Political News

Fact check: Trump’s lying spree about inflation.

President Donald Trump went on a lying spree about inflation last week.

Grocery prices. Gas prices. Prescription drug prices. Overall prices. Over just three days, Trump made false claims about all of them.

Trump was discussing the issue of “affordability” after Democrats won state and local elections Tuesday in part by campaigning on the cost of living. He argued that this theme was “a con job by the Democrats” given how successful he said he has been in lowering prices.

But Trump repeatedly used inaccurate statistics and assertions to make his case that Democrats were dishonest. Here is a fact check.

Prices are up during this Trump presidency

Over and over, Trump claimed overall prices have fallen since he returned to office in late January.

“Every price is down,” he said Thursday. “Everything is way down,” he said at another Thursday event. “Prices are down under the Trump administration, and they’re down substantially,” he said Friday, adding, “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 is true.

Prices are up during this administration. Average prices were 1.7% higher in September than they were in January, according to the most recent figures from the federal Consumer Price Index, and 3% higher than they were in September 2024. There has been inflation every month of the term, and far more products have gotten costlier than cheaper.

Inflation has accelerated to 3%

Trump claimed Friday: “We have almost no inflation. We’re down now to 2%.” He said at the same event: “Inflation is almost nonexistent.”

Those claims are slightly more accurate 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 new claims are still wrong.

Inflation not only very much continues to exist but has been accelerating since the spring. As of September, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months.

The September rate, 3%, was the same as the rate in January, the month Trump returned to the White House. Inflation of 3% is simply not inflation of 2%. (Core inflation, which omits volatile food and energy prices, was also 3% in September.) And this “2%” claim wasn’t a one-time slip by Trump; he claimed in late October, “We’re down to 2%, even less than 2%.”

Grocery prices have increased, not decreased

Trump claimed on both Wednesday and Thursday that “groceries are way down.” But grocery prices are actually up. Average grocery prices rose 1.4% between January and September, Consumer Price Index figures show, and they rose 2.7% between September 2024 and September 2025. The 0.6% increase in average grocery prices from July 2025 to August 2025, meanwhile, was the biggest month-to-month spike in three years – and it was followed by a 0.3% increase from August to September.

It isn’t just beef. Dozens of grocery products have gotten more expensive

Trump has repeatedly claimed that beef is the only grocery product whose price has increased this term. “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.