Trump loves the inflation

0:01Noel King:The U.S. and Iran say they've agreed on terms to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. You already see oil prices from a high of$126 a barrel down to about$80 a barrel today. That's a lot of progress. The war, of course, drove up the price of gas and other essentials and has led to some ugly polling for President Trump. 61 % of adults polled by NPR, PBS and Marist disapprove of his handling of the economy. His handling, in a certain light, makes sense. His priority was preventing Iran from getting nukes. But Trump's messaging was unusual, unusual for a president. Last month, a reporter asked Trump, to what extent was he thinking about Americans' finances when he negotiated with Iran?

0:43I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

0:49Noel King:What's he doing? Coming up on Today Explained from Vox.

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2:23I'm Shelby Talcott.

2:24Noel King:I am the White House correspondent for Semaphore. President Trump has been talking about the economy a lot lately, and some of what he said has gotten a lot of attention. What are the most attention grabbing things? He has repeatedly, pretty bluntly said that he effectively doesn't care about it, right? He has made comments indicating that this is all short term. He doesn't care about inflation. And so those comments, which he again has said more than once, I'm not focused on Americans' economic situation when I'm negotiating with Iran. I think about one thing. You cannot let Iran have a new state weapon.

3:04That's all. I don't care about this inflation number. I love it. The numbers were great. Those comments have really stood out to people over the past few months.

3:12Noel King:My favorite was, I love inflation. Yes. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. I love the inflation. And then he had an opportunity to walk it back. That's right. That's a perfect statement. I'd make it again. What do we make of that, that he's telling us it is not a mistake? I think it indicates a few things. So first of all, I think, you know, when I'm talking to administration officials and people who have known the president for years, one of the things that continuously comes back around is this is all really said in the broader context of this Iran war. When people hear me say it, everybody agrees.

3:51Short term pain. It's going to be short term pain. Oh, when the war is over, it's coming down. I know you can't. It's going to come down like a rock. And that is something that the president cares deeply about and genuinely believes that he needs to continue moving forward with this. Right. He has talked a lot over the past few years about Iran not being able to obtain a nuclear weapon. One thing is certain. I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can't let that happen. And so he's coming at this economic argument from the perspective of I have to defend the decisions I've made globally.

4:31But a big part of it is also about the legacy of Donald Trump. That's something that I think this term in particular he has been acutely focused on. He is far less worried about the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. About the price of groceries. Actually, I asked somebody who's close to the White House several months ago, you know, why isn't he more focused on this stuff? And the answer I got was when the president goes down in the history books, it's not going to be for eggs being a dollar carton. It's going to be for reinvigorating Venezuela. It was a great success. It was a one day war.

5:08It was really, to be exact, 48 minutes of fury. And it was over. And Venezuela is doing great. Going into Iran and getting their nuclear. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. They'd use it. And so that's what this president is focused on. And so when he talks about the economy, about I love inflation, I don't think about voters' economic situations when I'm negotiating with this Iran war, it's because he is always thinking about what he's doing legacy-wise, right? He has to defend that Iran war that's part of his legacy. He has to defend the Venezuela situation that's part of his legacy. And so all of these answers are tied back into how he's thinking about his history and how he's going to be remembered.

5:55I think it's just the timing of when he's saying this is really notable because obviously there are a lot of Americans who are really struggling right now.

6:06Noel King:I get what you're saying about why he's articulating them, but there's part of you that thinks the president must know that now is not the time. However, let's give him a little bit of grace. Is there something about the time that maybe we're missing? Is it the case that the midterms, this is not going to mess with him and the party as much in the midterms as we may think? I don't know that it messes with him because he's not running again, right? This is his last term in office. And I think that is also an overarching theme of what we're seeing, why he's making certain decisions, is because he's sort of unleashed this time around.

6:38It is certainly going to impact the party. And you're hearing from lawmakers who are concerned. We need some relief and Congress can deliver some relief. And if Congress doesn't deliver the relief, you know, I mean, I think voters are not going to be pleased. Fuel prices are, you know, as you know, people are reminded of it every almost every block they drive. People are really feeling it. I mean, it's not just gas prices, food prices and other things. And I think there's a level of frustration. You're even hearing from White House officials who are trying to sort of walk back what he said or say, well, he he didn't really mean it in this context.

