Soledad O'Brien Spins Statement, Botches Facts About Romney's Jobs Record
CNN's Soledad O'Brien took Rudy Giuliani's words about Mitt Romney and
spun them into a criticism of his jobs record, when in fact Giuliani had
praised the candidate's resume on Sunday's State of the Union. On
Tuesday's Starting Point, O'Brien said that Giuliani had "not so great"
words for Romney's record, when in fact Giuliani said his jobs record as
governor of Massachusetts was "decent."
Giuliani, on Sunday's State of the Union, defended his comparison of
his "far superior record" as mayor of New York to Romney's "otherwise
decent record" as Massachusetts governor, but never said it was "not so
great" as Soledad implied. And Giuliani had overall praise for Romney's
resume, noting that "Mitt Romney has been far more successful in the
things that he's done than Barack Obama," referencing his business
experience and work with the 2002 Olympics.
In
addition, O'Brien tried to correct Romney's press secretary Andrea Saul
when she said Romney inherited a bad situation as governor of
Massachusetts in 2003. O'Brien claimed the state was on an "economic
upswing" then. In fact, the state's annual average unemployment had
risen for three straight years from 2000 through 2003.
"I don't think that's true actually," O'Brien interrupted Saul's claim
that Romney inherited a state in a recession with job numbers falling.
"I think that the state in 2003 was in an economic upswing, wasn't it in
2003 in Massachusetts?"
[Video below. Audio here.]
As numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show, the annual average
unemployment rate in Massachusetts rose from 2.7 percent in 2000 to 3.7 percent in 2001 to 5.3 percent in 2002. That number rose again to 5.8 percent for 2003.
Meanwhile, jobs numbers
declined going into 2003, with a net loss of 61,000 jobs the year
before Romney took office. The total nonfarm jobs, seasonally adjusted,
was at 3,284,000 in January of 2002. That number fell overall to
3,223,500 by January of 2003.
Also, for a good three seconds during the interview a screen graphic reported the "net job creation while in office" of both Obama and Romney. The numbers showed a large disparity in favor of Obama -- 572,000 to 45,800 -- even though Obama is president of all 50 states and Romney was governor of one state.
In addition, Obama's numbers should actually be negative 572,000. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total number of nonfarm payroll employees for April of 2012 (132,989,000) is 572,000 less than the January, 2009 number of 133,561,000.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on May 29 on Starting Point at 7:32 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: So he's also sounds like he's been touting his own
record with jobs not only at his time at Bain Capital, but as governor
of the state of Massachusetts so let's start with Bain Capital. Back in
1994, the governor said this, that he had helped create 10,000 jobs. He
said "I'm always very careful to use the words 'help create'. Bain
Capital, or Mitt Romney 'helped create' over 10,000 jobs." That was back
in 1994.
"I don't take credit for the jobs at Staples. I helped create the jobs
at Staples." That was from The Boston Globe back in 1994. Then we heard
Eric Fenstrom state the other day – he's the governor's senior adviser
as most people know. He said this when he was being interviewed.
(Video Clip)
ERIC FEHRNSTROM, Mitt Romney's senior adviser: When you create value,
when you add value as they did in trying to improve companies, you also
add employment, and a rough back-of-the-envelope estimate of how many
jobs they created is well in excess of 100,000.
(End Video Clip)
O'BRIEN: Can you do the math for me, that 10,000 in '94 to today, that 10,000 to 90,000? Where were those jobs, specifically?
ANDREA SAUL, press secretary, Romney campaign: Sure. If you look at
four start-ups alone including Staples, Sports Authority, Bright
Horizons, and Steel Dynamics, those start-ups alone created over 100,000
jobs. So as you know, with a start-up company those wouldn't have
existed – or likely wouldn't have existed had it not been for the help
of Bain Capital. And so those are the jobs he's talking about.
What we can see is Governor Romney has 25 years of experience as a
businessman and entrepreneur creating jobs. The only thing President
Obama has ever managed is his own narrative. So Governor Romney has that
experience, he's learned from his successes and failures. And he
created more jobs at Bain Capital or helped create more jobs at Bain
Capital than President Obama has in the entire nation as president.
(...)
O'BRIEN: What's the governor's message when he looks at his record as
governor of Massachusetts? What's he telling folks about that?
(...)
O'BRIEN: Governor – or sorry, Mayor Rudy Giuliani didn't seem to
consider it a very solid record of job creation when he was interviewed
by Candy Crowley over the weekend. I want to play a little chunk of what
he told her. Listen.
(Video Clip)
RUDY GIULIANI, former mayor of New York City: I had massive reduction
in unemployment. He had a reduction in unemployment of about 8, 10 – I
think it was about 15 percent. I had a reduction of unemployment of 50
percent. They had a growth of jobs of about 40,000. We had a growth of
jobs of about 500,000. So I was comparing what I thought was my far
superior record to his otherwise decent record, but the numbers weren't
as great.
(End Video Clip)
O'BRIEN: And if you actually compare it – and I'm sure you've looked at
this a million times – to other states, the numbers Massachusetts job
creation, 0.9 percent, so just under 1 percent. New York was 2.7,
California 4.7, North Carolina 7.6.
[SCREEN GRAPHIC: Net Job Creation While In Office: Romney 45,800, Obama 572,000]
O'BRIEN: The national average overall, up 5 percent. Do you think
that's going to be a, basically what Giuliani says like -- meh, the
numbers were not so great?
SAUL: You know, what's interesting is when Governor Romney came into
Massachusetts, it was, the state was facing a similar situation as the
United States was when President Obama took office, which was the state
was in a recession, jobs were declining, the unemployment rate was up,
and so when Governor Romney came in there, he --
O'BRIEN: I don't think that's true actually. I think that the state in
2003 was in an economic upswing, wasn't it in 2003 in Massachusetts?
SAUL: No, when he took over, the state was losing jobs and he turned
that around. If you look, I'm happy to send it to you when I'm back at
my desk later. But the state, it was facing economic troubles, there was
a $3 billion budget deficit. He turned that into a $2 billion rainy day
fund, and again, he lowered the unemployment rate and created jobs,
which was a reversal of what had been happening.
-- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center
