'Voila': CNN fact-checker cracks case of Trump's mystery 19 percent inflation number

CNN's Daniel Dale has a theory about where President Donald Trump got his claim that inflation under former President Joe Biden reached 19 percent – and it's based on some very creative math.

Trump has claimed his predecessor “had real inflation of 19 percent," which he repeated for effect, and he also claimed his administration “inherited the worst inflation in history” and bragged that inflation over “the last three months” was down to 1.7 percent.

"The president’s numbers do not make any sense,” Dale told "CNN News Central." “We have not had anywhere close to 1.7 inflation in the last three months.”

Dale said inflation came in at 3.4 percent in July and 3.4 percent in August, before climbing to 3.7 percent in September.

As for the 19 percent figure, Dale said Trump never explained it and the White House wouldn’t explain it either, despite his repeated requests, so the fact checker offered his own explanation instead.

In a 2022 speech, Trump read from a script that noted Biden’s inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in June of that year, but then Trump added, “it’s not that – I believe it’s double that.”

“So if you [double] 9.1, you get pretty close to 19 – voila,” Dale said. “Of course, you can’t do that. You can’t double economic numbers because you feel like it.”

Biden-era inflation did peak at 9.1 percent in June 2022, but Dale noted that it then “fell sharply” over the rest of the Democratic president's term and reached 3.0 percent in January 2025, the month Trump returned to office.

Dale said he looked at other possible explanations, such as cumulative inflation or core inflation, but none of them backs up the current president.

“None of it makes sense,” Dale said. “All of it is inaccurate.”

Trump’s “worst inflation in history” line doesn’t hold up either. Dale noted the 9.1 percent peak in 2022 was a 40-year high but “nowhere close to the all-time high,” which was 23.7 percent in 1920. More recently, inflation hit 14.8 percent in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, and cumulative inflation over Biden’s presidency was also “less than half” of what it was under Carter.

Dale said Trump’s 19 percent claim is just one of many he's offered to cover up his own economic record.

“It’s been a lying spree about inflation all midterms,” Dale said. “He’s basically trying to create an alternative reality.”

Dale said average consumer prices are 5.4 percent higher than when Trump took office. The inflation rate also hasn’t been as low as 3 percent “since the Iran war started in March,” he said.

“Judging by the polls, I don’t think people are buying it,” Dale said. “I think people can debunk these claims with their own eyes.”