Trump’s Thursday Takes Brutal Turn

The morning’s producer price index data landed like a bomb: September PPI inflation unexpectedly rose to 6.3%, well above the 5.3% forecast, while core PPI hit 5% versus an expected 4.4%. That puts wholesale inflation at its second-highest level since November 2022, and when PPI rises this sharply, consumer price inflation typically follows. The numbers cut directly against the Trump administration’s narrative that inflation is under control, and they arrived on a day already packed with escalating military conflicts, diplomatic contradictions, and a press shop in chaos.

The Economy Is the Story, and It’s Brutal for Trump

The PPI spike is the headline, but it sits inside a broader economic picture that is turning sharply negative for the president. Real wages have now shrunk year-over-year for six consecutive months, ending three years of real wage growth as inflation swallows whatever raises workers manage to get. The hosts highlighted a CNN segment with Harry Enten showing Trump’s net approval rating on the economy at minus 26 points—a staggering 57-point swing from his plus-31 rating in 2020. Among independents, the collapse is even worse: from plus 38 to minus 38, a 76-point shift. Enten noted that no second-term president since modern polling began has been this underwater on the economy at this point in their term. George W. Bush