers on Sunday morning to respond to the hip-hop icon’s CNN interview with Van Jones on Saturday.
‘Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!’ Trump tweeted.
He added: ‘Our economy is better than it has been in many decades. Businesses are coming back to America like never before. Chrysler, as an example, is leaving Mexico and coming back to the USA. Unemployment is nearing record lows. We are on the right track!’
President Donald Trump used his Twitter fingers on Sunday morning to respond to Jay-Z’s CNN interview with Van Jones
‘Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the lowest rate ever recorded!’ Trump tweeted
Trump’s tweet comes after an Associated Press report detailed how the black unemployment rate has reached a record low in December, at 6.8 per cent.
But the assertion is a stretch as NPR reported that long before Trump took office, the rate of black unemployment was already decreasing.
In fact, it was reported that as early as 2010 – well within Barack Obama’s first tenure in office – the rate had been falling.
NPR reports that the rates not having dropped at a faster pace since Trump took office which implies that nothing he has done has actually impacted the unemployment rate for African Americans.
Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told Vox that Trump can’t take credit for the trend.
He added: ‘Our economy is better than it has been in many decades. Businesses are coming back to America like never before. Chrysler, as an example, is leaving Mexico and coming back to the USA. Unemployment is nearing record lows. We are on the right track!’
‘Trump has had nothing to do with the decline in African-American jobless rates, or any other group’s rates,’ Bernstein said. ‘He’s completely riding a trend he inherited.’
And while the unemployment rate for African Americans may be at 6.8 per cent, it is still almost double that of the white unemployment – which is at 3.7 per cent.
Hiring discrimination, inadequate educational resources, and racism exhibited through the prison industrial complex system are contributing factors to why the number has been so high in the past.
Trump tweets come after Jay-Z told CNN’s Van Jones that he wasn’t surprised by the president’s ‘s***hole countries’ comments.
On Saturday, Jay-Z said he was ‘disappointed and hurt’ by President Trump’s ‘s***hole countries’ comments – but not surprised
‘Everyone feels anger but after the anger it’s really hurtful because he’s looking down on a whole population of people and he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people,’ the hip-hop legend told CNN’s Van Jones Saturday evening.
‘But on the other side, this has been going on. This is how people on, this has been going on behind closed doors.’
He said that the comments just show the underlying problem of racism that exists in America – and how, even though it’s widely condemned, it’s still active behind closed doors.
Jay-Z said that the way we treat it is like ‘spraying perfume on a trash can and creating a superbug.’
That superbug, he said, is Donald Trump.
‘Everyone feels anger but after the anger it’s really hurtful because he’s looking down on a whole population of people and he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people,’ the hip-hop legend told CNN ‘s Van Jones
Jay Z also said that racist comments have existed for a long time, and said how America handles it is like trying to kill bugs with pesticide. He continued, explaining that using pesticide creates a superbug, and how America deals with Racism created Donald Trump
As an example he spoke about the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling, who was outed as a racist on a private phone conversation in 2014.
‘They took the team from him, and OK that’s one way to do it,’ he explained.
‘But another way to do it is let him have his team and then let’s talk abut it together… Maybe some penalties.
‘Because once you do that, all the other closet racists run back in the hole. You haven’t fixed anything. What you’ve done is spray perfume on the trash can.’
He explained that more spray attracts more bugs – as you aren’t actually dealing with the trash itself. The trash in this analogy is racism.
He then backtracked for a moment to explain that Trump is a human being too, saying that Trump expresses himself in the way he does because of something that happened to him during his past
‘You don’t take the trash out. You keep spraying whatever over it to make it acceptable and as those things grow, you create a superbug.
‘And now we have Donald Trump, the superbug.’
He then backtracked for a moment to explain that Trump is a human being too, saying that Trump expresses himself in the way he does because of something that happened to him during his past.
And when Jay-Z, whose family frequently visited the Obama White House, would be visiting the Trump White House, the rapper chuckled.
‘We won’t be invited, first of all,’ he said.
And when Jay-Z, whose family frequently visited the Obama White House, would be visiting the Trump White House, the rapper chuckled. ‘We won’t be invited, first of all,’ he said
Jay-Z then addressed Trump’s remarks that he’s putting more money in African American’s pockets, and his claims that he’s lowered the African American unemployment rate more than ever before.
He said that even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter, because it’s ‘not about money at the end of the day.’
‘Money doesn’t equate to happiness,’ he explained.
‘That’s missing the point. Treat people like human beings. If we’re going back to ‘you treat me really bad but pay me well,’ that’s not going to lead to happiness, it’s going to lead to, like, the same thing.
‘Everyone’s going to be sick.’
He said he thinks the government ‘forgets it’s real people behind these decisions that they’re making.’
The rapper also briefly mentioned the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements when speaking about his daughters. He is pictured with Beyonce and Blue Ivy in 2017. He said that he thinks the movements had to happen so the world can correct itself
Jay-Z said that if the government keeps ignoring the pain of real people, they’re going to act out.
‘That opens the door to what we’re seeing now,’ he said. ‘Now, politics has become about votes and not about people.’
The rapper also briefly mentioned the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements when speaking about his daughters.
‘Everything happens fora reason, everything is a learning experience. This had to happen to purge itself,’ he said.
He said that humans will seek power if they go unchecked, so this kind of movement has to happen in order to flip the script.
‘This movement, ad everything that’s going on, and what we’re finding, it’s like everything else, it’s like racism, it existed the whole time,’ he explained.
‘It’s almost like we’ve normalized it. The normalization of the things we have to do to survive. It’s been going on, an I’m looking forward to it being uncovered for the world to correct itself. It’s what has to happen.’