Donald Trump Claim That Daughter Ivanka Trump ‘Created 14 Million Jobs’ Called ‘Insane,’ ‘Absurd,’ ‘Ludicrous’

Donald Trump delivered what was intended as a major speech on the economy on Tuesday. But when it was over, Trump faced widespread ridicule in the media and online for one especially stunning claim that he made during the speech at the Economic Club of New York. Trump told the audience that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, was personally responsible for creating an astounding 14 million jobs, according to a report by Vox, which labeled Trump’s outlandish claim a “whopper.”

Aaron Rupar, the Vox reporter who covered the economic speech for the publication, laughed off Trump’s claim as “absurd.”

In reality, Rupar pointed out, statistics show that since Trump’s January 20, 2017, inauguration, the entire United States economy has added 6 million jobs — less than half the total that Trump claimed were created by his 38-year-old, elder daughter alone.

Ivanka Trump, who had no previous government experience before joining her father’s administration, chairs a White House policy advisory board on job creation. In fact, her father claimed on Tuesday, the number of jobs created by Ivanka Trump is “14 million and going up,” according to Vanity Fair, which dismissed Trump’s claim about his daughter’s job-creating prowess as “insane.”

“When she started this two and half years ago her goal was 500,000 jobs,” Trump said. “She’s now created 14 million jobs.”

While according to actual statistics, job creation is only at the 6 million level under Trump’s administration, a study released earlier this year by Pro Publica showed that the real number attributable to Trump is far less than that.

According to the Pro Publica research, the vast majority of the U.S. economy’s new jobs under Trump are attributable to programs and policies that were put in place by Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama — or they were jobs that companies had already planned to add prior to Trump winning the 2016 presidential election and taking office.

Trump’s own actions have created fewer than 800 jobs, total, according to the Pro Publica study.

New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait was also taken aback by Trump’s “14 million jobs” claim on Ivanka Trump’s behalf.

Chait called the claim “so astonishingly ludicrous it would embarrass a Stalin-era pronouncement,” referring to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin who also crafted propaganda with claims that ran wildly counter to reality.

The New York Magazine writer noted that Trump repeated the claim about Ivanka Trump’s alleged job creation not once, but two additional times. He reported that “the crowd applauded politely” when Trump made the demonstrably false claim.

The Pro Publica report noted that Trump has previously made similar claims about his daughter’s supposedly prolific job-creating skills. In February, he claimed that the “Pledge to America’s Workers,” which Ivanka Trump promoted, had created 6.5 million jobs.

But as Pro Publica pointed out, that 6.5 million figure referred to job retraining opportunities, “not necessarily new jobs.”