{"id":7323,"date":"2025-11-10T20:17:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/fact-check-trumps-lying-spree-about-inflation-cnn\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T20:17:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:24","slug":"fact-check-trumps-lying-spree-about-inflation-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/fact-check-trumps-lying-spree-about-inflation-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact check: Trump\u2019s lying spree about inflation – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump went on a lying spree about inflation last week. <\/p>\n

Grocery prices. Gas prices. Prescription drug prices. Overall prices. Over just three days, Trump made false claims about all of them. <\/p>\n

Trump was discussing the issue of \u201caffordability\u201d after Democrats won state and local elections Tuesday in part by campaigning on the cost of living<\/a>. He argued<\/a> that this theme was \u201ca con job by the Democrats\u201d given how successful he said he has been in lowering prices. <\/p>\n

But Trump repeatedly used inaccurate statistics and assertions to make his case that Democrats were dishonest. Here is a fact check. <\/p>\n

Over and over, Trump claimed overall prices have fallen since he returned to office in late January. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery price is down,\u201d he said<\/a> Thursday. \u201cEverything is way down,\u201d he said<\/a> at another Thursday event. \u201cPrices are down under the Trump administration, and they\u2019re down substantially,\u201d he said<\/a> Friday, adding, \u201cEverybody knows that it\u2019s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.\u201d <\/p>\n

None of that is true. <\/p>\n

Prices are up during this administration. Average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, according to the most recent figures from the federal Consumer Price Index<\/a>, and 3% higher than they were in September 2024. There has been inflation<\/a> every month of the term, and f<\/a>ar more products<\/a> have gotten costlier than cheaper. <\/p>\n

Trump claimed<\/a> Friday: \u201cWe have almost no inflation. We\u2019re down now to 2%.\u201d He said at the same event: \u201cInflation is almost nonexistent.\u201d <\/p>\n

Those claims are slightly more accurate than Trump\u2019s late-October claims<\/a> that \u201cwe don\u2019t have any inflation\u201d and that \u201cwe\u2019re down to 2%, even less than 2%.\u201d But the new claims are still wrong. <\/p>\n

Inflation not only very much continues to exist but has been accelerating since the spring. As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The September rate, 3%, was the same as the rate in January, the month Trump returned to the White House. Inflation of 3% is simply not inflation of 2%. (Core inflation, which omits volatile food and energy prices, was also 3% in September<\/a>.) And this \u201c2%\u201d claim wasn\u2019t a one-time slip by Trump; he claimed<\/a> in late October, \u201cWe\u2019re down to 2%, even less than 2%.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump claimed on both Wednesday<\/a> and Thursday<\/a> that \u201cgroceries are way down.\u201d But grocery prices are actually up<\/a>. Average grocery prices rose 1.4% between January and September, Consumer Price Index figures show<\/a>, and they rose 2.7% between September 2024 and September 2025. The 0.6% increase in average grocery prices from July 2025 to August 2025, meanwhile, was the biggest month-to-month spike in three years \u2013 and it was followed by a 0.3% increase from August to September. <\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly claimed that beef is the only grocery product whose price has increased this term. \u201cGroceries are way down, other than beef,\u201d he claimed<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cWe have much lower prices than (Democrats) do, and we only have one thing, beef,\u201d he claimed<\/a> Thursday. <\/p>\n

This is also false. The prices of dozens of individual grocery products increased from January to September. A smattering of products got less expensive over that period, most notably eggs<\/a>, but a far greater number of products got more expensive; you can see a list here<\/a>. Prices increased from January to September in five of the six overarching groups of grocery prices tracked by the Consumer Price Index. <\/p>\n

Trump continued to use mathematically impossible figures<\/a> when making claims about how much he is supposedly reducing prescription drug prices. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing drug prices down to levels nobody ever thought was possible, tremendous cuts, 200%, 300%, 500%, 700%,\u201d he claimed<\/a> Thursday, adding later, \u201cnow we\u2019re cutting it 1,000%, 1,200%.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump has had some success in pushing drug companies to cut the prices of some medications; he made these comments at an event announcing reductions<\/a> in the prices of certain blockbuster obesity drugs. But far more medications have not had their prices slashed \u2013 and regardless, Trump\u2019s professed reductions in excess of 100% make no sense even if he is talking about a small number of specific drugs. A price reduction of 100% would make a drug cost $0, so a reduction of 200% or more would mean Americans would be getting paid a substantial amount of money to acquire medications. That is not happening. <\/p>\n

