President Trump is holding a campaign rally this evening in conservative Springfield, Missouri, a beautiful city of about 160,000 people in the Ozarks hills. But in today’s Springfield News-Leader newspaper, his son Donald Jr. insulted the entire town, claiming his dad has saved it from utter ruin, despite the fact that it was doing just fine under President Obama.
Junior wrote a column claiming, with no evidence or facts to back it up, that before his dad took over, Springfield basically sucked, and his dad’s policies have brought it back from disaster. He writes:
"Not too long ago, Springfield was down and out. Many had lost hope… Thanks to the Trump economy, it's a city that recovered from the brink of collapse, now seeing an economic rebirth that seemed impossible only a few years ago.”
But Springfield city leaders point out that Junior is just lying, according to a front-page news article in the same edition of the newspaper. Check these quotes from the article:
Mayor Ken McClure: "Springfield has never been on the brink of collapse."
City council member Craig Hosmer: “I’ve been on council for five years and I can’t say we ever thought we were on the brink of collapse. He hasn’t really done his homework.”
City council member Tom Prater: “I slept through the part when Springfield was down and out. Springfield was never nearing an economic collapse.”
The truth is, Springfield is the economic center for a huge rural area of about half a million people, with many manufacturing plants, tourism attractions, about a thousand evangelical churches, and the largest university in the state, Missouri State University, with 25,000 students. Springfield has been doing fine for the past decade.
But Junior’s column claims that President Trump has turned around Springfield’s unemployment rate, saying it’s now lower than the national unemployment rate. In reality, of course, the turn-around in unemployment in Springfield, like everywhere else, occurred under President Obama.
As the news article notes, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports show Springfield already had a lower unemployment level than the nation's rate when President Trump took office.
Junior ended his column:
"Springfield is down and out no longer — let's keep it that way."
City manager Greg Burris took issue with that, too.
"I'm not sure Donald Trump Jr. has ever been to Springfield but I can't remember us being down and out," Burris said.
Great work, Junior, insulting an entire city that supported your dad in the last election by lying about it in such an obvious way that even conservative leaders can’t help but call you out on your dumb dishonesty. Moron.
So far, the comments on the News-Leader’s website from Springfieldians responding to Junior's column seem super-pissed. Maybe this will help wake up this conservative region!