Karoline Leavitt swears Trump has inflation at 2.5%, offering no proof except her signature blend of blind loyalty
Karoline Leavitt wants you to believe inflation is “down to 2.5%,” groceries are fine, gas is cheap, and Trump is “digging our country out of the economic hole.” So, why can’t you afford anything? Because CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins is “pushing narratives.”
During Thursday’s White House press briefing, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked a painfully normal question to Press Secretary Leavitt. If the economy is booming, why is Trump telling parents to ration Christmas gifts like it’s a wartime commodity? Reportedly, just two weeks before Christmas, Trump told Americans to only buy two or three dolls for their children.
Leavitt’s answer wasn’t the obvious, “because prices are up.” It was a sermon. She turned it into a “Buy American, pay a dollar or two more, get better quality” lecture. And then, she tried to end the conversation with a statistic-shaped mic drop:
Every economic metric shows that the economy is getting better and brighter. Inflation, as measured by the overall CPI, has slowed to an average 2.5% pace.
Here’s the thing: “average 2.5% pace” is not the same as the standard inflation rate most people read. The normal measure is the year-over-year change in CPI. And by that measure, inflation was 3.0% over the last 12 months ending September 2025. So, Leavitt’s “2.5%” isn’t a clean, commonly used CPI headline number. (via U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Best-case scenario, what Leavitt is citing is a White House-crafted pace metric. Basically, an average constructed from monthly readings to make the trendline sound prettier in a briefing fight. Inflation is not at 2.5% as of September. And September was the latest month the BLS has published the data. So, if anyone claims it’s 2.5% now as of December, the claim is as verifiable as a weather forecast from a fortune cookie.
So, Collins tried to drag the conversation back to lived reality. “Grocery prices are still up,” she asserted. But Leavitt’s response in a nutshell was: Inflation is down, Biden was worse, and you’re biased. She repeated her same misleading numbers and compared Trump’s inflation to Biden’s COVID-era high:
Inflation is down from what the president inherited. The president inherited 2.9% in January. Today, it’s at about 2.5%, so we’re trending in the right direction with more to come. And I would remind you, when President Trump left office in his first term, inflation was 1.7%, and the previous administration jacked it up to a record-high 9%.
Well, first, you can’t compare your “pace” with actual CPI numbers and call it an achievement. Second, if you can only boast your numbers by comparing them to literal pandemic-era data, please reconsider your talking points. Leavitt also boasted about an increase in wages, tax cuts, and a decline in gas, energy, and oil prices.
But when Collins reminded her that energy wasn’t high under Biden, Leavitt replied, “Nobody reported on it.” Right after, she accused the press of swallowing lies from the prior administration while insisting they should take her word for everything:
Everything I’m telling you is the truth, backed by real factual data, and you just don’t want to report on it because you want to push narratives about the president.
When Collins attempted a follow-up, Leavitt shut it down, announcing, “I’m not going to take your follow-up.” Which is a cute strategy if you’re selling skincare. Not so cute if you’re trying to sell an economic reality. Inflation doesn’t disappear because the press secretary repeats “2.5%” twice and declares it “real factual data.” As one X user caught, Leavitt’s sources for her “factual” data is just “trust me.”
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