The Washington Post is finding it impossible to admit that all the media scareporn about the Trump economy turned out to be less realistic than B-movies without still making it seem like disaster is just around the corner.
Post reporter Rachel Lerman published a pretty shocking July 5 story conceding what anyone with sense could see. “Trump’s economy remains pretty strong,” read Lerman’s headline in part, before she inserted the typical spin into the rest of it, “but some warning signs are flashing.”
Her lede paragraph read like disappointment that Trump’s policies on trade and immigration haven’t yielded the economic catastrophe the anti-Trump media doom mongers have been bleating about. President Donald Trump “has imposed global tariffs, orchestrated a crackdown on immigration and pushed a sweeping tax-cut bill through Congress — moves that could significantly alter the U.S. economy, but haven’t yet.” Oh boo-hoo.
Lerman noted that “[t]he country’s economy has remained relatively stable and upbeat under Trump, according to many metrics,” but she couldn’t resist regurgitating doom-mongering that “economists caution that they see potential warning signs ahead.” It’s worth noting that this is the same outlet that tried blaming Trump for slow Q4 GDP growth — in 2024, before he was even president! So it’s not surprising that they can’t just take the “L” without still fighting to prove that they’re still somehow right.
Lerman then went on a tear against Trump’s policies — including his crackdown on illegal immigration — despite the fact that she admitted that inflation is slowing significantly, the stock market is reaching new highs, unemployment ticked down to 4.1 percent:
Still, many analysts say that the future of the U.S. economy under Trump remains uncertain. Gross domestic product shrank in the first quarter of the year in part because of surging imports, and consumers are feeling hesitant and spending less. It’s also too soon to know the full effect of Trump’s widespread tariffs, especially with a deadline approaching to get deals completed with many countries before levies rise once more. And as immigrants leave the workforce, either voluntarily or by deportation, a lack of workers could create labor shortages in certain key areas and fuel wage inflation.
Wait, what? “[M]any analysts say that the future of the U.S. economy under Trump remains uncertain?” In other words, so no one knows the future? Wow, there’s a shocker! This is about as useful as saying that whether “Person A” will sneeze in the next ten minutes is “uncertain.”
Never mind the fact that the economy has repeatedly defied expectations that Trump’s tariffs would wreck the economy in a New York minute. It’s also cute for Lerman to paint the idea of immigrants leaving the workforce with a broad brush and not use the word “illegal” at all and only passively use the term “undocumented” once in her write-up, because doing so of course would change the context dramatically.
Writing that it’s “too soon” to know the effect of Trump’s tariffs is subjective, because media pundits had already been predicting Armageddon would happen for months, such as CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Liesman, who was adamant April 4 that Trump’s trade agenda was the “equivalent of steering the Titanic towards the iceberg.” Liesman would later have to eat crow when the inflation numbers for May didn’t reflect his doomism, leading him to admit that he did “not see broader impacts on inflation from the tariffs” during the June 11 edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Flashback: CNBC’s Steve Liesman Wears the Clown Nose With Latest Good Inflation Report for Trump
Even Axios conceded as far back as May that “Tariff-Driven Inflation and Recession Fears May Be Overblown.” Lerman herself included anecdotes that rebut the notion that the U.S. is headed for an economic brick wall: “The U.S. labor market also continues to show signs of resilience, adding 147,000 jobs in June. Hourly wages outpaced inflation, and layoffs remain low.” Of course, she found a way to spin this as being bad news too: “But businesses have added jobs at a slower pace this year compared with last year, and hiring has fallen to a standstill in many industries.”
In other words, yeah the jobs market is resilient, but it still stinks, right Lerman? How in the world does that make any sense?
