Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
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Economy
/ February 11, 2026
Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
The Trump administration’s efforts to distract from the bad economy just divert attention from one dumpster fire to another.
Chris Lehmann
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President Donald Trump gaggles with reporters while aboard Air Force One on February 6, 2026 en route to Palm Beach, Florida.
(Samuel Corum / Getty Images)
Give Pete Navarro, President Donald Trump’s economics adviser and ex-con, credit for gumption: He’s seeking to direct public attention away from one of the White House’s least-popular policy initiatives to one that’s performing even worse in opinion polling. During a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business, Navarro cautioned the Trump faithful, “We have to revise expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like.… Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.”
Navarro’s downbeat appraisal of the job market is familiar news. The Trump administration has averaged an anemic 49,000 increase in jobs per month, well under one-third the rate that Joe Biden’s economy added.
Today’s job numbers, as it happens, came in stronger than expected, with an estimated 130,000 new positions added in January—yet downward adjustments in monthly reports show that virtually no employment growth occurred during 2025. The Trump administration’s already feeble job additions over the year were downgraded to a mere 181,000 positions, while 2024 saw the addition of nearly a million and a half new jobs. What’s more, January’s hiring surge was chiefly powered by hiring in healthcare—a sector in which immigrant labor plays a pivotal role. In other words, Navarro was wrong in both his assessment of hiring trends and in sizing up how mass deportation is affecting them. Meanwhile, the structural malaise of the Trump economy remains unchanged, hampered by Trump’s erratic-at-best tariffs, continued inflation, and sluggish performance in key sectors like housing and manufacturing.
After inaugurating his second term with a vow to create an economic “Golden Age,” Trump has been a Midas in reverse. Over the last year, one economic indicator after another has gone to shit. The United States is now in the weakest jobs economy in a non-recession year since 2003, while the scale of layoffs in January hasn’t been matched since the annus horribilis 2009.
Navarro’s approach to spinning the White House’s dreadful economic performance is to shout, in essence, “Look over there!” But what’s striking is that in trying to change the subject, Navarro is …
Every delay has consequences.
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Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
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Current Issue
Economy
/ February 11, 2026
Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
The Trump administration’s efforts to distract from the bad economy just divert attention from one dumpster fire to another.
Chris Lehmann
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Edit
Ad Policy
President Donald Trump gaggles with reporters while aboard Air Force One on February 6, 2026 en route to Palm Beach, Florida.
(Samuel Corum / Getty Images)
Give Pete Navarro, President Donald Trump’s economics adviser and ex-con, credit for gumption: He’s seeking to direct public attention away from one of the White House’s least-popular policy initiatives to one that’s performing even worse in opinion polling. During a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business, Navarro cautioned the Trump faithful, “We have to revise expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like.… Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.”
Navarro’s downbeat appraisal of the job market is familiar news. The Trump administration has averaged an anemic 49,000 increase in jobs per month, well under one-third the rate that Joe Biden’s economy added.
Today’s job numbers, as it happens, came in stronger than expected, with an estimated 130,000 new positions added in January—yet downward adjustments in monthly reports show that virtually no employment growth occurred during 2025. The Trump administration’s already feeble job additions over the year were downgraded to a mere 181,000 positions, while 2024 saw the addition of nearly a million and a half new jobs. What’s more, January’s hiring surge was chiefly powered by hiring in healthcare—a sector in which immigrant labor plays a pivotal role. In other words, Navarro was wrong in both his assessment of hiring trends and in sizing up how mass deportation is affecting them. Meanwhile, the structural malaise of the Trump economy remains unchanged, hampered by Trump’s erratic-at-best tariffs, continued inflation, and sluggish performance in key sectors like housing and manufacturing.
After inaugurating his second term with a vow to create an economic “Golden Age,” Trump has been a Midas in reverse. Over the last year, one economic indicator after another has gone to shit. The United States is now in the weakest jobs economy in a non-recession year since 2003, while the scale of layoffs in January hasn’t been matched since the annus horribilis 2009.
Navarro’s approach to spinning the White House’s dreadful economic performance is to shout, in essence, “Look over there!” But what’s striking is that in trying to change the subject, Navarro is …
Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
Every delay has consequences.
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Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
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Current Issue
Economy
/ February 11, 2026
Don’t Let Trump Fool You. The Economy Is Bad, and He Is to Blame.
The Trump administration’s efforts to distract from the bad economy just divert attention from one dumpster fire to another.
Chris Lehmann
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Edit
Ad Policy
President Donald Trump gaggles with reporters while aboard Air Force One on February 6, 2026 en route to Palm Beach, Florida.
(Samuel Corum / Getty Images)
Give Pete Navarro, President Donald Trump’s economics adviser and ex-con, credit for gumption: He’s seeking to direct public attention away from one of the White House’s least-popular policy initiatives to one that’s performing even worse in opinion polling. During a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business, Navarro cautioned the Trump faithful, “We have to revise expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like.… Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of the job market.”
Navarro’s downbeat appraisal of the job market is familiar news. The Trump administration has averaged an anemic 49,000 increase in jobs per month, well under one-third the rate that Joe Biden’s economy added.
Today’s job numbers, as it happens, came in stronger than expected, with an estimated 130,000 new positions added in January—yet downward adjustments in monthly reports show that virtually no employment growth occurred during 2025. The Trump administration’s already feeble job additions over the year were downgraded to a mere 181,000 positions, while 2024 saw the addition of nearly a million and a half new jobs. What’s more, January’s hiring surge was chiefly powered by hiring in healthcare—a sector in which immigrant labor plays a pivotal role. In other words, Navarro was wrong in both his assessment of hiring trends and in sizing up how mass deportation is affecting them. Meanwhile, the structural malaise of the Trump economy remains unchanged, hampered by Trump’s erratic-at-best tariffs, continued inflation, and sluggish performance in key sectors like housing and manufacturing.
After inaugurating his second term with a vow to create an economic “Golden Age,” Trump has been a Midas in reverse. Over the last year, one economic indicator after another has gone to shit. The United States is now in the weakest jobs economy in a non-recession year since 2003, while the scale of layoffs in January hasn’t been matched since the annus horribilis 2009.
Navarro’s approach to spinning the White House’s dreadful economic performance is to shout, in essence, “Look over there!” But what’s striking is that in trying to change the subject, Navarro is …
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