By Joe Jankowski Friday, June 01, 2018
A panel of MSNBC commentators were sent into a conspiracy theory spell over Trump's tweet regarding the incoming jobs report.
On Friday morning, ahead of the positive U.S. jobs report which showed that 223,000 new jobs were created in May, President Trump tweeted, "Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning."
The one lined tweet sent heads rolling on the MSNBC's Morning Joe where panelists diverted from the positive report and instead jumped into conspiracies of insider trading.
Panelist Stephanie Ruhle even went as far to suggest an SEC investigation into Trump because of the Friday morning tweet.
"You can rock on it and say that these numbers are great, and they are, the issue is that the president told the market they were great an hour before they were public," Ruhle said despite there being no hint of the report's results in Trump's tweet.
"The jobs number lockup could not be taken more seriously in Washington," she continued. "The President is in a position to move markets and if precedent is what it normally is, the president gets those numbers last night and he doesn't say a word because you do not want to impact markets."
"At the very least, he said that over an hour ago because he wants all eyes to be on the market ... At the absolute worst he tipped off the market and you will look back on this and see where algo's started trading as soon as he put that tweet out. And I'd like to knock on the door of the SEC and say, 'pardon me sir, did the President of the United States just move markets? Because if he did that's big ol' problem,'" Rhule went on.
Host Joe Scarborough seemingly approved of Rhule's assessment and wondered if the SEC would look into the trading of Trump's closest friends. But both anchors would be shut down by guest and CNBC market analyst Dom Chu who reported that there was no noticeable pick up in the price of U.S. futures markets following Trump's tweet.
Despite Chu's analysis, MSNBC's Donny Deutsch continued on with the conspiracy theories and interest in an SEC investigation.
"It would not be beyond a thought for him to say 'Hey guys, the numbers are 223," Deutsch said, acting as if he were Trump talking to his billionaire friends.
"That is so far from preposterous that I think Joe brings an interesting message to the SEC," Deutsch continued before his thoughts were labeled as a conspiracy theory by guest panelist John Heileman.
While speaking nothing of the positive numbers, Deutsch would suggest that the SEC could look into "how much information on a daily basis (the president) is passing along to his inner circle that is enriching people by the billions."
The white house has defended Trump's pre-report tweet on Friday with press secretary Sarah Sanders saying it was appropriate since “he didn’t put the numbers out.”
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow also chimed in saying, "I don’t think he gave anything away, I think this is all according to routine.”
Beyond the added 223,000 jobs in May, Friday's report showed that the unemployment rate fell again to the lowest level since April 2000.
