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New York (CNN) — President Donald Trump has a rhetorical style that can be hard to follow. But even a casual listener at this point can recognize his compulsion to deflect in the face of bad news.
Asked about a tragic plane crash 10 days into his second term, the president reflexively blamed diversity hiring policies.
When a driver killed 10 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, just before he took office, he defaulted to a campaign favorite, claiming illegal immigration was to blame. (Never mind that the driver was an American-born citizen.)
And on Wednesday, as if on cue, the president wrote “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” in a social media post.
The “Biden inflation” he’s referring to is the Consumer Price Index, which went up 3% year-over-year in January — the fastest pace since June. It was an unwelcome surprise in the wrong direction. Investors immediately unloaded stocks, figuring that inflation’s resurgence will almost certainly delay long-awaited interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
“Blame Biden” satisfies Trump’s need for a simple-to-understand villain, regardless of its accuracy.
The reality is that no single leader or policy can account for monthly price swings across a huge array of goods and services Americans spend money on. But Trump has repeatedly claimed to have the power to not only slow the rate at which prices go up but also make prices drop outright. (Which, even if he could do that, would almost certainly trigger a recession and create a doom spiral that’s even harder to break out of than inflation. And if you don’t believe me, ask Japan.)
“Starting on Day One,” Trump said at a campaign event in August, “we will end inflation and make America affordable again.”
Wednesday was Day 24. Inflation is ticking higher. And Trump’s solutions consist of the same blunt tactics he holds up in the face of any economic headache: Do tariffs. Deport people. Drill baby drill. The irony is that many of these policies are likely to have the opposite effect.
To be sure, if we’re playing the game of “whoever’s in office owns the economy,” then Joe Biden gets the blame for 19 and a half of the 31 days in January. But, as my colleague David Goldman notes, the bad news is bad not just because of what happened, but what’s happening. Inflation was falling steadily for two years. Now, that slowdown is reversing course, and prices are rising faster under Trump than they were at the end of Biden’s term.
That isn’t Trump’s fault — or Biden’s, for that matter. It is the reality of the world’s largest economy and myriad global forces acting upon it.
Trump’s economic agenda doesn’t have much buy-in from mainstream economists, and the administration has over the past three weeks started to walk back some of the “Day One” promises, as the New York Times noted Tuesday. Vice President JD Vance gave the “Rome wasn’t built in a day” line; press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered “I don’t have a timeline,” when asked about prices; and Trump himself deflected a question on Fox News, saying: “I think we’re going to become a rich — look, we’re not that rich right now.”
Which, OK, take all the time you need. But meanwhile, consumers will keep seething over the price of eggs, which were up 15% last month, and gas and housing lately. A CBS poll this week showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans think Trump hasn’t focused enough of his policies on reducing inflation. And a University of Michigan consumer survey released Friday showed that Americans’ inflation expectations for the year ahead surged this month.
That last one is particularly ominous, because it speaks to the psychological dynamics of inflation. When we think prices are going up, we alter our behavior in ways that make prices go up.
Governments can’t control the global economic forces that affect prices. But they can manage expectations in the way they talk about them.
Blaming Democrats or immigrants or DEI may buy Trump time as he confronts any number of challenges. But soon, if Republicans succeed at smothering Trump’s favorite scapegoats, the president will have to find new ways to blame anyone but himself.
The-CNN-Wire
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