WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's glowing account of progress under his watch Wednesday was out of tune with the experience of price-squeezed Americans and the story told by some of his government's own statistics.
In a speech from the White House, Trump assailed the record of his Democratic predecessor and boasted expansively about his record so far. Not all of those boasts were credible.
Among them:
On inflation
TRUMP: He blamed Democrats for handing him an ''inflation disaster,'' ''the worst in the history of our country,'' and said that now, the prices of turkey and eggs have come down and "everything else is falling rapidly. And it's not done yet. But boy, are we making progress.''
THE FACTS: His claim that prices are falling rapidly is not seen in the inflation numbers, which are about where they were when he took office, after having fallen significantly before the end of Joe Biden's presidency. Nor is it true that the Biden era gave the country its worst inflation ever.
The consumer price index was 3% in September, the same rate as in January, a tick up from 2.9% in December, Biden's last full month in office. In an AP-NORC poll this month, the vast majority of U.S. adults said they've noticed higher than usual prices for groceries, electricity and holiday gifts in recent months.
Biden-era inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, a consequence of supply chain interruptions, potentially excessive amounts of government aid and Russia's invasion of Ukraine driving up food and energy costs. Americans have known even worse and more sustained inflation than that: higher than 13% in 1980 during an extended period of price pain. By some estimates, inflation approached 20% during World War I.
