PRICED OUT

CNN Data Guru Hits Trump With ‘Debilitating’ Reality

The network’s numbers man has grim news for the president just two weeks before the midterms.

CNN data guru Harry Enten has handed Donald Trump a painful reality check about the issue that helped put him back in the White House.

With just over two weeks left before the midterms, the network’s chief data analyst was asked on Sunday night’s Laura Coates Live to test the president’s claims that he has brought inflation down.

“With 16 days to go, Trump keeps suggesting inflation is under control and what we’re entering is the golden age. Problem is, the numbers have just been quite a bit different,” host Laura Coates said.

CNN has repeatedly fact-checked the 80-year-old president’s rosy inflation figures on the campaign trail. Trump has repeatedly insisted inflation is coming down, including at rallies in Ohio, Alaska, and Montana last week. But the Consumer Price Index report released Wednesday showed inflation climbing to 3.7 percent in September, up from 3.4 percent in August, driven largely by soaring gas prices.

Enten served his verdict cold.

“Each election has a name of the game… what this election will be determined by,” Enten said. “In this one, it is cost, cost, cost. It is inflation. And inflation is what is so debilitating to this President of the United States, Donald John Trump, and could be debilitating to Republicans’ hopes this midterm election.”

The president rode to victory on voters’ anger over prices in 2024, according to CBS News. On inflation, Americans trusted him over Kamala Harris by 7 points in the weeks before that election, Enten noted.

The 38-year-old added that Trump’s net approval on the issue now sits 52 points underwater, citing an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, marking a 59-point swing in the wrong direction.

“That is deeper than the East River, Hudson River, Harlem River all combined,” Enten said. “My goodness gracious.”

Enten then went further, arguing that Trump has been where no president has been before. When it comes to inflation, Trump takes the cake, holding all 25 of the worst net approval ratings on inflation ever recorded. All of them have come since he launched his war on Iran in February.

“Has any president ever been this bad?” Enten asked.

“The answer is no, not at all.”

Citing USA Facts, Enten said year-on-year inflation stood at 3 percent when Trump’s second term began and had cooled to 2.4 percent by February 2026, shortly before the war started. As of September, it is back up to 3.7 percent.

Paychecks are no longer keeping pace either. At the start of Trump’s term, wages were growing at 3.7 percent, ahead of prices. Wage growth is now 3.6 percent, trailing just behind inflation, Enten said, citing USA Facts.

“The voters, the Americans… are following what their pocketbooks are telling them when they go and try and get groceries or when they try and go fill up their tanks at the gas station,” Enten said.

Trump is no fan of CNN. He has regularly sparred with the network’s Kaitlan Collins, and last month he banned CNN from the White House for five days, along with MS NOW and POLITICO, until a federal judge temporarily blocked the move.

On Sunday, however, Trump reposted an old Enten segment touting his popularity among Republicans, drawn from a CNN/SSRS survey from May.

The new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll Enten cited paints a far bleaker picture. It put Trump’s overall approval at 33 percent, a record low across both his terms, with roughly three in four Americans disapproving of how he has handled inflation and the cost of living.

Enten has delivered a string of grim forecasts for the president this month. He has shown Trump sinking 36 points underwater with millennials and shedding support among the immigrant voters who helped get him over the line in 2024.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.

“The data is driving the voters,” Enten said.

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Briana CharlesReporter

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