Fact check: Harris makes false claim about Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris made a false claim about the jobs record of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday evening.

Interviewer Stephanie Ruhle asked Harris what she thought about polls that show most likely voters still think Trump is the better option on handling the economy.

Harris responded, “Well, here’s what I know in terms of the facts. Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression, when you look at, for example, the employment numbers.” After Ruhle interjected by saying it was the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that made the employment numbers bad, Harris continued, “Even before the pandemic, he lost manufacturing jobs – by most people’s estimates, at least 200,000.”

Facts First: Harris’ claim is false. Trump presided over a gain of 414,000 US manufacturing jobs, not a loss of “at least 200,000,” before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. And the loss for his entire presidency, start to finish, was 178,000 manufacturing jobs, not 200,000 or more as Harris said.

Trump and manufacturing jobs

National job totals rise and fall for many reasons other than who the president is. Even if you’re attributing all gains and losses to the president, though, it’s just not true that Trump lost “at least 200,000” manufacturing jobs before the pandemic.

From the beginning of his presidency in January 2017 through February 2020, just before the pandemic crash, the economy added 414,000 manufacturing jobs.

Manufacturing employment, like overall employment, plummeted as much of the economy shut down in March and April 2020 – shedding 1.3 million jobs in April 2020 alone. The economy then immediately resumed adding manufacturing jobs, increasing each month from May to December 2020 before a small loss in January 2021, but those gains were not enough to make up for the losses of March and April 2020. So the overall total for Trump’s four years in office was a loss of 178,000 jobs.

When CNN asked the Harris campaign for comment Wednesday on Harris’ inaccurate claim, a campaign aide pointed to a similar but accurate remark Harris made about Trump in an economic speech in Pennsylvania earlier in the day. In the speech, she said, “Across our economy, all told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency – starting before the pandemic hit.”

That is true. While the steepest manufacturing job losses under Trump occurred during the pandemic, the losses did start before the pandemic; the economy experienced a net loss of 48,000 manufacturing jobs over the 13-month period from February 2019 through February 2020 after gaining under Trump before then.

But whether intentionally or because it did not spot the nuance, Harris’ own campaign turned even this correct claim into a false claim on social media. In a post of the video of Harris’ remark, the campaign’s official @KamalaHQ account paraphrased her as follows: “Vice President Harris: Almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost under Trump before the pandemic.”

That’s not what she actually said – she said the job losses started before the pandemic hit, not that the “almost 200,000” losses all occurred before the pandemic – and, again, that’s not true.

Harris’ claim about the economy Trump ‘left us’

We won’t offer a firm fact check verdict on Harris’ vaguer claim that “Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression, when you look at, for example, the employment numbers.”

The Harris campaign aide said Harris was referring to Trump’s overall jobs record; he was the first president to preside over a net four-year loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover, who left office during Depression-era 1933.

But it’s worth noting that the unemployment rate was not at its worst level since the Great Depression in the month the Biden-Harris administration took over from Trump. While the rate had skyrocketed to 14.8% in April 2020, the highest since 1939, it had already declined to 6.4% in January 2021, the month of Biden’s inauguration. That rate was exceeded as recently as 2014.

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