Last Friday on CNBC’s Squawk Box, the CEO of Goldman Sachs blew a gaping hole in the never-ending media outrage bait about the Trump economy.
Asked by co-host Joe Kernen for his 2026 economic forecast, 
David Solomon emphatically replied that “the macro setup is quite good,” which shatters doom narratives being promulgated by CNN, The New York Times, and others desperate to make Trumponomics political taboo.
“You have this combination of strong fiscal stimulus in the United States,” Solomon argued. “We have a huge deregulatory swing in the U.S. which is also constructive because when the regulatory pendulum swings hard the other way, people have to invest more in meeting those regulatory obligations.”
When the regulatory pendulum swings back to a deregulatory posture, Solomon explained, “resources can be freed up to invest in more productive parts of the business.”
In his summation, Trump gutting the overbloated federal regulatory state has provided a “tailwind of economic activity.”
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon gives his economic forecast for 2026: "The macro setup is quite good." pic.twitter.com/hGwRiYXQg2
— Joe Vazquez (@JV3MRC) February 18, 2026
Huh. One could conclude that taking the handcuffs off economic productivity was a good thing!
Solomon highlighted findings by Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius, which projected “2.9 percent real growth this year; five percent nominal.” The consensus, according to Solomon’s estimation of economists’s projections, is that “we could see better than that. So you’ve got really strong tailwinds for good nominal and real growth and I think a lot of deal activity.”
Bolstering Solomon’s optimism was the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s February 13 report showing inflation easing to 2.4 percent, which defied expectations and simultaneously illustrating the muted effects of Trump’s much-maligned tariffs on prices.
Over on X, Fox Business Network’s Making Money host Charles Payne underscored that the data exposed how the media writ large have been treating consumers to “nonstop stream of articles and research reports” ahead of the inflation report “on the impact of tariffs. The plan was to permeate the air with negativity and set up a ‘moment of [t]ruth’ with a hot CPI report this morning. The scheme backfired again. CPI was better than expected and much better than the narrative laid out by the fearmongers.”
So much for all that kerfuffle about an impending “Great Depression,” eh CNN?
