Washington
CNN
—
Gas. Groceries. Eggs. Over the last week, President Donald Trump has lied about the price of all of them — using this repeated deception to try to minimize widespread concerns that his tariffs will fuel inflation.
Here is a fact check.
Trump claimed last Thursday that gas prices “hit $1.98 yesterday in a couple of states.” That wasn’t true. No state had an average gas price below $2.70 per gallon on Wednesday, according to data from AAA, which reported a national average of about $3.17 per gallon. And the lowest individual Wednesday price found by the firm GasBuddy, which tracks tens of thousands of gas stations across the country, was $2.19 at a station in Texas.
The White House couldn’t substantiate Trump’s claim when CNN inquired, and it added a new false claim that gas prices in “the Middle America” are at “record lows.” Then Trump said the next day that three states had hit $1.98 per gallon on Thursday. There was no basis for that, either; the lowest AAA state average on Thursday was also $2.70 per gallon, and GasBuddy again found no stations selling for less than $2.19 per gallon.
Trump claimed last Thursday and Friday that grocery prices “are down” and then claimed Tuesday that they have “come down.” False again. Average grocery prices in March were up about 0.49% from February, according to federal Consumer Price Index data, which was the biggest month-to-month jump since October 2022. Average grocery prices in March were also up about 2.41% from the previous March, the biggest year-over-year jump since August 2023.
These increases happened before Trump imposed 10% tariffs in early April on imports from most countries, which are certain to raise the prices of some grocery items.
Egg prices have spiked over the past year amid a bird flu outbreak. Trump claimed Tuesday that “as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94% since we took office.” That is wildly inaccurate.
A decline of 93% or 94% from the national average consumer cost of a dozen large Grade A eggs in January, about $4.95, would mean that eggs are now costing consumers under 38 cents per dozen. Any grocery shopper can tell you that is nowhere close to true; in March, this national average price hit a record high of about $6.23 per dozen. It’s very possible the April average is lower — the data will be published in May — but clearly not nearly as low as Trump said.
The White House has previously pointed to wholesale egg prices as evidence of improvement, though those aren’t the prices consumers pay in stores. Wholesale prices have declined substantially since late February, but, again, not nearly as much as Trump claimed. As of Friday, the national wholesale price for a dozen large white eggs was $3.13, according to the US Department of Agriculture, down from $6.55 as of the Friday after Trump took office on January 20. That’s a decline of about 52%, not 93% or 94%.
The White House couldn’t substantiate Trump’s “93, 94%” claim, either. Instead, spokesperson Anna Kelly emailed CNN a comment on Wednesday that asserted egg prices are “down significantly” under Trump because of his efforts to fight bird flu.
