Since Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, the number of jobs added to the economy has been low.
While former President Joe Biden added around 168,000 jobs each month, Trump has only added around 49,000 each month. However, according to Trump’s trade advisor, Americans should actually be happy about the terrible job numbers and job cuts.
With this news, it means that Trump has presided over the weakest year of jobs gains outside of a recession since 2003. Meanwhile, more bad news is expected on Wednesday after the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the latest jobs report.
California Governor Gavin Newsom noted the news and made sure to troll the president on X (formerly Twitter). While sharing a video of Trump speaking, he added the words, in capitals, “IS EVERYBODY ELSE HAVING A FUN TIME IN THE GOLDEN AGE?”
In the video, Trump boasts of cutting “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” while saying the government still has good employment numbers.
IS EVERYBODY ELSE HAVING A FUN TIME IN THE GOLDEN AGE? https://t.co/tZlVmqESjF
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) February 11, 2026
Meanwhile, probably eager to get ahead of the report and prevent market fallout, the president’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro said on Tuesday that this was actually good news. He said the poor jobs numbers and job cuts were, in fact, evidence that the Trump administration is deporting “millions” of undocumented immigrants who he claimed were previously stealing jobs from Americans.
Speaking to Fox business host Maria Bartiromo, Navarro explained, “We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like.
The Daily Beast quotes Navarro, as saying, “When we were letting in two million illegal aliens, we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for steady state.”
Navarro explained that the jobs that were created during the Biden years were “going to illegals.” Meanwhile, “Americans were going to the employment lines. However, under the Trump administration, that supposed trend has reversed, so Navarro added the country only needs to create around 50,000 jobs each month.
“So, Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can’t rain on that parade, they have to adjust to the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals out of our job market,” Navarro said.
Despite his words, the administration has reportedly arrested around 393,000 “illegal immigrants” since Trump took office a year ago, and not “millions” as stated by Navarro which doesn’t help the job cuts. Moreover, his explanation also doesn’t take account of the US unemployment rate during his first year back in the Oval Office, which hit a four-year high of 4.6 percent in November last year.
Moreover, in January, planned layoffs hit the highest level since the Great Recession. Despite this, Bartiromo responded, saying, “That’s a good point,” and adding, “But it sounds like you’re expecting a weak number tomorrow.”
“No, not expecting a weak number,” Navarro responded. “I’m just saying that going forward, when we see a number under 100,000, we don’t wring our hands. We say, ‘Yeah that’s going to be steady state.’”
Meanwhile, Navarro’s statements were similar to those of Kevin Hassett, Trump’s Head of the National Economic Council. He said last month that the job cuts really weren’t that bad. “The below 100 [thousand] thing isn’t as disturbing as it might be in the past,” he said.
Moreover, the president has insisted this week that he is “very proud” of his economy, despite the fact that many Americans are worried about being able to pay their bills, buy food and other basics, while others suffer from job cuts.
