ON POLITICS

Sarah Sanders sorry for false claim that Donald Trump created more jobs for blacks than Barack Obama

Sarah Sanders

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders offered a rare correction and apology after providing false information during a press briefing Tuesday about how many jobs Barack Obama created for blacks during his presidency. 

Sanders incorrectly told reporters President Donald Trump had created three times as many jobs for African-Americans as former President Barack Obama had during his entire eight years in the White House.

"Correction from today’s briefing: Jobs numbers for Pres Trump and Pres Obama were correct, but the time frame for Pres Obama wasn’t," Sanders posted on Twitter. "I’m sorry for the mistake, but no apologies for the 700,000 jobs for African Americans created under President Trump." 

Media outlets were quick to fact-check with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Obama was president, he created nearly 3 million jobs for blacks, about 15 times what Sanders claimed. 

Sanders had been attempting to show Trump's record with the African-American population was not only great, but even better than Obama's, explaining Trump tripled Obama's job creation record for the black community. 

"This President since he took office, in the year and a half that he's been here, has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans," Sanders said Tuesday.

She continued: "That's 700,000 African-Americans that are working now that weren't working when this President took place. When President Obama left, after eight years in office, he had only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans."

More:Donald Trump calls former aide Omarosa a 'dog,' triggering outrage

More:What Trump-Omarosa feud means for midterms: 'You have a dynamic where communities of color think they are under attack'

More:Here are 10 times President Trump's comments have been called racist

The claim was made during Sanders' defense of Trump on race after the president was accused of using the N-word on tape and called former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman a "dog" on Twitter. 

The White House Council of Economic Advisers posted an apology on Twitter, saying there was a miscommunication to Sanders.