President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Friday, claiming that his administration has done “a great job” in lowering grocery prices and improving affordability — a statement that didn’t exactly hold up once CNN’s Abby Phillip started pulling receipts.
Speaking to reporters, Trump brushed off criticism over rising costs and pointed the finger at the media and former President Joe Biden. “If you look at affordability, which they campaigned on, they lied,” Trump said. “Because they talked about, ‘Oh, prices are up.’ No, no, prices are down under the Trump administration and they’re down substantially.”
He doubled down, adding, “We did a great job on groceries and affordability,” and blamed coverage — or the lack thereof — for keeping voters in the dark. “The only problem,” Trump claimed, “is that the ‘fake news’ doesn’t want to cover this purported accomplishment.”
“They said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about affordability,’” he continued. “The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden.”
But Phillip wasn’t letting that slide. On her show Friday night, she called Trump’s claims “simply not true” and backed it up with fresh data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “But the numbers don’t lie,” she said, flashing the figures onscreen. “Grocery prices are not lower. They are up since August and up since Trump’s inauguration, and compared to last September, cost of food has increased 2.7%.”
The official data told a much different story than Trump’s. Coffee costs are up 18.9% compared to last September, beef prices have jumped 14.7%, and meat, poultry, fish, and eggs collectively cost 5.2% more than they did a year ago.
“Beef is the only item that Trump has admitted to getting more expensive,” Phillip noted. “And today, he announced that he is asking the Justice Department to investigate meatpacking companies for quote, ‘Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing and Price Manipulation.’”
Trump made the announcement on social media — complete with his trademark capitalized words — and framed it as a crackdown on corporate greed rather than a reflection of inflationary pressure.
Phillip didn’t buy it. “Maybe Trump’s thinking in downplaying these grocery prices is that Americans aren’t feeling it,” she said. “Well, that is not true either.” She pointed to a CBS News/YouGov poll showing that 62% of Americans say the cost of food is rising, while only 7% believe it’s going down.
The poll, conducted Oct. 29–31 among 2,124 adults, found that a clear majority of Americans say prices for goods and services are still climbing — despite the administration’s rosy narrative.
And grocery bills aren’t the only concern. Phillip highlighted new data showing a spike in U.S. layoffs, which just hit a two-decade high. According to a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, more than 150,000 jobs were cut in October alone, a surge driven in part by companies integrating artificial intelligence into their operations.
Trump has been vocal about his enthusiasm for AI, calling it a “hot” and “big” industry back in August — but the jobs data paints a more complicated picture.
“A million layoffs so far this year, which is a 65% increase year-over-year,” Phillip said. “So, it feels like there are things happening in the economy that are not positive, and people are starting to whisper about belt-tightening.”
While Trump insists Americans are better off, the numbers — and the polls — suggest otherwise. The president may want to keep congratulating himself, but grocery shoppers aren’t exactly seeing the same success story in their checkout totals.
Watch the video below from CNN:
