January 02, 2017
The NYT had an editorial arguing that major corporations are helping Donald Trump lie about job creation in order to get favors from his administration. The main example is the Japanese investment firm Soft Bank, which allowed Trump to get away with taking credit for investment decisions which had been announced in October, before Donald Trump was elected. It argues that Soft Bank is hoping that Trump will allow a merger between its Sprint subsidiary and T-Mobile. This merger had been opposed by the Obama administration because it would reduce competition in the cell phone industry. It would likely also result in the loss of a substantial number of jobs.
It is worth noting that such phony claims of job creation can only be effective for Trump if the media allow it. If the headline of the news stories was something to the effect of “Trump again makes phony job claim,” with the article carefully explaining that Trump had nothing to with creating any jobs, it is likely that Trump would give up on the tactic. Of course this would require the media to engage in objective reporting even if it ends up being very critical of a particular politician.
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