In a rare moment of candidness, the president has admitted the vast majority of Americans don’t quite share his rosy view of the nation’s economic prospects.
“I’ve created the greatest economy in history,” Donald Trump claimed in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, before conceding: “But it may take people a while to figure all these things out.”
“All this money that’s pouring into our country is building things right now—car plants, AI, lots of stuff,” he went on. “I cannot tell you how that’s going to equate to the voter, all I can do is do my job.”
Trump’s claim to have “created the greatest economy in history” is squarely at odds with almost every metric of fiscal performance since he assumed the presidency for the second time earlier in January.
By the end of December, GDP growth is forecast to have almost halved on 2024, shrinking from 2.8 percent to just 1.6 percent over the past 12 months amid Trump’s widely panned tariff war against much of the rest of the planet.
Things haven’t fared much better in the labor market, where payroll growth has plummeted to historically low levels as unemployment rises to around 4.3 percent nationwide.
Inflation has refused to budge. The consumer price index of 3 percent is understood to be hitting lower- and middle-income earners especially hard, given the rising cost of essentials like energy, utilities, and groceries.
Latest polls suggest almost half of Americans believe the current affordability crisis is the worst they’ve ever seen, with one survey earlier in November suggesting as many as 60 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.
Even as he denies the veracity of those numbers, Trump would appear to be feeling their strain, embarking this week on what was billed as the first in a series of rallies to promote his economic message ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections.
Himself a billionaire, he spent portions of his Tuesday speech in Pennsylvania framing the cost-of-living crisis as a “Democratic hoax,” and suggesting poorer parents might brace for Christmas this year by preparing to buy their children fewer toys.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for further comment on this story.
