Trump once again claims Ivanka created 15M jobs as she returns to his golf course after self-isolation
Ivanka Trump, daughter and Trump's senior advisor, made a public appearance at the White House on Tuesday, April 28, for a small business event where the president credited her once again for having created millions of jobs. Ivanka, 38, went to her father’s New Jersey golf course on the first day of Passover and was present with him in the East Room for an event to promote loans to small businesses.
It was earlier in April too that Ivanka accompanied the president at a small business event in the Roosevelt Room where Trump claimed Ivanka created over 15 million jobs amid a massive economic downturn caused by the coronavirus. At that event, the father-daughter duo spoke in favor of helping small business ventures.
Stressing on his advisor’s humanitarian side, Trump praised her work on job training to say, “That's what she wants to do. She wants to help people. From the beginning of my administration, Ivanka has used her experience as an entrepreneur to fight for the American worker. She has created many jobs. That's what she did when she first came in.”
“She just wanted people to jobs and job training. Went to the biggest companies anywhere in the world that are located in our country. And they would take hundreds of thousands of people and train them. And think you got up to almost 15 million people. She started off with a goal of 500,000. She wanted to get 500,000 and she is now on almost 15 million people,” he said, lowering his claim a bit from ‘over 15 million’ to ‘almost 15 million’.
Tuesday’s event, which also had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, saw Trump, speaking about the Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses that have been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trump administration has earlier sought a fresh emergency aid of $250 billion to help small businessmen but the issue led to a political debate as Congressional Democratic leaders proposed adding hundreds of billions of dollars for health care, food stamps, etc. to the aid and Trump was not okay with it.
Ivanka did not correct her father's figures
Ivanka, who went to self-isolation last month after socializing with Australian Home Minister Peter Dutton who later tested positive for COVID-19, did not correct her father when he credited her for creating such humongous number of jobs. “Thank you, Mr President for convening this incredible group of entrepreneurs and small business owners who very much represent the soul and the spirit, the grit and the tenacity of America's small business owners across the nation,” she said.
At least 26 million Americans have lost jobs because of the economic shutdown caused by the pandemic that has hit over a million people in the country and claimed over 58,000 lives. The Trump administration has found itself in a spot over handling the crisis and the White House has even started preparations for an orderly transfer of power in case Trump goes on to lose the general election to Joe Biden in November.
If Trump’s claim about Ivanka’s job-creating feat is true, then it would constitute 10 percent of all American jobs before the pandemic. However, a Washington Post fact-checker showed that Ivanka co-chaired a task force on job-training initiatives that saw companies pledging to provide 6.5 million job-training opportunities -- less than half of the 15 million fresh jobs as claimed by the president.
Ivanka also was present at a coronavirus response call with New Jersey officials on Tuesday, the report in the New York Post said.