General Discussion

This week, the disappointing news continued as the Commerce Department reported the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — a metric that’s closely watched by the Federal Reserve for evidence of inflation — is also climbing, and as The New York Times reported, the data represented “the latest sign that President Trump’s tariffs are starting to bleed through into consumer prices.”

Then Trump sat down with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine and made a rather specific claim, not only about the key economic issue, but about his perceived successes.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc upoypvlxudsiv4pzbi5jtwf/post/3lv7g3qgdzs2s

Link to tweet

....But reality won’t budge. As the Trump administration’s own data shows, grocery costs have gone up since the president returned to the Oval Office, not down.

A couple of weeks ago at a White House event for a Republican audience, Trump said Democrats “lie” when they say the prices of food and groceries have gone up, but as a CNN report noted soon after, “Nonsense. It’s correct, not a lie, to say overall prices, grocery prices and food prices in general are up during this presidency.”.....

Throughout last year, then-candidate Trump was repeatedly asked about his plan to lower consumer prices. Common sense suggested he would’ve prepared at least some kind of coherent answer, but that never happened. He simply said it would all work out wonderfully once he returned to power.

As prices climb, the president could acknowledge the facts and perhaps even accept some responsibility, but he prefers to play make-believe.