An economist didn’t mince words as he dismantled Donald Trump’s boasts about the economy, questioning if the president is losing his grip on reality.
In a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump declared that the United States is “doing phenomenally well” under his leadership and touted “the greatest economy we’ve ever had.” He claimed prices were falling everywhere except for “beef and coffee.”
“Look, every word the president just said is a lie,” University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on The Source. “Worse with that, it’s such a lie that I worry that there’s literally a break with reality inside the man’s mind.”
The economist said Trump’s remarks aren’t just political spin—they’re flatly contradicted by government data. “I can tell you that because I’m a statistics nerd,” he said. “You can go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They’ve got people in supermarkets all across the country, and almost every category of goods or services sees the prices rising.”
Wolfers said there’s “a reasonable argument to be had” about whether inflation is too high or too low—but denying its existence altogether crosses a line.
“And it’s not just the nerds at the BLS who see it,” he continued. “When companies are giving their earnings reports, they’re telling us they’re raising their prices. Every single viewer on the other side of this television set knows exactly what’s happening, which is prices are rising.”
Wolfers, a frequent economic commentator, said Trump’s statements reflect something more troubling than a bad policy take. “I don’t understand the logic of looking us in the eye and telling us an outright falsehood,” he said.
Speaking earlier on MSNBC, Wolfers called Trump’s claim “quite literally false.”
“There’s not a single way you can interpret a word that the man’s saying right now as being remotely reflective of either what we’re seeing in data from all across the country or in people’s everyday lives,” he said.
Trump’s assertion that grocery prices are down contrasts sharply with BLS data, which shows food prices continuing to rise, albeit at a slower pace than during the height of post-pandemic inflation.
The latest Consumer Price Index from BLS shows food costs are still climbing. Groceries are up roughly one to three percent over the past year, with beef and coffee—two items Trump singled out—among the biggest risers. Even as inflation cools, shoppers are still paying far more than they were before the pandemic.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
