Trump can't brag about his biggest economic success for one reason: experts

Donald Trump’s administration could be linked directly to a great economic success — but he’s refusing to take credit because it could be seen as praise for President Joe Biden, experts said Friday.

Inflation dropped in September to its lowest level in three years, and leading economists told Newsweek that could be directly linked to decisions Trump made while in the White House.

But instead of selling himself as the architect of economic success, he’s portraying the latest numbers as political theater covering what he says is a dire picture.

"The fact is that the Federal Reserve brought the interest rates down a little too quickly," Trump told the Detroit Economic Club Thursday. "It was too big a cut, and everyone knows that was a political maneuver before the election.”

Newsweek’s report actually linked the latest economic numbers to decisions made by the Federal Reserve’s chair Jerome Powell, a man put in the job by Trump and who steered tough decisions during the former president’s administration.

Powell made a “series of aggressive rate hikes that defined much of [his] tenure during the inflation surge,” Newsweek reported.

“Those earlier Fed rate hikes, combined with external factors like falling gas prices and improvements in global supply chains, have driven inflation down from its peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022.”

But Trump has remained silent about his part in achieving that.

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"President Trump, in choosing Powell as Fed Chair, broke with tradition by not reappointing Janet Yellen,” said Prof. Joseph Foudy of NYU’s Stern School of Business.

But, "given that he is arguing inflation has not fallen, it's hard to simultaneously take credit for the Powell appointment."

“You have to think like Trump,” Todd Belt, director of the Political Management program at George Washington University, told Newsweek about his refusal to brag about his part in the economy.

“His main goal is to win, and he wants to make the election a referendum on the current administration. So, if there is any good news, he sees that as benefiting the administration he's running against.”