President Trump floated the possibility Thursday that the economy grew at its fastest rate in 15 years in the second quarter of 2018.
Trump said he heard an analyst predict 5.3 percent gross domestic product growth ahead of a Friday morning report from the Commerce Department.
Trump said he personally doubts that growth was so high, but that he believes the figure will be large nonetheless.
“You’ll have very big numbers announced tomorrow. I don’t know what the they are. A lot of big predictions,” Trump told a crowd in Granite City, Ill.
“Whatever those numbers are, watch for them. Somebody predicted today 5.3,” Trump said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, 5.3. If it has the 4 in front of it, we’re happy. If it has like a 3, but its a, a 3.8, 3.9, 3.7, we’re OK, but these are unthinkable numbers. If I would have used these numbers during the campaign, the fake news back there would have said, ‘He’s exaggerating.'”
If GDP growth exceeds 5.2 percent, it would be the highest quarterly growth rate since late 2003, MarketWatch reports. GDP growth hit 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014, but during the first five economic quarters of Trump’s administration GDP has fluctuated between about 1 percent and slightly more than 3 percent.
