Trump tweeted ahead of the jobs report, but did he break the rules?
Trump tweeted ahead of the jobs report, but did he break the rules?
It’s been a while since one of President Donald Trump’s tweets made economic news, but today he kind of scooped the rest of the government.
Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018
So, 69 minutes before anybody was supposed to know what was in this morning’s jobs report, Trump signaled that it would be good. Now, there’s no law against that, but there is a federal rule dating back to 1985 that says: “All employees of the Executive Branch who receive pre-release distribution of information and data estimates … are responsible for assuring that there is no release prior to the official release time.”
The president is, of course, an employee of the executive branch. He gets jobs data early, usually the day before. So, once again, we have occasion to look at this rule and why it matters to markets. We got Quartz’s Preeti Varathan on the phone to help us do that.
Click the audio player above to hear the full interview.
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