Kudlow Jokes He Asked Trump Not to Tweet Job Data Prematurely

(Bloomberg) -- White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow joked that he asked President Donald Trump not to tweet details of the October jobs report before they became public.

Kudlow said he was surprised with the strength of the jobs report when he received it Thursday evening, adding that he wanted to discuss it with Trump before the Labor Department published the data the next morning. Kudlow called Trump while the president was traveling that night.

“And he loved it,” Kudlow told the audience at an event at the Economic Club of Chicago, prompting laughter. “And then I said, Mr. President, please promise me you won’t tweet this out.”

Kudlow’s comments refer to controversy that surfaced June 1 when Trump wrote on his Twitter account that he was “looking forward to seeing the employment numbers” that morning. The Labor Department report, which came out a little over an hour later, showed the economy had added more jobs in May than economists had forecast.

Friday’s report for October also beat analyst expectations. This time around, however, Trump “was good to his word” and didn’t tweet ahead of time, Kudlow said. “But he was impressed with the numbers.”

--With assistance from Kasia Klimasinska.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Foster in Washington at sfoster94@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McGregor at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net, Randall Woods, Alister Bull

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