Jobs Numbers a 'Tribute to Republican Leadership,' Rep. McMorris Rodgers Says
*By Carlo Versano*
Friday's strong employment report that revealed 201,000 U.S. jobs were added in August is a "tribute to Republican leadership," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking female Republican in the House.
"We have more job openings now in America than people on unemployment," the Congresswoman said Friday in an interview on Cheddar.
The report also posted an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent and wage growth of 2.9 percent.
The booming economy is what Republicans in liberal states, like McMorris Rodgers's Washington, are banking on to help them maintain control of the House come November's midterms.
"I know there's a lot of noise up there," she said, likely referring to the latest drama unfolding in DC over Wednesday's damning, anonymous op-ed published in New York Times. She added it's up to Congressional leaders to get the economic message out.
McMorris Rodgers has been vocal in her opposition to some of Trump's trade policies, chief among them "the across the board tariffs."
Washington is the most dependent state in the country on foreign trade, she said, since major American manufacturers like Microsoft and Boeing call it home.
But McMorris Rodgers said she supports Trump's hard line in "taking action about the bad actors" like China, which she said has a long history of taking innovative technology from companies like Microsoft, duplicating it, and selling it on the cheap. On Friday, the president threatened tariffs on an additional $267 billion worth of Chinese goods, on top of the original $200 billion the administration has proposed.
That said, she's encouraged by the most recent bilateral trade deals. "I'm pleased to see the movement with Mexico," she said. "We need to just keep those agreements going."
Separately, the Congresswoman was part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing that summoned Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey to testify this week. During Wednesday's hearing, she told Dorsey that Twitter needs a better system for identifying and purging threatening tweets, and that the platform was too opaque in how it handled abusive content.
As a frequent Twitter user, McMorris Rodgers told Cheddar the issue is of importance to her personally, but she gives Dorsey credit for fielding her questions in a public setting.
"I was pleased that \[he\] was willing to come," she said, adding, "I want to see what they're actually going to do."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/congresswoman-mcmorris-rodgers-on-booming-economy).
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