‘Sounds Like You’re Expecting a Weak Number’: Maria Bartiromo Presses Trump Advisor Over Call for Lower Jobs ‘Expectations’

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed senior Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro after he urged investors to “revise expectations down significantly” ahead of Wednesday’s job report, arguing any potential drop would serve as evidence that the administration’s deportation crackdown was working.

The exchange came on Tuesday’s edition of Mornings with Maria, one day before the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release employment data postponed by the brief government shutdown.

The report is expected to show whether the labor market has broken out of a prolonged stall, after last year delivered the weakest annual job growth outside a recession since 2003. BLS reporting in December closed out the year at roughly 50,000 jobs added and unemployment at 4.4%

Given the final word of the segment he featured in on Tuesday, Navarro abruptly pushed the framing that any slowdown was not evidence of economic trouble, but a recalibration because of immigration policy.

“One thing I want to note. The jobs reports going to come out tomorrow, we have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like,” he said. “All the jobs that we were creating in Biden years [were] going to illegals, Americans [were] going to unemployment lines. That is totally reversed and now 50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need.”

“So Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can’t rain on that parade,” he added. “They have to adjust to the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals.”

“That’s a good point but it sounds like you are expecting a weak number tomorrow?” Bartiromo pressed.

“No, not expecting a weak number, Navarro replied. “I am 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.”

Bartiromo moved to wrap up before the advisor interjected: “It’s all good, Maria.”

Watch above via Fox Business.

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