Obama Takes a Swipe at Donald Trump With 'America's Pretty Darn Great Right Now'

 

Donald Trump’s slogan may be “Make America Great Again,” but President Obama today declared, “America’s pretty darn great right now.”

Though Obama made no mention of the Republican front-runner by name, his not-so-veiled swipe at Trump came as the president touted today’s jobs report and accused Republicans of “trying to talk down the American economy.”

“There seems to be an alternative reality out there from the some of the political folks that America’s down in the dumps. It’s not. America’s pretty darn great right now,” he said in a White House meeting with his economic team on a day when the Labor Department announced the economy added 242,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent.

“I don’t expect that these facts and this evidence will convince some of the politicians out there to change their doomsday rhetoric, talking about how terrible America is, but the American people should be proud of what they have achieved because this speaks to their resilience, innovation risk taking and grit.”

Politicians should be talking about the progress made in the economy, he added, “not fantasy, not name calling, not trying to talk down the American economy, but looking at the facts understanding that we’ve made extraordinary progress in job growth, how can we continue to advance that.”

“There’s a huge gap between the rhetoric that’s going on out there and the reality of success that we’re seeing in America’s economy even as we acknowledge that there’s more work that can be done,” he said.