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This week in Trumponomics

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joined The Final Round to discuss the May jobs report and also gave this week's Trumpometer reading.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to "The Final Round." It's time for this week's Trumpometer. It's where we track the performance of the economy under President Trump. It's quite a busy week for the president, to say the least. Rick Newman, you obviously tracked this for us. How did he do this week?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, he was having a terrible week until this morning with all the complaints about the heavy-handed use of the Trump Gestapo to clear out the protesters, so he could go raise the Bible. But look, I mean, this was a great jobs report today-- 2.5 million new jobs. It's unclear if this is going to last, or this is just a statistical fluke or what. But let's give credit where credit is due. We have had, you know, many sad ratings on the Trumpometer during the last few weeks.

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And Trump does go up a few notches. He's going up two notches on the Trumpometer this week to weak. Now that is still the third-lowest rating on the Trumpometer, and here's why. If you look at the labor market compared with where we were in February, which was the last normal month before the virus arrived, we're still in terrible shape. We've got at least 15 million newly unemployed people since then, compared with February-- leisure and hospitality still down, 7 million jobs are 40%, trade and transportation down 3 million jobs, 10%, manufacturing down 1.1 million jobs, or down 9%. So it's true that there still is a giant hole to climb out of here. And it's not clear we're in a V yet. I think it'll take a few more months to figure that out. But look, good news today. So let's enjoy it.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and, Rick, it's kind of funny because at a time when there's so much going on, we didn't even mention the fact. We haven't even talked about coronavirus, yet, in today's show. And then also the escalating trade tension-- or escalating tension, I guess we could say-- between the US and China and then, obviously, that points to the question of what that means for trade down the road. So it might be a "weak" for now, but he could be dropped back to those more negative levels pretty soon.

RICK NEWMAN: I mean, there are warning signs everywhere. The protests could be part of what triggers a new outbreak of the coronavirus. We have actually seen increasing numbers of cases rather than decreasing in a handful of states, including a bunch to reopened sooner. You know, the landmines are still out there. And what I think Trump is getting to with regard to China, is China has been backsliding in terms of its commitment to purchase more American exports.

It has stopped doing that. I think that is China's response to Trump threatening some kind of sanctions over Hong Kong. I mean, this is a very messy relationship with China. And it's not going to get cleaned up anytime soon. I think what Trump is doing is trying to preemptively give himself cover if that trade deal with China looks like a big, fat nothing burger on election day. 'Cause there was a point when Trump wanted to be able to claim victory-- only I could come along and stand up to China and get something done there. It turns out it might not look that way on election day. So he's preparing for that.

MYLES UDLAND: And, Rick, what about the stock market, and ow does that factor in here? We know how much the president loves the market. It's gone up quite a bit. Is that part of the Trumpometer?

RICK NEWMAN: I read a story yesterday or the day before saying the stock market is off the rails. I continue to think it is, even with today's strong job numbers. But, look, I mean, I think the S&P 500 is only five points below its all-time high in February. So who knows? We could be hitting that again in the next week or the week after.

I feel like this has to converge at some point. But I keep being wrong about the stock market. And basically, I think the Federal Reserve is carrying the stock market at this point. It's great to see, you know, improvements in what looks like the real labor market. But I think it's all the Fed at this point. I guess, the Fed will continue to carry the stock market. Don't fight the Fed, right?

SEANA SMITH: And, also, Rick, that just ties into what you were saying at the top of the show just in terms of President Trump, the fact that he wants more stimulus. He's asking Congress-- putting pressure on Congress for more stimulus because he wants to do whatever it takes, obviously, to get the economy back on track and to keep the market's momentum going ahead of the 2020 election.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, I think he'll get that. You know, Republicans just don't have much of a case anymore for small government and keeping a lid on deficits. So now it just doesn't seem like the time to do this. You've got a few fiscal hawks in the Senate. You know, it comes down to probably a handful of Republican senators squawking, no, we don't need to do this. I think they'll end up doing something but maybe not as generous as we were hearing about before. Maybe not at all the way up to $1 trillion.

SEANA SMITH: All right, well the Trumpometer score this week is weak. So we'll see where we stand in a week from now. We'll check in again then. All right, Rick Newman, always great. Thanks so much.