Perhaps it is the inner educator in me, but I hold on to a hope that over the long term, some people will allow facts to realign their thinking on Trump. I know that such things take time and are rarely like a light switch going from off to on in an instant. I also know that human pride and our deep capacity for rationalization make mind-changing in the moment a very difficult thing to do.
Still, I know from personal experience that one’s mind can be changed because sometimes to evidence is just too hard to deny. I changed my mind, for example, on the way the US engages in its various attempts at a war on drugs because, quite frankly, the cost and commensurate outputs don’t justify the actions (but that is just an example by way of digression).
Let’s just deal with a couple of really easy examples.
First, here’s the President of the United States making some statements about the state of the economy.
These are not just statements. They are incorrect statements.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline when he made that statement in April was $3.171.
Indeed, if you look at the US Energy Information Agency’s tracking of gas prices, you will note that the prices have been fairly steady going back until late 2022.
There was, of course, a substantial diminution in price in mid-2020, which was during the height of the pandemic and lockdown protocols that substantially diminished demand for gasoline globally.
Apart from pandemic-induced discounts, the last time gas prices were under $2.00/gallon was in the early part of the Obama administration. But that was also almost a decade ago.
Note, too, that gas was uniformly more expensive in Trump’s first year in office (2017) than Obama’s last year (2016). And then higher in 2018 before lowering a bit in 2019. All, however, within a fairly small range.
More importantly, neither Obama nor Trump had much to do with those prices. Trump inherited a basic trend in 2017, as he did in 2025. Note that the gas prices towards the end of the Biden era look awfully like the one we are currently experiencing, although they are lower than exactly a year ago.
dl;dr version: gas prices really have not changed that much from Biden to Trump, and Trump is being untruthful when he says prices are down to $1.98/gallon in several states.
He is not telling you the truth. At some point, people need to internalize this fact.
But how about eggs? Maybe he was right about that?
Nope.
Here are egg prices from the start of the Biden administration to now.
Whatever else one might say about this chart, one cannot truthfully say that egg prices have fallen 92%.
It simply isn’t true.
This just in: presidents don’t control egg prices.
Also, let me share these tariff numbers (h/t: Paul Krugman). The basic takeaway here is that the pre-existing tariff rates that we were operating under were quite low, especially when it comes to Europe. But none of what Trump has proposed can be seen as “reciprocal.”
Again, Trump lies when he talks about this stuff. He certainly has a careless disregard for facts.
Also, Krugman notes that the trade deal with the UK really isn’t a trade deal.
The Trump administration is planning to announce its first trade deal today, with Britain. Except it won’t be a deal; more of a “deal.” Reportedly it will mainly be a “framework” for an actual deal that may or may not happen sometime in the future. This is the tariff equivalent of “concepts of a plan” for health care.
In other words, this will be smoke and mirrors, an attempt to persuade the gullible that Trump’s tariffs are actually working.
Truth and facts should matter.
BTW, the reason why I have noted things like the DJIA’s reaction to tariffs and the contraction of GDP in Q1 is not because those metrics tell the full story. I cite them because they are individual pieces of evidence that help us assess what Trump policies are accomplishing. It just so happens that they measure negative accomplishments.
I will conclude with this from Fed Chairman Powell as to why the Fed will not cut rates.
Surveys of households and businesses, however, report a sharp decline in sentiment and elevated
uncertainty about the economic outlook, largely reflecting trade policy concerns. It remains to
be seen how these developments might affect future spending and investment.[…]
The new Administration is in the process of implementing substantial policy changes in
four distinct areas: trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation. The tariff increases
announced so far have been significantly larger than anticipated. All of these policies are still
evolving, however, and their effects on the economy remain highly uncertain.
I will note, again, that this uncertainty is a choice by Trump and his administration.
We do not need to be going through this turmoil. As Krugman noted in the linked post,
when Trump took over the U.S. economy was in very good shape. Unemployment was around 4 percent, while inflation was at most a fraction of a percentage point above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent. Our productivity growth was the envy of the world. We had a trade deficit, but as I said, this mainly reflected America’s attractiveness as a place to invest.
It’s true that Goldilocks now seems to be leaving the building, but that’s entirely — entirely — due to Trump himself. In discussing the Fed’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged, Jerome Powell repeatedly talked about “uncertainty,” but the only reason things seem much more uncertain now than they did a few months ago is the chaos Trump has created.
These are all empirical facts.
Gas prices are not that different now from when Biden was in office.
Egg prices are, in fact, up.
GDP was projected to grow in Q1, instead, it shrank.
And, Trump inherited a good economy, and he is working to wreck it.
Facts are facts.
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Author: Steven L. Taylor
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