Donald Trump's "radical" plan for the economy is alienating even his most faithful supporters, a Nobel Prize winner has claimed.
Paul Krugman explained the president's wilder choices for the economy, including a series of massive tariffs and bonuses for air traffic controllers who worked through the government shutdown are beginning to worry MAGA followers. Writing in his Substack newsletter, Krugman explained how Trump had inherited an economy that was in much better shape before he took office.
The Nobel Prize winner wrote, "Trump inherited when he took office was in much better shape than today’s economy, with lower unemployment combined with faster job growth, and inflation trending down."
Though Trump has claimed the economic woes of the last year are a problem from the Biden administration, patience is running out with the president.
Krugman continued, "Trump’s radical policy changes – huge (illegal) tariffs, mass deportations, big tax cuts (for the rich), benefit cuts (for the poor and middle class), mass layoffs of federal workers, disinvesting in huge green energy projects and aid to farmers — have been clearly damaging to everything besides crypto and AI. It strains credulity – even for the Trump faithful – to claim that we are still in Joe Biden’s economy."
The difficulty comes in a third point made by Krugman, who says Trump has not outright said the economy is still terrible and cannot say so as it would reflect badly on him.
He explained, "How can Trump blame Biden for a troubled economy when he won’t admit that we have a troubled economy? It’s more than credible that the source of the public’s falling economic confidence is the two Trump 'gaps' — the difference between what he promised and what he has delivered, and the gap between what he says is happening and what everyone can see with their own eyes."
Krugman went on to suggest Trump will try and "gaslight" Americans into believing the economy has been fixed. He wrote, "Trump is going to make a prime-time address to the nation tonight. The details of his speech haven’t been announced, but it’s a good guess that he intends to gaslight Americans yet again, claiming that things are going well. They aren’t."