June 10, 2026
Guys – we have an inflation problem. According to the brand new numbers released today, inflation is now over 4%. That’s a full percentage point higher than when President Biden left office and the highest number we’ve seen in more than three years. So how does President Trump explain this? Especially because he campaigned on getting prices down? Here’s what he said today.
I’m sorry…what?
I have no idea why he said he loves inflation, and I’m not sure what exactly he thinks is great about these numbers. Then he said we should be happy because it could be worse?
Trump is arguing the entire inflation problem we’re now seeing right now is tied to the war with Iran, not to his tariff policies and not to his other policies. And because it’s tied to the war, he believes he can get it under control quickly.
Quick fact check here – Trump often cites this $1.85 gas number in Iowa. It’s unclear where he’s getting that number. When Trump was in Iowa in January, the average price for a gallon of regular in that state on that day was $2.57 according to AAA. Sure, some stations could be charging less than that, but GasBuddy found just four stations selling gas for under two dollars on that day and none of them were selling gas for $1.85.
Separately, Trump’s claim that gas is the major cause of this inflation does check out. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ brand new Consumer Price Index report for the month of May, the increase in the cost of gasoline accounted for 60% of the overall increase in inflation. In fact, gasoline in the month of May was up more than 40% over last May and up a whopping 7% between April and May of this year. We know this war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is definitely disrupting the entire global oil supply, but when it comes to oil prices, we’ve heard this story before. Historically, even when oil prices come down, it takes time for gasoline prices at your local gas station to also come down. And the strait still isn’t open. Trump said this was going to take 4 to 6 weeks. We are about to hit week 15. So who knows when this is going to be over or when we’re going to see those pre-war gas prices come back. Trump’s own government is predicting that won’t happen until well into 2027.
But here’s what the president isn’t telling you. Gasoline isn’t the only thing causing this inflation. Something that has nothing to do with gasoline is also making life unaffordable for all of us. Shelter was up 3.4% between May of this year and May of last year. We all need a place to live, and we have been seeing consistent increases in shelter costs for years.
One other thing I want to point out is something that is indirectly tied to oil and gas prices – food. Obviously, we all need to eat, and in order to get that food to your grocery store and to your local restaurants, it needs to be transported by trucks, which run on gasoline, so food is also up. According to the report, overall food is up 3.1% between May of this year and May of last year. Specifically, the report found we saw increases in four of the six major grocery store food groups, so more than half of them were up. They include non-alcoholic beverages, like coffee and tea (5.8/0.6), cereals and bakery products (1.9/0.4), fruits and vegetables (6.1/0.2), and meats, poultry, fish, and eggs (1.8/-0.2).
Now, there’s one last important question in this story, and that is: What will the Federal Reserve do about this inflation that is now more than 2 percentage points above their target? The Fed is meeting next week, and it will be Trump’s new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s first official debut. Of course, Trump installed Warsh because Warsh said he too favored cutting interest rates. But with inflation sitting at double the Fed’s target and definitely going in the wrong direction, no one believes we’re going to see an interest rate cut, and we may, in the next few months, be looking at an interest rate hike.
See today’s CPI here.
Watch Trump here.
