On his Truth Social account, Donald Trump has spent the last few days posting maps of Greenland, picking fights with California’s governor, whining about his legal cases and sharing letters from has-been celebrities (Don King, anyone?). In opening his press conference Tuesday, the former and future president briefly (and falsely) claimed that “inflation is continuing to rage” before devoting his time to griping about the Green New Deal, Democrats “playing with the courts,” showerheads and windmills “driving the whales crazy,” among other subjects.
Trump’s choice of topics is always instructive, and last week’s press conference was a far cry from the one he held last August, when he used a collection of groceries as props to hammer Democrats on inflation. Suddenly, it seems Trump doesn’t want to talk so much about the economy anymore.
One reason is that, before Trump enters office, his predecessor Joe Biden isn’t giving him much bad economic news to talk about. Last week, officials reported that the U.S. added 256,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1% and wages grew 3.9% for the year. Inflation has been under 3% since the summer and economic growth is still strong.
The good news only makes it harder for Trump to untangle himself from his campaign promise that prices will “come down fast” once he is in office. Last month, he told Time magazine that — surprise, surprise — “it’s hard to bring things down once they’re up.” An hour into Tuesday’s press conference, Trump backed off even further, admitting that if his administration does reduce inflation, “we won’t do it fast.”
