Last Friday, President Trump at least broke protocol and possibly broke the law by commenting publicly about the unemployment numbers before they were released. Some people were surprised that he had strongly hinted at good jobs numbers on Twitter, others were surprised it took him 15 months to cross that line. Well, on Monday, Politico's Ben White and Aubree Eliza Weaver offered one explanation: Before last week, Trump never knew the numbers.
"Before he left the White House, former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would withhold jobs report data from President Trump until shortly before their release because he was worried the president couldn't help but say something about them," Politico reports. "It's now easy to see why he did this." Current NEC Director Larry Kudlow, who told Trump the numbers the night before per the usual protocol, "did nothing wrong here," White writes. "But Trump did, even if it wasn't a direct disclosure of the numbers. He's now created a scenario in which traders will be looking for Trump tweets each jobs Friday. ... And he's raised the question of whether he's dishing on the numbers in his regular late night calls to friends from the White House."
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