Welcome To The Trump Slump… Neither Truth Nor The Economy Is Booming

Trump Broke The Recovery; Now The GOP Will Pay A Price At The Polls

Mark Zandi is Moody’s Analytics chief economist. Like Trump, he’s a graduate of Wharton. Unlike Trump, he understands economic data… and like me, he’s predicting a Trump Recession. On Sunday, he tweeted “That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue… It’s no mystery why the economy is struggling; blame increasing U.S. tariffs and highly restrictive immigration policy. The tariffs are cutting increasingly deeply into the profits of American companies and the purchasing power of American households. Fewer immigrant workers means a smaller economy. Unemployment remains low, but that’s only because labor force growth has gone sideways. The foreign-born workforce is shrinking, and labor force participation is declining. Telling is the economy-wide hiring freeze, particularly for recent graduates, and the decline in hours worked.”

Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber noted that it’s Trump’s economy now. And it is… but it’s the Republican Party’s economy as well. They enabled every economic move he’s made. They cheered on the tariffs, praised the immigrant crackdowns, rubber-stamped the tax cuts for billionaires, and now they’re trying to pin the fallout on anyone but themselves. This isn’t just Trump’s recession— it’s the inevitable result of a political movement that treats class war, exploitation and Austerity as economic policy and magical thinking as a substitute for math.

Looking at the same data as Zandi, Boak and Rugaber noted that for all Señor TACO’s “promises of an economic ‘golden age,’ a spate of weak indicators this week told a potentially worrisome story as the impacts of his policies are coming into focus. Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year.” Biden left him a strong and growing economy. He quickly blew it for the sake of bigotry, irrational hatred of his predecessors and ideological insanity. The result isn’t some grand strategy as much as childish— or senile— sabotage pretending to be  governance. He torched sound economic policy because it had Obama’s fingerprints on it, and he slashed immigration because it made his base cheer, not because it made any kind of economic sense. He governs like a man trying to erase history rather than build a future, leaving working families to pay the price for his personal grievances and vendettas and the GOP’s deranged crusade against reality.

More than six months into his term, Trump’s blitz or tariff hikes and his new tax and spending bill have remodeled America’s trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his own liking. He’s eager to take credit for any wins that might occur and is hunting for someone else to blame if the financial situation starts to totter.

But as of now, this is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post.

When Friday’s jobs report turned out to be decidedly bleak, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures.

“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said on Truth Social, without offering evidence for his claim. “The Economy is BOOMING.”

What an imbecile! Do you have the slightest doubt that his economic decision-making is more rooted in pathology than grounded in strategy? This jerk governs from a place of insecurity, vengeance and bottomless ego. The need to dominate every narrative, to discredit every perceived rival  and to bend institutions to his will is not a policy framework as much as psychological compulsion. He doesn’t respond to data; he responds to humiliation. If the numbers don’t flatter him, he fires the messenger. If reality contradicts the fantasy he’s spinning, he simply denies it louder. Trump isn’t trying to grow the economy; he’s trying to validate himself. Every move he makes is shaped by a primal fear of being exposed as weak, illegitimate or irrelevant. And in that pursuit, he’s willing to sacrifice not just the truth, but the economic stability of millions of American families, including his own supporters. “The effects of his new tariffs,” wrote Boak and Rugaber with inflation in mind, “are still several months away from rippling through the economy, right as many Trump allies in Congress will be campaigning in the midterm elections… [and there’s] significant political risk if he is unable to deliver middle-class prosperity. Just 38% of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy.”

Recent economic reports suggest trouble ahead

The economic numbers over the past week show the difficulties that Trump might face if the numbers continue on their current path:

— Friday’s jobs report showed that U.S. employers have shed 37,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s tariff launch in April, undermining prior White House claims of a factory revival.

— Net hiring has plummeted over the past three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May — a combined 258,000 jobs lower than previously indicated. On average last year, the economy added 168,000 jobs a month.

— A Thursday inflation report showed that prices have risen 2.6% over the year that ended in June, an increase in the personal consumption expenditures price index from 2.2% in April. Prices of heavily imported items, such as appliances, furniture, and toys and games, jumped from May to June.

— On Wednesday, a report on gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the U.S. economy— showed that it grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3% during the first half of the year, down sharply from 2.8% growth last year.

“The economy’s just kind of slogging forward,” said Guy Berger, senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies employment trends. “Yes, the unemployment rate’s not going up, but we’re adding very few jobs. The economy’s been growing very slowly. It just looks like a ‘meh’ economy is continuing.”

Trump’s Fed attacks could unleash more inflation

Trump has sought to pin the blame for any economic troubles on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying the Fed should cut its benchmark interest rates even though doing so could generate more inflation.

Trump has publicly backed two Fed governors, Christoper Waller and Michelle Bowman, for voting for rate cuts at Wednesday’s meeting. But their logic is not what the president wants to hear: They were worried, in part, about a slowing job market.

But this is a major economic gamble being undertaken by Trump and those pushing for lower rates under the belief that mortgages will also become more affordable as a result and boost home-buying activity.

Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2026, but his fingerprints will be all over every economic hardship voters are feeling. Republicans in swing districts and vulnerable Senate seats will have to defend policies that are actively sabotaging the lives of their constituents: rising prices, shrinking job markets, vanishing opportunities. There’s no scapegoat left; no way to credibly deflect blame onto Biden or the Fed or some foreign boogeyman. Voters will remember who wrecked the recovery and who doubled down on the chaos. And if history is any guide, when the economy goes south, the party in power pays the price, especially when that party is led by an unhinged narcissist who fires economists for telling the truth and insists the economy is “BOOMING” while people are struggling to pay their bills. The GOP hitched its wagon to Trump’s delusions. In 2026, they are going to find out just how expensive that loyalty really is.

Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller is running for the congressional seat Trump lackey Ryan Mackenzie is wasting. Yesterday, Pinsley told us that next year “Trump won’t be on the ballot but his friends will. All of his rich cronies who rigged the system while you worked double shifts. The Republicans made a promise: trickle-down tax cuts, cheap gas, cheap eggs, and manufacturing back in America. Instead, you got a national sales tax hidden as tariffs, and men in ski-masks arresting anyone who looks like an immigrant. Ryan Mackenzie stood with them every step of the way. He voted to end expanded Medicaid. He stood silent as tariffs created inflated prices. He helped build the government that is hurting our community. In 2026, we will beat him and the MGA extremists. We will take back every hour, every dime, and every right they stole from us.” 

Randy Bryce is fighting a rematch with Bryan Steil in southeast Wisconsin. You can contribute to his campaign— and Pinsley’s— here. Let night retold us that “If you don’t know who Bryan Steil is, just google ‘congressman gets booed.’ People in WI01 are sick and tired of being lied to but also are smart enough to see that Steil is exactly who I said he was in 2018. Trump has endorsed Steil. We all know that endorsements from Donald don’t happen simply by paying for his supersized Happy Meals.”