A recent Democratic ad campaign claiming President Donald Trump’s tariffs have caused prices to “soar” is undercut by recent data painting a much rosier picture of the economy than Democrats’ talking points suggest.
House Majority Forward (HMF), the nonprofit arm of a House Democratic leadership-aligned super PAC, announced a series of ads Wednesday targeting 26 House Republicans for supporting the president’s tariffs, which HMF claims has caused prices to skyrocket. However, several markers of inflation fell to four-year-lows in April while Americans’ wages are rising faster than the rate of inflation, the opposite of a trend that occurred during the Biden administration.
Yet this has not stopped Democratic groups from trying to convince voters that the president’s tariffs are tanking the economy in real-time.
“There’s one person who thinks everything in your life should cost more … It’s your Congressman … He backed the tariffs causing prices to soar,” the HMF ads say in part.
However, the Democrats’ claim seems to contradict recent economic data showing that the president’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs enacted in April have thus far not significantly raised consumer prices.
“President Trump was handed worsening inflation, and he brought it back down in just a few months,” EJ Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement Friday. “The claim that prices are soaring is empirically false by any measure.”
The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation marker, slowed to 2.1% in April, an increase of just 0.1% for the month. That is the lowest rate since February 2021.
The consumer price index slowed to just 2.3% year-over-year and 0.2% month-over-month in April, the slowest rate in more than four years.
Personal incomes also rose 0.8% for the month, nearly tripling expectations, according to the Commerce Department.
In April grocery prices saw their biggest drop in five years since September 2020, largely driven by a sharp decline in the price of eggs, which fell to their lowest price in roughly 40 years.
U.S. consumer confidence also surged in May, reversing five straight months of decline, according to a report from the The Conference Board.
“While the left cries wolf, prices continue to fall, and the economy is booming under President Trump and Republicans in Congress,” NRCC Spokesman Mike Marinella told the DCNF in a statement. “It’s clear House Democrats have no message other than pathetic fear-mongering and distractions for their failures.”
Antoni cautioned that persistent high tariffs coupled with a trade war with China could “significantly raise prices” but that scenario has not yet happened.
The HMF ad campaign comes as other claims from Democratic groups regarding the president’s policies and his “one big, beautiful bill” have also been disputed, even by their traditional allies in the legacy media.
House Democrats’ claimed that Congressional Republicans’ reforms to Medicaid in the president’s sweeping tax and spending bill would kick 13.7 million Americans off of the entitlement program’s rolls.
“Republicans are trying to jam this reckless budget down the throats of the American people, take away healthcare from approximately 14 million Americans including by undermining parts of the Affordable Care Act and enacting the largest Medicaid cut in American history,” Jeffries said at his weekly press conference on May 15.
However, the New York Times fact-checked the claim as “an exaggeration.” Democrats added in roughly four million additional people who are expected to lose Medicaid coverage due to the expiration of a policy unrelated to the “big, beautiful bill.”
Additionally, the House-drafted proposal would kick off 1.4 million illegal migrants who receive coverage through state Medicaid programs. Nearly 5 million Americans are also slated to lose coverage rather than meet requirements for certain able-bodied, childless adults to work or volunteer at least 20 hours a week.
Congressional Republicans have defended their Medicaid reforms as necessary changes to root out waste and abuse while strengthening coverage for those who need it most.
HMF was also caught paying for billboards in March alleging that certain House Republicans had voted to cut Medicaid despite the bill’s text not mentioning the entitlement program nor prescribing any specific policy directions.
Several of the billboards were taken down after House Republicans’ campaign arm sent a cease-and-desist letter to the vendor responsible for putting up the billboards.
HMF did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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