President Donald Trump went on a lying spree about inflation final week.
Grocery costs. Gas costs. Prescription drug costs. Overall costs. Over simply three days, Trump made false claims about all of them.
Trump was discussing the difficulty of “affordability” after Democrats received state and native elections Tuesday partially by campaigning on the cost of living. He argued that this theme was “a con job by the Democrats” given how profitable he stated he has been in decreasing costs.
But Trump repeatedly used inaccurate statistics and assertions to make his case that Democrats have been dishonest. Here is a reality test.
Over and over, Trump claimed total costs have fallen since he returned to workplace in late January.
“Every price is down,” he said Thursday. “Everything is way down,” he said at one other Thursday occasion. “Prices are down under the Trump administration, and they’re down substantially,” he said Friday, including, “Everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.”
None of that’s true.
Prices are up throughout this administration. Average costs have been 1.7% greater in September than they have been in January, based on the newest figures from the federal Consumer Price Index, and three% greater than they have been in September 2024. There has been inflation each month of the time period, and far more products have gotten costlier than cheaper.
Trump claimed Friday: “We have almost no inflation. We’re down now to 2%.” He stated on the identical occasion: “Inflation is almost nonexistent.”
Those claims are barely extra correct than Trump’s late-October claims that “we don’t have any inflation” and that “we’re down to 2%, even less than 2%.” But the brand new claims are nonetheless flawed.
Inflation not solely very a lot continues to exist however has been accelerating because the spring. As of September, the year-over-year inflation fee had increased for five consecutive months.
The September fee, 3%, was the identical as the speed in January, the month Trump returned to the White House. Inflation of three% is just not inflation of two%. (Core inflation, which omits risky meals and power costs, was also 3% in September.) And this “2%” declare wasn’t a one-time slip by Trump; he claimed in late October, “We’re down to 2%, even less than 2%.”
Trump claimed on each Wednesday and Thursday that “groceries are way down.” But grocery prices are actually up. Average grocery costs rose 1.4% between January and September, Consumer Price Index figures show, they usually rose 2.7% between September 2024 and September 2025. The 0.6% improve in common grocery costs from July 2025 to August 2025, in the meantime, was the largest month-to-month spike in three years – and it was adopted by a 0.3% improve from August to September.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that beef is the one grocery product whose worth has elevated this time period. “Groceries are way down, other than beef,” he claimed Wednesday. “We have much lower prices than (Democrats) do, and we only have one thing, beef,” he claimed Thursday.
This can also be false. The costs of dozens of particular person grocery merchandise elevated from January to September. A smattering of merchandise obtained cheaper over that interval, most notably eggs, however a far larger variety of merchandise obtained dearer; you possibly can see an inventory here. Prices elevated from January to September in 5 of the six overarching teams of grocery costs tracked by the Consumer Price Index.
Trump continued to make use of mathematically impossible figures when making claims about how a lot he’s supposedly lowering prescription drug costs. “We’re bringing drug prices down to levels nobody ever thought was possible, tremendous cuts, 200%, 300%, 500%, 700%,” he claimed Thursday, including later, “now we’re cutting it 1,000%, 1,200%.”
Trump has had some success in pushing drug firms to chop the costs of some drugs; he made these feedback at an occasion saying reductions within the costs of sure blockbuster weight problems medicine. But way more drugs haven’t had their costs slashed – and regardless, Trump’s professed reductions in extra of 100% make no sense even when he’s speaking about a small variety of particular medicine. A worth discount of 100% would make a drug value $0, so a discount of 200% or extra would imply Americans could be getting paid a considerable amount of cash to accumulate drugs. That isn’t taking place.
Gas costs aren’t the bottom in twenty years and aren’t near $2 per gallon
Trump has been making false claims about fuel costs for months. He claimed Wednesday: “Gasoline prices have plummeted to the lowest in two decades.” That was not even close to true on condition that the nationwide common on Wednesday was $3.08, based on information supplied by AAA – greater than it was on numerous days underneath Biden in January of this yr, in addition to throughout 2020 and early 2021 (amid the Covid-19 pandemic) and through much of the 2000s and 2010s. “Plummeted” can also be a stretch on condition that the AAA nationwide common was $3.12 per gallon on the day Trump returned to workplace in January and $3.10 per gallon one yr earlier than Wednesday, each simply barely greater than Wednesday’s $3.08 per gallon.
It’s doable Trump was making an attempt to confer with the federal Energy Information Administration’s estimate in September that drivers will this yr spend “the smallest share of their disposable income on gasoline since 2005.” But that’s an estimate, not a certainty, and it’s merely not the identical factor as Trump stated about fuel costs alone; “there’s a big difference between ‘lowest gas prices in 20 years’ and ‘least amount of your paycheck going to fill your tank in 20 years,’” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum evaluation at GasBuddy, famous to NCS. It’s not essentially your paycheck, both. The federal estimate is predicated on total disposable earnings within the economic system, so some Americans have lower than the estimate whereas others have extra.
Trump additionally made different false claims about fuel costs final week. On Thursday, Trump claimed, “We’re at almost $2 for gasoline.” On Friday, he claimed, “We’re a little bit above $2 right now for gasoline.” Even granting Trump some wiggle room for the phrases “almost” and “a little bit,” there isn’t any affordable argument {that a} nationwide common above $3 per gallon is “almost $2” or “a little bit above $2.” (De Haan stated GasBuddy discovered one fuel station, out of the tens of hundreds of stations the corporate tracks, that bought fuel for underneath $2 per gallon final week – and even that station solely did so for a single day.)
Trump, echoing a declare he has made for months, said Wednesday that Biden “had the highest inflation rate in the history of our country.” Trump said Friday: “We took over a mess. The highest inflation in recorded history.”
It wasn’t the best in historical past, as NCS and others have famous in quite a few articles. Trump may have pretty stated the inflation fee hit a 40-year high under Biden in June 2022, when it was 9.1%, however that was not near the all-time record of 23.7%, set in 1920 – and Trump didn’t point out that it had declined to three% by Biden’s final partial month in workplace in January, the identical as the newest Trump-era determine for September.
Trump’s declare was additionally incorrect if he meant the Biden presidency set a document for cumulative inflation over the course of a presidential time period; the Biden-era improve was a lot smaller than the rise throughout President Jimmy Carter’s time period.
Oil and fuel costs are down, however not family power costs
Trump claimed Friday: “Energy prices are way down from what they were last year.”
But the Consumer Price Index exhibits that household energy prices are up considerably during the last yr – 6.2% greater in September 2025 than they have been in September 2024.
It’s doable Trump was not which means to confer with family power. A assessment of his latest feedback suggests he usually makes use of “energy” to explain both gas prices at the pumps, which have fallen slightly over the previous yr, or oil prices on world markets, which have fallen more substantially.
So we received’t label this Trump declare false on condition that he may have been speaking about the worth of a barrel of oil. But when he doesn’t outline the time period “energy,” and speaks about it whereas discussing shopper costs, he leaves his assertion open to a doable misinterpretation.