Trump blurts out poorly timed falsehood to sugarcoat dire economic squeeze

President Donald Trump was pressed in an interview published on Wednesday about the soaring inflation caused by his deeply unpopular war against Iran and its impact on Americans, a line of questioning the president responded to by blurting out a blatant falsehood – one that coincided with reports that directly contradicted his claim.“In your first term, I think that was one of the hallmarks, that peoples' wages – especially working peoples' wages – were rising much faster than inflation,” said The New York Post’s Miranda Devine in a video interview recorded in the White House.Last week, CNBC reported that inflation in the United States had reached a three-year high, citing data released by the Commerce Department. Furthermore, inflation outpaced wage growth for the first time since 2023 per the same data.And yet, despite the data coming from Trump’s own administration, he insisted that the opposite was true.“It's happening now!” Trump falsely claimed, arguing that wage growth was outpacing inflation despite the evidence to the contrary.“We don't have very much inflation. Look, if you take away just the price of gasoline, the energy, we have very little inflation, we're doing very well other than this. That's a big puller – energy and gasoline and all that – that's a big factor.”Trump then offered a prediction he’s shared countless times in the past – that the price of oil would come down “rapidly” once he ends his war against Iran – before bragging about pre-war gasoline prices and insisting the current surge was not a big price to pay.“When it ends, we'll have a situation where Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and that's really more important than all of it,” Trump said. “We want low gasoline – I had it down to 1.85 a gallon! Think of it, 1.85 in Iowa just before the war started! And it'll be back there again at some point in the probably not-too-distant future.”Devine: In your first term one of the hallmarks was that peoples' wages were rising much faster than inflationTrump: It's happening now! We don't have very much inflation. Look, if you take away just the price of gasoline, the energy, we have very little inflation. pic.twitter.com/28oOjJViRq— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) June 3, 2026