Trump touts improvement in jobs after coronavirus as 'affirmation of all the work we've been doing'

President Trump on Friday, following a Labor Department report on lower unemployment, touted the U.S. economy beating expectations in the wake of the coronavirus, calling it an "affirmation of all the work we've been doing."

"We were in uncharted territory," Trump said of the economic turmoil following the coronavirus shutdown before praising the unexpected economic upturn announced Friday. "It's been an incredible thing to see. It's been a beautiful thing to see."

Trump also used the Rose Garden announcement to knock Democratic governors for continuing to put restrictions on their state economies amid the virus pandemic.

"I don't know why they continue to lock down," Trump said, who called those state leaders "lock-down governors."

The Dow shot up more than 700 points at opening on Friday after the surprise drop in U.S. jobless rate.

The Labor Department said in a report released earlier Friday that the May unemployment rate was 13.3%. The projected number was 19.5%.

The report also documents 2.5 million Americans returned to work last month, amid the coronavirus pandemic that since mid-March has shuttered large parts of the U.S. and global economy.

Though still a high jobless rate, the May report is a significant improvement from the jobs report for April, in which 20.5 million jobs were lost and the unemployment rate was 14.7%. 

These number suggest that the worst of the pandemic-induced economic turmoil could be over.

Trump compared the deep GDP and employment drops due to the coronavirus shutdown to the United States enduring a hurricane, which he said was a short-term challenge instead of signaling a chronic, long-term recession.

"If you had a really big, bbad recession, it could take 10, 12, many years to recover," Trump said. "It takes a long time, but a hurricane, you're back in business in one day, two days."

Figures released earlier this week by the ADP and the Labor Department show consistent drops in the number of Americans filing for unemployment and being cut from private payrolls. Both sets of numbers also fell below predictions and estimates.

Economists are currently predicting that the June jobs report will turn positive. Though many millions of Americans remain out of work, the May jobs report is, by far, the biggest one-month jobs gain for the U.S. since 1939.

“The great American comeback is underway after the economy was artificially interrupted by the global pandemic," Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 campaign manager, said in a statement Friday. "Doomsday economists had predicted a loss of 8.5 million jobs in May, but the economy roared back and added 2.5 million jobs instead, thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the solid foundation his policies have laid."

Red State economies are opening much faster than Blue States in the wake of economic devastation due to coronavirus, a trend that could have large future impacts, a senior economic advisor to Trump previously told Just the News. 

"You're seeing very large variation across Blue and Red states right now, and the extent to which economies are turning back on, and I think that that's probably the story of the data that's probably most under-told right now," said Kevin Hassett, senior White House economist.