Trump again takes credit for jobs that were already planned before the election

When he was not busy insulting the country’s greatest living actress and lying about mocking a disabled reporter, President-elect Donald Trump did the other thing he does best: Claiming credit for jobs that were already in place before he was elected.

This time, the “lucky” company was Fiat Chrysler, whom Trump praised in tweets Monday morning:

It's finally happening – Fiat Chrysler just announced plans to invest $1BILLION in Michigan and Ohio plants, adding 2000 jobs. This after…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017

Ford said last week that it will expand in Michigan and U.S. instead of building a BILLION dollar plant in Mexico. Thank you Ford & Fiat C!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017

Trump is referring to Fiat’s announcement that it will be investing $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing facilities, an investment that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne says had nothing to do with Trump, while acknowledging the reckless power of Trump’s tweets:

“This is new territory for most of us. None of us have had a tweeting president before,” Sergio Marchionne said during a round table with reporters at the Detroit auto show.

Marchionne said his company’s decision, announced Sunday, to invest $1 billion in two U.S. auto plants and create 2,000 jobs to build new Jeep vehicles was in the works for a while and wasn’t influenced by Trump.

As a matter of fact, the investments Marchionne announced this week were negotiated in 2015 by the United Auto Workers, in an agreement which included investments in U.S. manufacturing that totaled $5.3 billion over the course of the four-year agreement (see page 309).

This is yet another worrisome example of the way Trump recklessly wields two of his favorite tools — bald-faced lies and his Twitter account — in ways that stand to harm Americans.