President Donald Trump acknowledged that "inflation is back" but rejected any responsibility, instead pinning it on the Joe Biden administration. "I'm only here for two and a half weeks," he added in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity and along billionaire and DOGE head Elon Musk.
"They said 'Oh, Trump.' I had nothing to do with it. These people have run the country," Trump claimed in reference to the Biden administration. "They spent money like nobody's ever spent."
Trump also blamed Biden for the most recent inflation reading, which showed an increase in January. Concretely, the CPI report showed that inflation rose 0.5% when analysts had predicted a 0.3% rise. Overall it climbed to 3 percent in January compared to the same month of last year. The inter-annual reading the prior month was 2.9 percent. The most recent figure was boosted by the cost of eggs and gas, along with other sensitive items.
"BIDEN INFLATION UP!" Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social account shortly after the data was published. More recently, the Producer Price Index also showed a high reading, jumping 0.4% in January and 3.5% for the year. Analysts had expected the number to come in at 0.3%.
However, Trump has acknowledged that some of the measures his administration will pursue, especially trade tariffs, will likely push inflation up. He has said Americans could feel "some pain" as a result. However, "Long-term it's going to make our country a fortune," he has added.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has defended the administration's efforts to combat inflation, citing Trump's executive orders on deregulation and energy independence.
"The president is doing everything he can to reduce the cost of living crisis in this country as quickly as possible, that is why he signed a litany of executive orders across the board in the first couple of weeks," Leavitt stated earlier this month. However, when pressed on how soon Americans could expect lower prices, Leavitt said she didn't have "a timeline."
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