White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday laughed off complaints from former Obama administration officials that the Trump administration commented on the Labor Department’s jobs numbers immediately after they were released, in violation of White House rules.
President Trump’s tweet calling the jobs report “great news” was not “exactly a market disruption,” Spicer said during his Friday afternoon briefing at the White House.
Since 1985, an Office of Management and Budget rule has prevented executive branch officials from commenting on the jobs numbers in the first hour after they are released. Both Spicer and Trump ran afoul of that rule with tweets in the minutes after the 8:30 a.m. report came out.
But the rule, Spicer argued Friday afternoon, was meant to address market fluctuations.
“I think tweeting out ‘great way to start a Friday, here are the actual numbers that you all have reported,’ is a bit silly,” Spicer said.
“I mean, don’t make me make the podium move,” he added, referring to the “Saturday Night Live” skit in which he was depicted attacking journalists with a movable White House briefing room podium.
“I mean, honest to God, every reporter here reported out that we had 235,000 jobs, 4.7 [percent unemployment rate], there isn’t a TV station that didn’t go live to it,” he added. “So to tweet out, ‘great way to start a Friday’ — yes, the president was excited to see more Americans back to work.”
