Friday, Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo interviewed Philip Jennings, General Secretary of the UNI Global Union, as he took a break from supposedly helping the downtrodden by attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Jennings whined that unions can't organize in America because of government and employer obstruction, and brought the host to a boil when he falsely claimed that 62 percent of the benefits of December's tax-cut legislation go to the top one percent.
The hypersensitive Jennings complained that Bartiromo went "off-theme" when she said that President Donald Trump, since his election, has been helping "that man and woman who has been forgotten by the Obama administration and the Clinton administration."
Translation: "How dare you criticize Democrat icons!"
Bartiromo could have added, "... and would have been forgotten in Hillary Clinton's administration," and, "Who are you to say we're 'off-theme' criticizing previous presidents when you're obviously here bashing Trump?"
Four-plus minutes of the segment are here (h/t Daily Caller).
At 0:21 in the first extract below (two separate snips), Dagen McDowell in New York explained why Bartiromo was on-theme. Later, she described what the $1,000 bonuses millions of American workers have received mean:
Partial transcript (from 0:21-0:52 and 1:12-1:27):
DAGEN MCDOWELL: Well, the theme during the election was that it was those very union members that came out and voted for President Trump.
And herein lies one of the messaging problems when someone like Philip talks about "workers," the working man, the working woman. Well, the only good job to him is a union job where you collect dues and then funnel that hard-earned money to political campaigns and to politicians. That's why that message doesn't resonate with people.
(after Jennings tried to interrupt, and Bartiromo stopped him) $1,000 is 20 tanks of gas. $1,000 is a new television set, or a laptop. $1,000, potentially in this country, feeds a family of four for nearly a month. That's what $1,000 does.
After that, Jennings whined that people should "stop this nonsense about demonizing the trade union movement." McDowell went off: "Stop demonizing workers who don't belong to unions who are happy in their jobs!"
In the second extract (again, two snips), readers will first see that Jennings' supposed justification for his existence is, per Bartiromo, why Donald Trump got elected. Then Jennings tried to lie about the tax cut's impact, and Bartiromo let him have it:
Transcript (of Snip 2, at 0:21):
PHILIP JENNINGS: 62 percent of this tax cut will go to the top 1 percent. Full stop.
BARTIROMO: Not true. That's absolutely not true. I cannot have you spew lies on this program. That is not true.
Jennings' claim is only conceivably true in 2027 if the individual cuts expire. Nobody really believes that will happen. The Bush tax cuts 2003 were originally set to expire in 2010, and never did for the vast majority of taxpayers.
More to the point: Under current law, Jennings' claim is dead wrong now, and will be for nine years.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
