CNBC editor Rick Santelli couldn’t hold back his shock as he read out inflation numbers that are hugely damaging to President Donald Trump.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Producer Price Index on Wednesday morning, showing that wholesale prices in April rose sharply by 6 percent, the largest annual increase in more than three years.
The Producer Price Index also rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4 percent for the month, nearly three times the 0.5 percent Dow Jones forecast.
While reading out the damning figures—which will add pressure on the president, who is already recording dire approval ratings on the economy—the Squawk Box contributor let out a series of “wows” live on air.
“The numbers are coming in on the warm side. Our April Producer Price Index for the month of April, headline number almost triple expectations, up a whopping 1.4 percent. Wow,” Santelli said.
“You have to go back to March of ’22 to find a bigger number, and that number was 1.7. Now, if we strip out the all-important food and energy, we’re also at a triple-header here. We were expecting up three-tenths, we end up with up 1 percent. Up 1 percent would be the warmest since, wow, also March of ’22.
“Now, if we go to the ex-food, energy, and trade number, it’s double expectations. We were looking for up three-tenths, it comes out up six-tenths. That equals October of last year. To find a higher number, you have to go back to July of last year.”
The global oil-price crisis stemming from Trump’s deeply unpopular war in Iran—which has sent gas prices soaring in the U.S.—has been cited as one of the reasons for the huge increase in producer prices.
The war, which has dragged on for 10 weeks, has no real end in sight, with the U.S. and Iran failing to reach any agreement that would reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.
On Tuesday, Trump made the shocking announcement that he does not care about the financial hardships that tens of millions of Americans are going through because of the war.
When asked on the White House lawn on Tuesday whether people’s financial situations were “motivating” him to make a deal with Iran, the president replied: “Not even a little bit.”
“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about America’s financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. If the stock market goes up or down a little bit, the American people understand it,” Trump added.
