Donald Trump’s standing on inflation has fallen into territory no previous president has reached, according to CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.
Trump’s net approval on inflation has remained around 50 points underwater for months, with Reuters/Ipsos polling putting it at -52 in May, -48 in June, -50 in July and -50 in August.
“These numbers are historically awful and they’ve been historically awful for a long period of time,” Enten said. “You just don’t ever see numbers like this.”
CNN’s analysis found Trump has recorded the 11 worst individual presidential polls on inflation, all since April. No previous president had recorded a net inflation rating 50 points underwater.
“No other president?” CNN’s John Berman asked. “You’re telling me this is worse than it was for Joe Biden in 2022?”
Enten said Biden’s inflation rating was 38 points underwater in August 2022—12 points better than Trump’s current average—and was improving.
The shift is striking given that inflation helped drive the 2024 campaign. Trump was trusted more than then-Vice President Kamala Harris on the issue, but Enten described the subsequent change as roughly a 60-point swing against him.
“The issue that got Donald Trump re-elected to the White House and is still the number one issue in the minds of the American electorate,” Enten said, “and he stuck 50 points underwater and a place that no other president has ever been before.”
The analysis carries an added sting because Trump recently singled out Enten as his favorite CNN presenter.
“The best person on CNN is Pollster Harry Enten,” the CNN-hating president declared, adding: “Don’t fire him!”
Trump’s economic numbers have deteriorated as the Iran war has pushed energy prices higher.
Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker estimates the conflict has added more than $760 in fuel costs to the average household.
Overall, the nationwide burden has now climbed towards $100 billion.
And the bill is still growing, with Brown’s tracker showing the tab is climbing by roughly $1 million every two minutes.
Trump has argued that Americans are willing to tolerate higher prices temporarily to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But polling tells a different story.
A June CBS News/YouGov poll found 69 percent of Americans believed the conflict with Iran was not worth the costs.
