Trump constantly blusters as if he deserves the Nobel Prize for Economic Triumphs, just like he supposedly deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. In a January speech in Iowa, he doubled down on his triumphs by referring to himself in the third person: "Just after one year of President Trump, our economy is booming…. Incomes are rising. Investment is soaring. Inflation has been defeated."

Unfortunately, Trump's record on the economy is as shaky as his claims that he ended eight wars. The core wholesale inflation rate rose in January at an annual rate of 9 percent. "Howl louder" has been the president's response.

Beginning late last year, the affordability issue made Trump schizophrenic.

"I don't want to hear about the affordability!" Trump declared in a Fox News interview in November after falsely claiming that the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner would be 25 percent cheaper compared to 2024.

After Democratic candidates bludgeoned their Republican opponents with the issue in the November 2025 elections, Trump proclaimed on Truth Social on November 29: "I AM THE
AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT. TALK LOUDLY AND PROUDLY!"

But a week later, at a White House meeting, Trump relapsed, revealing that the issue of affordability was a "hoax" and a "Democrat scam." Did he reach this conclusion by surveying members of his Mar-a-Lago club or what?

In his February 24 State of the Union address, Trump railed:

The same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters [such as the Green New Deal] suddenly used the word affordability, a word, they just used it because somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem. They knew their statements were a lie, they knew it, they knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward.

When Trump spoke in Iowa, rally attendees dutifully held up signs made by the Trump campaign team proclaiming: "Lower prices." Gasoline prices have fallen sharply since a year ago, but after you fill up your tank, life often feels Bidenesque.