During an Oval Office event on Wednesday afternoon, a reporter asked Donald Trump for his reaction to the news that inflation has reached a three-year high. The president responded that the new data was “great,” adding, “I love the inflation.”
And while that was strange, it quickly got worse. As part of his explanation for why he professed his “love” of inflation, Trump went on to say, “You know, I can say it now, something you didn’t know. You know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran — until right now.”
He said this operation involved 22 ships that traveled “with no lights” and went undetected because Iranians “don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it.”
Even at face value, this was difficult to understand. The president loves inflation because the United States is taking oil out of the Middle East?
Complicating matters, there was also uncertainty about the nature and accuracy of Trump’s claims, even within his own White House Cabinet. MS NOW reported as part of the network’s liveblog coverage: