President Donald Trump on Wednesday said, “I love inflation” after being asked if he was concerned about new consumer price index data showing inflation at 4.2%, a three-year high.
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, also predicted that inflation will “drop like a rock” after the end of the United States’ war with Iran.
The president linked the prediction to a confusing statement about the US “taking over” oil and shipping.
“No, I like it, the numbers were good,” Trump said when a reporter asked him about the CPI number released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“You know what I really like? I like inflation. You know what?” Trump said. “Because as soon as this war is over, you know what I can say now … you know we’ve been extracting millions of barrels of oil.”
“Nobody knows. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until now,” said Trump.
“We took out 22 ships in one night, at night, without lights, because they don’t have radar, because we blew up their waste,” said the president. “That’s why oil is at $85 a barrel.”
“We were pumping out millions of barrels of oil, millions of barrels every night,” Trump said.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Trump meant by “taking out” oil and ships, and how that relates to consumer prices.
CNBC requested comment from the White House and the Department of Energy.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who testified at the hearing on Wednesday, said he did not know that the United States was extracting millions of barrels from Iran, Reuters reported.
Wright said the US military had helped some oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway between Iran and Oman, and that oil traffic had increased “significantly” because of the crisis last week, Reuters reported.
While the CPI on Wednesday showed annual inflation at a three-year high, core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, was at 2.9% annually. That’s in line with economists’ predictions.
But Trump’s comments about inflation come as fellow Republicans fear that consumer anger over rising prices will hurt GOP lawmakers’ chances of retaining their slim majority in both chambers of Congress in November’s elections.
Trump in May raised eyebrows when he told reporters, “I’m not thinking about America’s financial situation” as he said his focus on the war against Iran was to make sure the Islamic Republic doesn’t get a nuclear weapon.
Several Democrats quickly posted a video of Trump’s latest comments about inflation on social media.
“People do not have money to support their families. Your struggle is a joke to him,” wrote Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois at X,
Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, also tweeted the video, with the message: “‘I love inflation’ – Donald Trump.”
Democratic strategist Jon Cooper, in his own iX video post, said, “The ads write themselves.”
— CNBC’s Megan Casella contributed to this article
