After trying to sell Americans an economic message of short-term pain for long-term gain in the early days of the Iran war, President Donald Trump and his team have increasingly reverted to their old stance: that of Kevin Bacon in “Animal House.”
keep Calmthey are actually saying. all is well.
Before the war, this was a confusing and risky political message. Now it’s even more confusing and dangerous.
They used a version of that message in the fall. While affordability concerns have increasingly become an issue for Trump, he has begun arguing that prices have actually fallen — and significantly — even though that’s not the case.
Today, the message is even greater: Despite what voters hear (or see at any local gas station), things are actually pretty good. Besides, it could be worse.
“To be honest with you, we’re doing great,” Trump told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Wednesday, citing the stock market’s resilience.
When Bartiromo pushed back a bit, Trump argued that oil at $92 a barrel wasn’t that bad when you consider that some people were talking about $200 a barrel.
“You know what?” Trump added. “I’m very happy.”
Trump expanded on that rather optimistic view Thursday outside the White House and at a campaign event in Las Vegas focused on tax cuts.
Inflation “is a very low number and remains low,” he said. That’s despite the number soaring to its highest level in two years last month and expected to continue rising as the impact of the war continues. He mentioned “our great economy.”
Asked about the $4-a-gallon gas price, he pointed to the stock market and said: “Everything is going really well.”
He again said gas prices were “not very high” compared to “what they should be.” (A month ago, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC News there was a “very good chance” that gas prices would be below $3 a gallon by summer.)
Trump also called inflation “fake” because it was caused by rising fuel and energy prices.
“During my first term, we had the best economy in the history of our country,” Trump added. “We’re going to kill it now — we’re going to kill it now.”
Others seemed to have the same idea.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt urged people at a press briefing this week to “look at how gas prices have fallen over the past year since this president took office.” Even so, it’s not an impressive statistic: When Trump took office, gas prices were about $3.11 a gallon; when the war broke out, it was down a little more than 10 cents.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant told CNBC this week that Trump was able to go to war because “the economy is in such good shape.” He also said at a briefing with Levitt that the economy remains “very strong.”
During a Tax Day interview on The Nation, Bessant made some particularly surprising comments.
He’s betting that Americans are actually more optimistic about the economy than they let on.
“Consumers, while they may sound grim, are actually quite active,” he said of consumer behavior.
When reporters pointed out Bessant said people didn’t Feel That’s fine, but actually Performance He confidently stated that this was not the case. he bets people actually feels good About the economy, even if they don’t say so.
“Well, look inside them, they feel good,” Bessant said. “I’m not sure what they told investigators.”
Bessant isn’t exactly a freelancer here.
Some argue that economic fundamentals are not as grim as Americans believe, as CNN’s David Goldman wrote shortly before the war broke out in February. In the post-COVID world, consumer spending remains quite strong.
The fact that the stock market continued to rise—and has now recovered its losses from the early days of the war—seemed to illustrate this point.
But the Biden administration made a similar argument after inflation fell, which didn’t sit so well with them as former President Joe Biden’s approval rating for the economy fell.
So to the extent that Bessant’s argument is now a guiding principle, it is indeed a risky one. Because Americans are telling those “investigators” something real “Grim” stuff.
Recently, the much-watched University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index hit an all-time low in decades—not long after World War II.
It is now below levels not only during the post-COVID inflation surge, but also during the Great Recession of the late 2000s and various other economic hardships in the second half of the 20th century.
Opinion polls reflect this pessimism.
For example, the latest CNN poll from late March showed that only 23% of Americans thought the economy was at least “somewhat good.” That number has fallen only twice during Biden’s tenure, during a brief period in 2022.
The poll also showed:
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Sixty-two percent expect the economy to remain poor next year — the worst result in CNN polling in nearly three decades.
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More than 6 in 10 call rising gas prices ‘moderately difficult’
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More than 6 in 10 people say they have changed their spending habits in some way.
Perhaps more importantly, 65% to 25% of Americans say Trump has made the economy worse, not better.
For Biden, a negative 40-point gap is not only more severe than ever; It’s also much worse than the situation in January, when Trump’s temperature was minus 23 degrees.
The war has clearly burdened Trump with the economy. If war does happen, maybe that will start to disappear.
But trying to convince voters that the economy is actually good, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and their deep-seated negative feelings about it, doesn’t seem like a good strategy.
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