President Donald Trump on Tuesday “delivered a bunch of falsehoods” about U.S. inflation, tariffs, consumer prices and the cost of prescription drugs during his speech at the Detroit Economic Club, says CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale — who naturally brought some receipts.
“Inflation hasn’t ‘stopped,’” Dale wrote Tuesday on CNN. “Consumer Prices are up during this presidential term, not ‘down.’ Grocery prices are rising, not starting to fall ‘rapidly.’ US businesses and consumers, not China, pay US tariffs on Chinese imports.”
He continued, “It’s impossible to reduce prescription drug prices by ‘thousands’ of percentage points, since this would mean Americans would be getting paid to acquire their medicines. President Donald Trump made numerous false claims about inflation.”
Trump spoke for more than an hour on Tuesday and claimed once again with no basis in reality that the prices for consumer goods have come “down” during his administration, that grocery costs are “rapidly” following suit, and that “inflation is stopped” in its tracks.
Dale, who regularly fact-checks Trump for CNN, added, “He also delivered a bunch of falsehoods about broader economic subjects and about a variety of other issues he abandoned his teleprompter to discuss, including elections and immigration.”
Dale began by tackling Trump’s claim about inflation being “defeated,” citing a Consumer Price Index report published several hours before his speech that showed average consumer prices were 2.7% higher in December than they were a year ago.
Trump claimed elsewhere in his speech that there is “almost no inflation” at the moment.
Dale noted that the Consumer Price Index report also showed grocery prices spiking from November to December at the fastest month-to-month rate (0.7%) in more than three years, with prices 2.4% higher in December than during the same month in 2024.
“Meanwhile, grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down,” Trump said.
While the president also claimed overall “prices are down” and said Democrats “caused” the affordability issue, which he has frequently dismissed due to concerns from his own base, Dale noted average consumer prices were 2.2% higher in December than in January 2024.
“They’re going to be coming down thousands of percents,” Trump said about the cost of prescription drugs, claiming his administration is “standing up to special interests” by slashing costs for various medications “by 300, 400, 500 and even 600% and more.”
Trump also falsely claimed Tuesday that he won the Michigan vote during the 2020 election.
Ryan Sun/Associated Press
“These claims are debunked by math itself,” quipped Dale, who tackled this subject before.
He explained that “if the president magically got drug companies to reduce the prices of all their drugs to $0, that would be a 100% cut, while a decline of more than 100 percentage points would mean that Americans would get paid to acquire their medications.”
Dale noted accurately Tuesday this, of course, “is not happening.”
Trump also reiterated that the cost of his steep international tariffs on all U.S. imports is being footed by other countries, rather than by American importers and consumers, and added falsely that “China is one of our biggest taxpayers right now.”
As for the subjects, Dale said he “abandoned his teleprompter” when Trump claimed he “won” Michigan during the 2020 election, which former President Joe Biden did, and blamed his predecessor for “letting in 25 million people” as migrants during his term.
Dale cited U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which tallied under 11 million “encounters.”
His full analysis is available on CNN.