Gas prices aren\u2019t the lowest in two decades and aren\u2019t close to $2 per gallon <\/h2>\n

Trump has been making false claims about gas prices for<\/a> months<\/a>. He claimed<\/a> Wednesday: \u201cGasoline prices have plummeted to the lowest in two decades.\u201d That was not even close to true<\/a> given that the national average on Wednesday was $3.08, according to data provided by AAA \u2013 higher than it was on various days under Biden in January of this <\/em>year, as well as during 202<\/a>0<\/a> and early 2021<\/a> (amid the Covid-19 pandemic) and during much of the 2000s and 2010s<\/a>. \u201cPlummeted\u201d is also a stretch given that the AAA national average was $3.12 per gallon on the day Trump returned to office in January and $3.10 per gallon one year before Wednesday, both just barely higher than Wednesday\u2019s $3.08 per gallon. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible Trump was attempting to refer to the federal Energy Information Administration\u2019s estimate<\/a> in September that drivers will this year spend \u201cthe smallest share of their disposable income on gasoline since 2005.\u201d But that\u2019s an estimate, not a certainty, and it\u2019s simply not the same thing as Trump said about gas prices alone; \u201cthere\u2019s a big difference between \u2018lowest gas prices in 20 years\u2019 and \u2018least amount of your paycheck going to fill your tank in 20 years,\u2019\u201d Patrick De Haan<\/a>, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, noted to CNN. It\u2019s not necessarily your<\/em> paycheck, either. The federal estimate is based on overall <\/em>disposable income in the economy, so some Americans have less than the estimate while others have more. <\/p>\n

Trump also made other false claims about gas prices last week. On Thursday, Trump claimed<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re at almost $2 for gasoline.\u201d On Friday, he claimed<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re a little bit above $2 right now for gasoline.\u201d Even granting Trump some wiggle room for the words \u201calmost\u201d and \u201ca little bit,\u201d there is no reasonable argument that a national average above $3 per gallon is \u201calmost $2\u201d or \u201ca little bit above $2.\u201d (De Haan said GasBuddy found one gas station, out of the tens of thousands of stations the company tracks, that sold gas for under $2 per gallon last week \u2013 and even that station only did so for a single day.) <\/p>\n

Trump, echoing a claim he has made<\/a> for months, said<\/a> Wednesday that Biden \u201chad the highest inflation rate in the history of our country.\u201d Trump said<\/a> Friday: \u201cWe took over a mess. The highest inflation in recorded history.\u201d <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the highest in history, as CNN and others have noted in numerous articles. Trump could have fairly said the inflation rate hit a 40-year high under Biden in June 2022<\/a>, when it was 9.1%, but that was not close to the all-time\u202frecord\u202fof 23.7%<\/a>, set in 1920 \u2013 and Trump didn\u2019t mention that it had declined to 3% by Biden\u2019s last partial month in office in January, the same as the most recent Trump-era figure for September. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s claim was also incorrect if he meant the Biden presidency set a record for cumulative inflation over the course of a presidential term; the Biden-era increase was much smaller than the increase during President Jimmy Carter\u2019s term. <\/p>\n

Oil and gas prices are down, but not household energy prices <\/h2>\n

Trump claimed<\/a> Friday: \u201cEnergy prices are way down from what they were last year.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the Consumer Price Index shows that household energy prices<\/a> are up substantially over the last year \u2013 6.2% higher in September 2025 than they were in September 2024. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible Trump was not meaning to refer to household energy. A review of his recent comments suggests he often uses \u201cenergy\u201d to describe either gas prices at the pumps<\/a>, which have fallen a little over the past year, or oil prices on world markets<\/a>, which have fallen more substantially<\/a>. <\/p>\n

So we won\u2019t label this Trump claim false given that he could have been talking about the price of a barrel of oil. But when he doesn\u2019t define the term \u201cenergy,\u201d and speaks about it while discussing consumer prices, he leaves his assertion open to a possible misinterpretation. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump went on a lying spree about inflation last week. Grocery prices. Gas prices. Prescription drug prices. Overall prices. Over just three days, Trump made false claims about all of them. Trump was discussing the issue of \u201caffordability\u201d after Democrats won state and local elections Tuesday in part by campaigning on the cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}