Though President Donald Trump might genuinely believe that the economy is going gangbusters because he lives in a world of his own making, the people around him know that’s not the case. But they can’t admit that, so they have to come up with new ways for Trump to lie.
The latest idea is to have Trump increase his domestic travel and decrease his fancy international jaunts, and to have some new messaging on how Trump’s economic policies are helping lower costs.
Let them eat rallies, basically.
The notion that Trump is going to run around the country and sell his domestic agenda is ridiculous. And how can anyone tear him away from his big, beautiful ballroom and tacky Oval Office?
President Donald Trump shows renderings of his new ballroom while sitting in his tacky, gold-plated Oval Office.
His advisers know that they have to do something because Trump is running around saying that polls are “fake” and a Democratic “con job” because they show that a majority of Americans are worried about the economy.
Those nefarious, all-powerful Democrats! How do they do it? According to Trump, “they put out something ‘say today costs are up.’ They feed it to the anchors of ABC, CBS and NBC and a lot of others—CNN etc.”
Buddy, don’t you think that if the Democrats had this sort of power, they’d have used it to win elections? Or maybe to stop ABC and CBS from settling sham lawsuits with you?
But Trump is mad because people aren’t giving him enough credit for all of the wonderful work he’s doing. As one senior White House official told CNN, “He’s frustrated he’s not getting credit for what he’s doing,” with the only examples being energy deregulation and the extension of his 2017 tax cuts.
Yeah, the tax cuts from Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” really benefited people. Well, people who were already rich.
But at least you have to admit that Trump is right when he says that “costs are way down.”
Like costs for groceries? Oh, wait. Nope, they’re up.
Electric bills? Also way up.
Okay, but housing costs? Well, the administration is trial ballooning a 50-year mortgage. Is it good when your mortgage lasts so long that your children inherit it? Seems bad …
A cartoon by Clay Bennett.
Well, no one can argue with the fact that gas is down to $2 per gallon, just like Trump said. Well, it’s actually $3 per gallon, but come on. That’s only 50% above what Trump promised. A pittance, really.
Oh, job growth! That’s happening, right? All that energy deregulation and permanent tax cuts must have resulted in prosperity. Well, the United States lost 50,000 jobs last month, as major corporations cut tens of thousands more.
Trump has no plan to fix the economy. Tariffs aren’t it, no matter how much he says they are. And while tariffs may be fattening the government’s coffers, that’s because we are paying them.
At the root, Trump doesn’t want a plan to fix the economy. He just wants people to stop hassling him about how bad it is. And anyway, everything will be fixed soon.
Well, soonish. Maybe 2026. Maybe 2027. But definitely soon. If you can just hang on and ignore catastrophic job losses and skyrocketing costs for a few years, you’ll be right as rain.
