Narrative consistency on economic coverage is definitely not one of CNN’s strongest suits, and its latest pile of garbage it spewed to harangue President Donald Trump’s economy is case-in-point.
CNN Business Executive Editor David Goldman, who’s developed a reputation at MRC for being one of the most logically inconsistent economic writers at the decrepit network, launched another fallacy-rattled hit piece at the Trump economy.
“It’s about to officially become Trump’s economy,” read Goldman’s headline for his January 2 op-ed posing as news, where he excoriated the president for accurately blaming his predecessor Joe Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for much of the affordability problems facing Americans this past year still reeling from the 40-year high inflation crisis brought on by their money-printer-go-brrrrr policies.
With Trump poised to select a new Fed chairman, “Trump will have run out of excuses,” Goldman sneered. “This will officially become his economy, for better or worse.” But he later contradicted himself by hedging against the prospects that the Trump economy could turn out for the better with a sub-header that read, “The president can’t really control the economy.” Wait, what? So how will it be Trump’s economy if he really has no control over it to begin with? “
This also completely undermines Goldman when he falsely celebrated how America supposedly “won the war on inflation” under Biden in October 2024, because he didn’t bother caveating Biden’s illusory success with the same qualifier he dubiously pinned on Trump. So America won on inflation due to Biden’s leadership, but Trump’s influence is moot at best? “Ultimately, the president really can’t do much to control the direction of the US economy – a $30 trillion behemoth that federal legislation and executive orders just don’t have all that much sway over,” Goldman propagandized.
Most recent data show that GDP growth soared in Q3 to 4.3 percent, far eclipsing economist expectations of 3.3 percent growth. Consumer prices in November also slowed down significantly to a 2.7 percent inflation rate against predictions of a 3.3. percent increase.
All of this happened despite the fact that the economy under Trump has largely outperformed the predictions by CNN and others who spent the past 12 months prophesying a financial doom that never materialized. Did Goldman bother mentioning any of this at all? Nope.
In fact, Goldman’s argument basically amounts to that if the economy ends up sucking eggs, it belongs to Trump. If it goes the other way, then he really doesn’t have much to do with it. Talk about trying to have your cake and eating it too.
Here’s the problem for Goldman: There are positive outlooks already in place for the Trump economy going into the new year. Bloomberg News also just reported January 5 that “Trump’s Tax Stimulus Set to Keep US Economy on Track in 2026.” Specifically, reported Bloomberg, “American taxpayers will get bigger refunds in the first half of this year as a result of Trump’s signature bill, economists say, with estimates for the aggregate boost ranging from $30 billion to $100 billion” In addition, “Incentives for companies to invest in plants and equipment are also likely to bolster growth, while lower borrowing costs and steadier trade policy should help too.”
Philadelphia Reserve President Anna Paulson even gave an optimistic projection for the year January 3:
I am feeling cautiously optimistic on inflation, and I see a decent chance that we will end the year with inflation that is close to 2 percent on a run-rate basis; that is, 12-month inflation may still be a little elevated, but three-month inflation will be 2 percent by the end of the year.
No wonder Goldman’s TDS compelled him to mangle his logic.
Goldman snorted that Trump blaming Biden was one of a litany of his “excuses” that are “falling flat.” That's despite American Enterprise Institute economist and noted Trump critic Michael Strain conceding himself in a December 23 piece that "Trump is right to pin much of the blame on his predecessor, Joe Biden," for consumer prices going to the moon. Goldman tossed out a CNN poll of 1,245 registered voters which allegedly showed that “61% of Americans said Trump’s policies have ‘worsened economic conditions in this country.’” Goldman then claimed that it was “a higher percentage than those who blamed Biden for the direction the economy had taken” from previous CNN polls on Biden’s economy over the past few years.
Not so fast. Americans for Prosperity released a larger survey in 2022 of 1,500 registered voters which found that 61 percent of Americans blamed Biden for the skyrocketing prices. Another NetChoice poll of 9,227 registered voters released in 2022 found that an even greater percentage, 65 percent, believed that Biden was leading the country in the wrong direction economically. In actuality, the argument on whether Americans graded Trump more harshly than Biden is largely dependent what poll you’re looking at. In effect, Goldman simply cherry-picked his own network’s polling to gloss over other polling that showed Americans placing significant blame on Biden for the economic crises they endured during his administration.
Goldman even trotted out the debunked narrational spin that “is expected to remove millions of Americans from Medicaid.” But as McCarthy Law clarified, “While proposals are on the table to reduce overall spending and eliminate fraud, President Trump has not stopped Medicaid, and current plans have a stated focus on increasing oversight rather than reducing benefits.” Eureka!
Goldman tried desperately to convince readers that the Trump economy was on a collision course and was set to rattle the midterms against the GOP:
Trump’s blame game, already falling on deaf ears, is about to be out of convenient targets. That means Trump will own this economy, politically at least, at perhaps the worst possible time – when the job market and affordability appear to be on a sinking ship. The midterms are coming up and Americans are once again voting with their wallets.
