“Morning Joe” economic analyst Steve Rattner broke out his charts on Friday to fact-check Donald Trump’s false claims about the economy, which he said have “no basis in reality.”
During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said he had inherited the “worst inflation in history” but had since stopped it “in its tracks.”
As Rattner showed, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump did not inherit the worst economy in history. Instead, the U.S. experienced its worst inflation in the 1970s, during the oil embargo.
As to the president’s claim that his administration has stopped inflation “in its tracks,” the former Treasury official said the data showed otherwise. When Trump took office, inflation was about 3%. While inflation did decrease early in the administration, Rattner said it then “went right back up.”
“Inflation, in fact, has not decreased under Trump, and it’s certainly not stopped in its tracks,” he added.
The “Morning Joe” economic analyst moved on to the president’s false claims about affordability. “You heard him say that it’s a ‘con job’ by the Democrats,” he said. “That is certainly contrary to what everybody thinks, including most Republicans.”
Rattner highlighted that wage growth among lower-income Americans has decreased since Trump took office. “So the idea that when you see people lose this much purchasing power over this long a period of time, that we don’t have an affordability crisis is completely fictitious,” he said.
The former Treasury official then took Trump to task over his claim at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting that his administration had reduced drug prices by as much as 900%.
“Most of us took sixth-grade and seventh-grade math. He says we’re going to reduce drug prices by these huge numbers. Let’s just do basic math here: If you have a $60 drug and you get a 50% price cut in that drug, it costs $30. If you have a $60 drug, and they cut the price by 100%, it’s free, right?” Rattner explained. “When those go down by 200%, what happens? They give you the drug for free? They pay you $60 to take the drug?” Rattner asked. “Obviously, the idea that drug prices can go down by these amounts is ridiculous. The price of something simply cannot go down by more than 100%.” You can watch Rattner’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. Recommended
