Prices jumped in May for the third straight month, leaving U.S. families and businesses to suffer the sting from the war with Iran.
And for the third time, the White House largely shrugged off the news, insisting that the problem was temporary — and that President Trump’s agenda was working.
“No, I love it, the numbers were great,” the president told reporters on Wednesday. “I love the inflation.”
It was a familiar pattern, one that appeared to underscore the widening chasm between Mr. Trump and the majority of Americans who say they are frustrated with the direction of the economy. The president’s comments perfectly framed both the political strategy and the stakes for Republicans entering an election season that may well hinge on the state of voters’ finances.
The latest gauge of the Consumer Price Index, released on Wednesday, showed that goods overall became more expensive last month, rising 4.2 percent compared with a year earlier. That marked the fastest pace since April 2023, and as a result, offered renewed evidence that prices are rising faster than Americans’ wages.
The acceleration largely stemmed from the war with Iran, which has snarled the world’s energy supply, sending oil and gas costs soaring as a result. That, in turn, has made travel and shipping more expensive, pushing up the price of many products, including some groceries.
Much as before, though, the scourge of creeping inflation hardly troubled Mr. Trump.
Speaking at a bill signing on Wednesday, the president argued that the U.S. economy had been in strong shape before the war with Iran. He suggested that he had initially expected the fallout from the conflict to be much worse. He later bragged about gains in financial markets, even though major indexes all had fallen by the time he spoke.
Eventually asked when he expected prices to subside, Mr. Trump predicted that inflation would recede quickly, once the Iran conflict concludes.
“It’s going to come down like a rock,” he said.
The comments captured Mr. Trump’s political strategy throughout the war with Iran, an intervention that the president once proclaimed would be over in weeks — yet now has eclipsed three months.
Framing the intervention as a national security imperative, he has described the U.S. economy as resilient enough to absorb any blow. He has also promised that any damage would reverse quickly, with gas prices falling rapidly as soon as the war ends.
Economists are less certain, particularly at a time when the United States and Iran have resumed exchanging fire. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump promised to retaliate in response to the downing of a U.S. helicopter days earlier, a move that could risk another escalation that disturbs the fragile global energy market.
The White House largely sidestepped those concerns on the heels of the latest inflation report. Instead, it opted only to focus on a subset of goods, including autos, where prices fell last month.
“The at-expectation May C.P.I. report reinforces that, despite temporary disruptions as a result of Iran’s efforts to subvert the free flow of energy, President Trump’s broader economic agenda continues to deliver meaningful results for the American people,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
Mr. Trump has spent months brushing aside voters’ concerns about the rising cost of living. At one point on Friday, he repeated his claim that the debate around affordability is a “con job.” He also insisted he had brought inflation “way down” from its pandemic-era highs.
In an interview that aired Sunday on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump argued that the country is “doing great,” as he called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
Broadly, economists expect the Fed to maintain rates to keep inflation in check. Further reinforcing that sense, the labor market has remained resilient, after employers added about 172,000 jobs last month, more than analysts had expected.
But Mr. Trump has continued to insist that interest rates should be significantly lower, swatting away the concern that too-low rates could actually worsen the problem.
“Now, if inflation comes, and, you know, people live with inflation, but if inflation comes what happens is you stamp it out,” the president said. “But success can kill inflation just like higher interest rates.”
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