‘We have very little inflation’: Trump’s midterms pitch clashes with inconvenient truths

With under three weeks until the midterm elections, the last Consumer Price Index release before voting dealt President Donald Trump a political setback, and his reaction to it has drawn sharp criticism from MS NOW. The Wednesday numbers showed costs climbing, an increase MS NOW attributes mostly to the conflict with Iran. For a sixth consecutive month, paychecks lost ground to rising prices. The release followed weak job-creation figures, compounding the pressure on the White House.

At a Montana rally that evening, Trump told supporters, "We have very little inflation." MS NOW reports that he also put the inflation rate at 1.7% in recent months, down from 19%, a level the CPI has never reached. He said his administration inherited the worst inflation in history from Joe Biden, though MS NOW notes that the record was set 46 years ago and that the rate was 3% when his second term started, below today's level. Trump also told the crowd that prices had fallen substantially, even as his own administration had just published data showing otherwise.

A Fox News poll issued hours after the CPI release put approval of Trump's handling of inflation at 22% among Americans.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →