by Rick Newman
Yahoo! Finance
Here’s Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in 2024: “We’re going to bring prices way down, and we’re going to get it done fast.”
Here’s Donald Trump as president in 2025: “I couldn’t care less if [automakers] raise prices. “I couldn’t care less. I hope they raise their prices.”
Trump’s pledge to battle inflation during the 2024 presidential campaign helped get him elected. Voters clearly felt stung by the elevated prices of the Biden years and thought Trump would bring relief.
Trump’s inflation rhetoric from 2024 now looks like one of the most rapidly abandoned campaign promises in political history. Trump has imposed massive import tariffs that are overtly inflationary and make thousands of everyday products more expensive. On top of that, Trump is now trying to pressure the Federal Reserve into adopting a monetary policy that would make inflation even worse.