Fox News’ drive to cast President Biden as a job-killing socialist took a hit on Friday when the January jobs report revealed the economy has added 467,000 jobs since the start of the year, despite Covid-19 cases spiking as the Omicron variant continues to spread.
“We created 467,000 jobs in January,” Biden tweeted. “That’s more than 6.6 million jobs since I took office. 2021 was the greatest year of job creation under any president in history.”
The numbers were surprising, as economists forecasted growth to dip from the 199,000 jobs created in December to around 150,000 for January. Fox News was salivating all morning at the prospect of bashing Biden for a slowdown.
Media Matters even put together a compilation:
Up until just *seconds* before the release of the January jobs report, Fox News was giddy with anticipation of massive job loss… pic.twitter.com/kH5dZOQYF4
— Craig Harrington (@Craigipedia) February 4, 2022
There was also this preemptive celebrat– or, lamentation. The network might as well have added fireworks exploding in the background.
This is the graphic that opened Friday’s edition of Fox & Friends. Oops. pic.twitter.com/KgRjC35VYb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 4, 2022
When the actual numbers were released, Fox News had to scramble to cast a pall over the through-the-roof gains. They at least tried.
Journalist Aaron Rupar highlighted a few of their tricks in a Twitter thread, including how the report was addressed behind chyrons like:
“BIDEN TOUTS JOBS REPORT AMID MULTIPLE CRISIS”
and
“POLL: TWO-THIRDS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THE ECONOMY”
Harris Faulkner attempted to qualify the news by saying that the good numbers come only after months of moving “in the wrong direction.” This … isn’t quite true, and at best it’s a gross misrepresentation of the progress that’s been made over the past year.
The economy has been consistently growing throughout the Biden administration, adding jobs each month, pushing the unemployment rate toward all-time lows, and doing so despite increased workforce participation. https://t.co/9Q21LB5Rwf
— Craig Harrington (@Craigipedia) February 4, 2022
The network’s economy experts were on the case, too. Steve Doocy and Stuart Varney of Fox Business treated the report like it was a catastrophe that blindsided the nation. “How did everybody get this so wrong?” a perplexed Doocy asked. “You’re right, everybody did get this chronically wrong,” Varney responded. “I”m not sure I can really explain why we got this explosion of 467,000 jobs. It does run counter to what we were expecting.”
Hack economist Stephen Moore, whom Trump tried to put on the Federal Reserve Board in 2019, struggled to cast doubt on the report during an interview with Maria Bartiromo. “I’m shocked at this number,” he said. “It seems to contradict so many of the other signs of the economy which over the past five or six weeks have been really week. … I have to say I’m a little perplexed.”
The network didn’t give any credit to Biden for the numbers, of course, or for the 6.6 million jobs that were gained over the course of 2021, or for the dwindling unemployment rate. We can only imagine how its anchors would have reacted to all of this objectively good news for America if Trump was still in the White House.