7:12He meant it in X, Y, Z context. Well, I don't think the president said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the president said. But look, I agree with the president that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. The president is doing everything he can and this entire administration is doing everything we can to bring down the cost of living in this country. And so there are administration officials who, when they hear the president say things like that, they just kind of, I think, sit back and sigh heavily because it does not make their jobs any easier. And there's acknowledgement about that.

7:44Noel King:Who are these people? Who's driving the economic messaging at the White House? I think if we're being honest, the answer is the president. Because there are advisers around him who are telling him what to do. You know, James Blair is one of the president's closest confidants. He has recently shifted over into a midterms role, but he's still very involved in the White House and is there often. If voters are talking about the economy, if 48 percent of voters say their number one issue is the economy and you spend half of your powder on an issue that's not even in the top five, it's just not going to work.

8:20Susie Wiles has really urged the president, the chief of staff has urged the president over the past several months to focus more on the midterms. And you're so you're hearing from the people around Trump who recognize that the midterms, even though it doesn't directly impact Trump, he's not on the ballot. It's going to impact him because if Republicans lose, it's going to be a a lot harder for the president to get anything passed. It's already hard. And Republicans have the majority. But it's also going to impact him because they believe that Democrats, if they take back the majority, are going to try to push things forward like they did in 2016 against Trump.

8:59Right. There's impeachment concerns, etc. The Democrats have already showed us what they're going to do. They basically held the government hostage. They're going to obstruct. They're going to investigate everybody in the Trump administration. And then they're going to impeach the president. I'll get impeached. And so you do hear from the people around Trump who care a lot about this topic and want him to be more focused in his messaging. But ultimately, as with everything else, this is Trump's show.

9:29Noel King:What are the Democrats thinking every time President Trump says something like I love the inflation or I don't care about Americans financial situations? What do we see on the other side of the aisle? I mean, they're giddy. They're kicking their feet, right? This is something that, I mean, even Republican operatives that I've talked to, when the president made the comment about loving inflation, they said, you know, even if that's not what he meant, that's going to be clipped. The economy is a disaster, and we know why. It's because Donald Trump and Republicans don't give a damn about the personal finances of the American people.

10:02Donald Trump said it, and he meant it. The president of the United States admitted, I don't think much about Americans' financial situations. Well, guess who does? I do. It's top of mind for me every single day. You're going to see that in ads across America. And so Democrats kind of not love this rhetoric, but they love this rhetoric because it is a way for them, just like Trump was able to do during the 2024 election, which was focus on the economy and say, this person who is in office right now doesn't care. He's not helping you, right? I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately.

10:38bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy. On day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again. We're going to bring prices way down and we'll get it done fast. That's what Trump did in order to beat Biden and then Kamala Harris. They're doing that same thing now with the midterms based on the president's comments. Now, the question is, are they going to be able to be organized enough to make that an effective message.

11:10Noel King:I think back, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, if you had an American president saying, I love inflation or I don't care about Americans' economic circumstances, you do feel like that would have been the end of that president's term in office. There would have been people in the streets. The world has changed. The U.S. has changed. But I wonder what you think the broader lesson might be here. Do you think President Trump is changing the way that presidents talk about the economy or voters are changing the way they respond to messaging about the economy and saying, like, it doesn't really matter what the president says.

11:43Noel King:We feel what we feel. I think it's a little bit of both. I definitely think not just with the Trump administration, quite frankly, but over the past several years, there has been a shift with voters sort of dismissing the presidential argument for the state of the economy. We saw it during the Biden administration. Come on, man. We're seeing it now during the Trump administration. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But I think part of that is because of how these presidents like Trump, like Biden, are messaging, right? Their message is effectively, things are good. There's nothing bad about the report.

12:17Nothing bad about the report. And the core inflation is actually down about a point and a half. We're in a situation where we've created more jobs. We're in a situation where, and look, the price of gasoline is falling. We know that you're saying things are not good, but it's short term. Don't worry about it. And actually look at all of this other data over here that shows that you're you're not doing as badly as you feel like you're doing. Right. And so voters are looking at that and saying, that's not.

