“Prices would rise — sharply — they said, reigniting an inflation crisis that tens of millions of Americans had elected [President Donald Trump] to solve,” CNN’s David Goldman wrote on Friday. “But that massive, tariff-induced inflation spike hasn’t materialized. Not even close.”
Indeed, it hasn’t. But who exactly is Goldman referring to when he says, “they said”? Well, Goldman might want to check his own newsroom.
On May 16, CNN’s Allison Morrow wrote, “There’s no denying it now: Tariffs are raising prices.”
“Donald Trump’s pitch to Americans on the campaign trail last year included a simple (and simplistic) promise: lower prices on Day One. Even if he didn’t mean it literally, it’s now Day 115, and the results of his only significant economic policy show that the opposite is happening,” Morrow wrote.
Three days prior, CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn wrote, “Tariffs have already made mattresses, strollers and power tools more expensive.”
Some other doomsday predictions from CNN include Auzinea Bacon’s May 24 article titled “These companies will raise prices because of Trump’s tariffs,” accusing Trump of giving “many Americans whiplash” as companies announced “daunting” price hikes. “Anything from groceries and clothing to toys and cars could cost Americans more,” Bacon wrote.
Samantha Delouya warned Americans their Memorial Day “cookout might be more expensive this year — thanks to tariffs.” In April Elisabeth Buchwald wrote, “Here’s what could soon cost you a lot more because of Trump’s massive tariffs.”
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday launched a US trade war with every country via a barrage of tariffs that are set to go into effect almost immediately. American consumers and businesses stand to pay a hefty price for that battle,” Buchwald said. “For the first time since Trump’s return to the Oval Office, it’s not a question of what could get more expensive due to tariffs but rather a matter of when.”
But as Goldman wrote on Friday, those “tariff-induced inflation spike[s]” didn’t materialize. As cited by Goldman, consumer prices rose just 2.4 percent annually in May: “That was less than economists had expected, and only slightly higher than the 2.3% rate in April, which was the US economy’s lowest inflation since February 2021.”
In fact, core inflation (which excludes things like food and gas prices) fell to 2.5 percent in April.
“That was the lowest reading since March 2021,” according to Goldman. “Tariffs through mid-June haven’t caused inflation to spike. Love tariffs or hate them, there’s no denying inflation is lower now than when Trump took office.”
Goldman floats the idea that some industries are still coasting on pre-tariff inventories. But even he can’t deny the facts.
“That’s a far cry from what economists and consumers have predicted,” he continued. “So what happened? Are economists just really bad at their jobs?”
Maybe. But if Goldman wants solid answers to questions about the economy and prices, he’d do well to avoid the CNN newsroom, where his colleagues spent weeks forecasting economic catastrophe. It turns out that the people igniting inflation fears the most were the so-called journalists reporting on them.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2