Shades of Kellyanne Conway: Trump’s Alternative Reality of the Economy Is Doing Bigly, Beautiful

Sep 21, 2025 04:29 PM EDT, Sun

As the public rejects his economic performance, Trump pitches an alternate reality

As Americans’ attitudes on the economy sour, the president has some choices. He’s settled on the worst one: He’s making stuff up.

Sept. 19, 2025, 11:34 AM EDT By Steve Benen

In a newly released Washington Post-Ipsos poll, Donald Trump appears to be struggling on every front, but the public’s opposition to the president’s economic performance is especially clear. According to the national survey, 59% of Americans disapprove of the Republican’s handling of the economy, while 64% disapprove of his trade tariffs.

This comes on the heels of the latest national Faux News poll, which found that a 52% majority of Americans believe Trump has made the economy worse since returning to power.

The public’s dissatisfaction is understandable. After all, stubborn inflation data inched higher last month. Job growth and the manufacturing sector have also moved in the wrong direction amid sluggish economic growth.

Confronted with this reality, the president has some choices. Maybe he could adopt a more sensible economic agenda. Perhaps he could ask Americans to be patient. Maybe he could replace some members of his economic team to signal his dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Or he could do what he’s been doing and just make stuff up.

During a Faux News appearance last week, the the president boasted, “We have the best economy we’ve ever had.” The claim was plainly ridiculous, and it made him appear spectacularly out of touch with public frustrations on the issue.

This week, during Trump’s trip to the U.K., he told reporters, “You know, we’ve already solved inflation. We’ve solved prices.”

If that weren’t enough, at the same press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Republican said in reference to his own country’s economy, “Jobs are at a record.”

He didn’t say which “record,” exactly, but the Trump administration’s own data shows that in the first year of Trump’s second term, job growth has slowed to levels unseen since the Great Recession. That’s not a matter of opinion; it’s simply what the available evidence shows.

So why would the president point to one of his failures as a success? Because his solution to the Trump Slump is to manufacture an alternate reality and hope people play along.

The latest polls suggest that’s not working.

As for the road ahead, a variety of administration officials have tried to reassure the public that better days are on the horizon — though they’re not entirely sure when.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said he expects the economy to “pick up” later this year. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expects good news to arrive in “six months” (or maybe 12). Kevin Hassett, who leads the White House National Economic Council, pointed to next summer.

For his part, Trump said in his latest Faux News interview said he expects the impact of his trade agenda to “kick in probably in a year or so.”

That’s difficult to believe, but it’s worth appreciating the disorienting rhetorical push: Ignoring what the public actually believes, the White House is arguing simultaneously that the economy is already great and that the economy will eventually be great at some point, maybe next year.

Is it any wonder why the polls look so ugly for Trump?

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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