12:47Noel King:Yeah, that's not. I'm going to the grocery store. I'm struggling to pay for my groceries. That's not a real message. So they're kind of dismissing the presidential argument of it all. But I do think with Trump in particular, he has changed politics in the way that he is able to say things and sort of get away with them in a way that other presidents in the past have not. And I really think presidents in the future won't be able to either. I think it is unique to him.

13:25Noel King:That was Shelby Talcott of Semaphore. Coming up, the perma session. A lot of stuff is expensive right now, but other economic indicators are really, really pretty good. So why do so many of us believe that this is the worst economy in history?

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17:09Noel King:let's see. Here. Today. Today. Explained. Explained. We're back with Annie Lowry. She's a staff writer at The Atlantic. Annie recently wrote about what she calls the perma session. All right, so consumer sentiment last month was the lowest it's been since we started asking questions about consumer sentiment in 1952. And notably, good economic news isn't cheering us up any. And he says before the PERMA session, there was, if you think back to the Biden years, the vibe session. The fact that the unemployment rate was good and the fact that or not that bad and the fact that wages were going up, like it didn't matter because prices were going nuts.

17:52Many Americans don't feel the economy is strong overall or helping them or their families. I think you'd have to be ignoring what's out there in the polling and the other indicators we showed to see that there is a bad vibe. When people feel that the cost of living is very, very high and they can't make ends meet, you can't tell them that they're wrong. That, I think, made sense to me for a really long time. And that story kind of held, right? You needed to go a couple layers into the economic figures or just talk to people about their own lives. And I think on top of that, there are non-economic factors that have really started to weigh on people's understanding of the economy.

18:34A lot of people since the 2016 election have just felt like American democracy is in decline. We're in social media where we're just bombarded with negative and now post-social media where we're just bombarded with negative messages. Liberals need to take a look in the mirror and realize that they will be the downfall of this country. The Republican nominee for the presidency went on an interview and he stated that America's biggest problem is the enemy within our borders. For someone like Trump, who's clearly racist, sexist, senile, and all the above. Actually, if you do align with his views, then that also probably makes you the same way.

19:09You know, the tenor of the news itself has gotten much more negative in a way that we can track. So all of those things figured in. But then, I was looking at, you know, over the past year, you have had this pretty dramatic decline in consumer sentiment, despite the fact that, you know, not much had changed and what had changed had gotten better. Right. So, again, let's hold everything constant. Unemployment's a little bit better. Wages are going up. Cost pressures have gone down. And none of that seems to affect the consumer sentiment numbers, the economic sentiment numbers. U.S. consumers have never felt worse about the current and future state of the economy.

19:58That maybe rings true for you. Consumer sentiment hitting an all-time low amid growing concerns about inflation and Trump's war with Iran, which means Americans are more down on the economy than at any other time since 1952. So then you're like, wait, what? Right? Right. So we're not talking about that general, right, like the vibe is off. We're talking about why is it that consumer sentiment seems to have lost all of its relationship to all of the economic figures, not just the headlines. This is what I'm thinking of as the perma session. Why do people think the economy is worse now than it was in like 2009?

20:35The signs were everywhere, but now it's official we are in a recession. Lehman Brothers is going bankrupt. And financial markets from Asia to Europe are doing their utmost to prevent Monday from turning from dark to black. And then also, if there are material improvements in the economy and all of these things, the unemployment rate is going down, Wages are going up. People are less financially fragile. Interest rates are going down. All of these things. Why aren't they affecting the consumer sentiment number? And I think it's because the consumer sentiment number, the economic sentiment number, doesn't have as much to do with economics as it used to.

21:10And that's a really interesting phenomenon. When did that change happen? I think that it has happened gradually and suddenly, to borrow from Ernest Henningway. you started to see this really heavy partisan influence basically with Barack Obama right that Republicans were like I'm never going to like the economy again if those guys are in charge Democrats are like I can't like this economy if they're in charge like what they're doing so I think that's when it starts I think COVID matters here that people became much more anti-institutional in their thinking now to growing concerns about the deadly coronavirus officially hitting the U.S.