Trump is a flawed human, just like the rest of us. He makes plenty of mistakes, saying he'd look at opposition research wasn't one of them.
You do realize this is a political trap. He said to see if the MSM would call this wrong, and they did. Why you wonder? Because Trump never did take foreign oppo research, but Hillary did. The MSM just admitted what HRC and the DNC did was wrong.
Unemployment metrics in the US are not a clear picture of unemployment. Presidents have been changing how the metrics are calculated since JFK. The labor force participation is a better indicator. Trump halted the loss and exporting of jobs that started under GW Bush, and carried through BHO. Some say it even started under BJC during the late 90s tech bubble.