“Better than expected,” CNBC’s Rick Santelli announced Wednesday morning as fresh data revealed the economy grew at a three percent rate in the second quarter.
Data from the Commerce Department shows the U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of three percent from April through June, surpassing economists’ forecast of approximately two percent growth. Inflation also continues to cool, with the annual rate of inflation at 2.1 percent in the second quarter, compared to 3.7 percent in the first. As CNBC’s Jeff Cox reported, the growth is “powered by a turnaround in the trade balance and renewed consumer strength.”
And as National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CNBC, “The anti-Trump story has been that we’re going to have a recession or a depression because of the tariffs, which are going to jack up prices and cause consumers to run for the exits. In fact, every single thing about this GDP release has shown strength.”
But surely this can’t be true — after all, we were reliably informed by the left-wing press that Trump’s tariffs would “hurt” the economy, at least so said the “experts,” according to CBS News’ Aimee Picchi.
The so-called “experts” warned that the tariffs could lead to a “dire economic” scenario, including the acceleration of inflation.
Business Insider’s Julia Press, Rachael Lewis-Krisky, and David Gura warned “The Impact of President Trump’s Trade War May Be Worse Than You Think.” According to the trio, Trump’s “aggressive trade policy” would cause “cracks” in the economy.
Time Magazine’s Solcyré Burga wrote that according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Trump’s “turbulent tariff policy” would “cause a sharper slowdown in economic growth” and that inflation could also increase.
CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald warned in May that “America’s economy may actually be even weaker than it appears,” quoting senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute Ryan Young, who warned CNN that “The second-quarter GDP numbers could be brutal.”
MSNBC’s Allison Detzel — citing “charts” from Morning Joe (you know, the same show where the host told the public that then-President Joe Biden was the “best” version he had ever been), wrote in June that “new data could signal trouble ahead for Donald Trump’s economy.” Apparently the economy was going to grow “exactly half of what we grew in the last year of Biden,” former Obama-official and MSNBC analyst Steve Rattner said, as reported by Detzel.
The Washington Post editorial board wrote less than three weeks ago that the “damage” of Trump’s tariffs “is starting to show.” According to the board, while Trump’s tariffs might have seemed “costless” it was just because they needed time “to ripple through the economy.”
Well, they’ve certainly rippled — just not in the way the press or the “experts” predicted.
Of course, such glaring errors in analysis might lead some to humility, or at least accurate reporting of the latest numbers. But, alas, such is not the case.
NPR’s Scott Horsley quickly tried to downplay the report, writing “The U.S. economy rebounds to 3% growth in second quarter — but tariffs skew picture.”
Reuters’ Lucia Mutikani declared: “Rebound in US economic growth in Q2 masks underlying weakness.”
Mutikani writes that while the economy “rebounded more than expected,” the numbers “grossly overstated the economy’s health,” citing declining imports and a slow down in “domestic demand.”
CNN’s Bryan Mena wrote that “The economy is holding up — for now.”
“The economy isn’t out of the woods and things could take a turn for the worse,” Mena wrote, arguing that “core GDP” was slowing down.
And The New York Times’ Ben Casselman, not to be outdone, headlined his piece “U.S Economy Slowed in First Half of 2025 as Tariffs Scrambled Data,” before acknowledging that gross domestic product “increased at a 3 percent annual rate in the second quarter,” which “topped forecasters’ expectations and appeared to represent a strong rebound.”
For all the media’s breathless warnings and dire forecasts, the numbers show the economy isn’t collapsing under Trump’s tariffs — instead it’s outperforming expectations. Maybe it’s time the “experts” take a break from fear mongering.