Reading CNN’s ridiculous hot takes on the Trump economy is enough to knock a few points off your intelligence quotient. Its TDS-afflicted reporters consistently behave as if writing in contradiction just to sour public opinion doesn’t affect the credibility of their arguments.
CNN Business Senior Writer Allison Morrow didn’t even try to hide the inconsistency in her January 23 anti-Trump screed headlined, “Trump’s ‘run it hot’ economic strategy could work — but it’ll cost Americans dearly.”
Did you catch that? If Trump’s economic plans work out as intended, how will it hurt Americans? Wouldn’t that outcome be the antithesis of an economic agenda that’s successful? That was apparently lost on Morrow, who insisted that President Trump’s fixation on “rapid economic growth and low inflation” could be “disastrous for the American workforce.” Excuse us? What does that even mean! As if anemic economic growth and high inflation is somehow more desirable!
Morrow hinged her argument on the current AI boom, lambasting how Trump and company are supposedly viewing it as the second coming of the internet explosion of the 1990s:
Yes, broad economic growth is strong: Data from the Commerce Department on Thursday showed third-quarter GDP expansion hitting an annualized rate of 4.4%, roughly in line with where we were in the mid-90s. But just because it looks similar on the top line doesn’t mean anything is the same under the hood.
Yes, Morrow actually tried to make a 4.4 percent GDP rate out to be a bad thing. Her argument was that all income groups were spending in the 90s, while only the rich seem to be powering the current Trump economy, reflecting the dubiously-named K-shaped economy. “Yes, this is the K-shaped economy, where the rich are doing better and better while the poor are doing worse and worse.”
Morrow argued along the tired Marxist, dichotomous line. “The rich have become so rich, in fact, that their spending alone can make it appear as if the entire economy is great, even as the majority of people are finding that suddenly the costs of basic staples like housing and food are getting harder and harder to bear, and dollar stores warn that more and more people are going without.”
This is the same hack who tried claiming during the Biden era in August 2024 that “The war on inflation has been won. It’s OK if you’re still angry.”
Morrow trying to make the Trump economy a class struggle is one of the most disingenuous lines of logic-bending being employed by the media today. RealClearMarkets editor John Tammy even noted in November that “The rich prosper only insofar as the poor and middle see their earnings and living standards soar.” In essence, wrote Tammy, “There's No Such Thing As a K-Shaped Economy.” As Tammy put it, the “impossibility” of a K-shaped economy implies that the top 1 percent of income earners are getting rich at the expense of the other 99 percent. However, as Tammy concluded, this notion is utterly ridiculous:
Except that if there were any validity to this popular misconception, we would frequently be reading of mass migration of the other 99 percent out of Palo Alto, Seattle and San Jose in pursuit of better, more remunerative opportunity in Pueblo, Saginaw and Spokane. Except that there’s no such migration of any substance to speak of.
In fact, between December 2024 and December 2025, USAFacts.org reported that throughout Trump’s first full year in office, wage growth has outpaced inflation by 1.1 percent. “When wage growth outpaces inflation, it indicates that workers are experiencing an increase in purchasing power from the previous year.”
Isn’t that a welcome development for all income groups, even as the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model projects 5.4 percent economic growth for Q4 2025? Apparently not for Morrow. Economist John Lonski also just recently admitted during a recent Fox Business segment that “We economists were horribly wrong on the strength of the economy, especially in the second half of 2025.” But leave it to Morrow to try retconning economic growth into a zero-sum game that only benefits the well-to-do bourgeoisies.
Economist John Lonski admits he was wrong on President Trump's strong economy:
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 22, 2026
LONSKI: "We economists were horribly wrong on the strength of the economy, especially in the second half of 2025. Many were looking for growth no faster than 1.5%, you point out 4.3%...."🔥 pic.twitter.com/LtYY3e0ODF
The irony is that Morrow even conceded that her kvetching disguised as news “analysis” could all be much ado about ugatz:
So what’s the problem with ‘running it hot?’ Maybe nothing! If AI does make businesses hyper-efficient and reduce production costs, the way the internet did 30 years ago, then it really may make sense for the next Fed chair to cut interest rates and keep the capital flowing the way Hassett and President Donald Trump have argued.”
The aforementioned paragraph is proof in the pudding why turning news reporting into a conjecture-fest is about the stupidest form of journalism being practiced to date, especially by the geniuses-in-their-own-minds over at CNN.
