Trump Takes Credit for Jobs
BLACKWELL: President-elect Trump taking credit for a plan to keep 5,000 jobs in America, a number already announced as part of a broader hiring plan by a Japanese company, Softbank. Watch.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was just called by the head people at Sprint and they're going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States, they're taking them from other countries. They're bringing them back to the United States. And Masa (ph) and some other people were very much involved in that so I want to thank them. And also Oneweb (ph), a new company, is going to be hiring 3,000 people. So that's very exciting.</s>BLACKWELL: Earlier this month, Trump tweeted, "Masa, Softbank, of Japan, has agreed to invest 50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs." Softbank owns a majority share of Sprint. The company has confirmed that the number Trump is referring to was included in its original plan to invest in companies around the world, a plan announced before the election. So let's talk more about this. I'm joined now by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. Good morning to you.</s>DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN, FORMER CBO DIRECTOR: Good morning. How are you?</s>BLACKWELL: I'm doing well, thank you. Is it appropriate for Donald Trump to take credit for these jobs?</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, he's under a lot of pressure. Let's face it, expectations are quite high that he will change the direction of this economy. It's an economy that's had no discernible sense of momentum. It's characterized by poor wage growth, poor productivity growth and, you know, he's not yet president. There's a lot of expectations about tax reform and regulatory reform and big infrastructure spending programs and so, in this vacuum before he's inaugurated, I think he's trying to maintain the momentum, maintain the expectation, when he can't really do anything.</s>BLACKWELL: Maintaining momentum when he can't do anything. We go back to the original question, though, is it credible that he should claim having brought these jobs to the U.S.?</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: No. I think we know that the plan was in place before the election. And, you know, that's pretty clear. So the question is, what will he actually get done once he's inaugurated and has a chance to influence some of these plans?</s>BLACKWELL: As we talk about credit, Donald Trump tweeted out earlier this week about the U.S. consumer confidence index, up 113 -- up to 113 points, highest in 15 years, thanks, Donald. Credit there realistic and deserved?</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think that's a realistic place where he should get some credit. Since the election we've seen --</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: -- sharp increases in consumer confidence. We've seen a sharp rise in equity prices, the Dow Jones and other indexes. Those are traditionally associated with the electoral outcomes and he won. So I think that's pretty fair.</s>BLACKWELL: Would they not be also associated with jobs and investment and the increase of wage growth?</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think that's going to be the main challenge of his presidency. We've seen the economy recover from a great recession. But we haven't seen wages recover in the way that most people had hoped. If he can deliver strong wage growth, he will be judged to be very successful, I think.</s>BLACKWELL: One of the other challenges of his presidency, what to do about his business empire. Here's what Donald Trump said yesterday at Mar-a-lago.</s>TRUMP: It's not a big deal. You people are making that a big deal, the business, because look, number one, when I won they all knew I had a big business all over the place. In fact, I reported it with the, as you know, with the federal election. It's a much bigger business than anybody thought. It's a great business. But, I'm going to have nothing to do with it. I'm going to just -- I don't have to, because as you know, I wouldn't have to do that. But I want to do that because I want to focus on the country.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, the president-elect says that it's not a big deal. He's tweeted that it's not that complicated although members of his transition team have said that it's taking so long to explain it because it's so complicated. Where do you fall on this?</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think we have to wait and see, to be honest. You know, there is the potential for conflicts of interest. And that's always true. It's been true of previous presidents and previous members of the executive branch. So the key here is to have actual policy decisions, looking to see whether there's the appearance of a conflict of interest and then have congressional oversight. This idea that he somehow decided in advance, in the abstract, I think, is just too hard. We've got to look at actual decisions and actual potential conflicts and decide on a case-by-case basis.</s>BLACKWELL: To what degree are you expecting serious congressional oversight, though? Oh, I think if we saw, you know, a transaction that appeared to have favored his businesses, Congress would look right into it. I don't have any real doubts about that.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, thanks so much for being with us.</s>HOLTZ-EAKIN: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: We'll be right back.