A Fox & Friends graphic showing Trump's face next to the words "Trump's economy"

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Fox argues the Trump economy is “booming” as many indicators show otherwise

Trump has overseen multiple months of job losses, slower economic growth, and higher inflation while also kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance and food assistance

Written by Zachary Pleat

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Many on Fox News and Fox Business are arguing that the economy under President Donald Trump is “booming” and “going gangbusters,” even though many months of the Trump administration have included job losses, inflation remains elevated, wages are stagnant, and economic growth remains below the second half of the Biden administration. Fox is also pushing for Republicans to run on the economy during the upcoming midterm elections, even though many policies supported by Trump and other Republicans are making food, healthcare, prescription drugs, and other necessities more expensive or harder to access.

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  • Fox argues that the Trump economy is strong, urges Republicans to message on “how good this economy is”

    • Fox anchor Sandra Smith: “You have to put into context of this economy, where some of the statistics, the numbers, and gosh, the stock market today hitting record high, Dow, S&P. Oil prices are plunging, I mean we’re back to $74. There's reason to think things are working. The jobs market remains strong, wages are up.” Smith added: “But yet, these polling continues to show that people aren’t really feeling it.” [Fox News, America Reports, 8/4/26]
    • Fox anchor John Roberts: “If you’re talking the economy, it’s going gangbusters today.” Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy agreed, “It is.” [Fox News, America Reports, 8/4/26]
    • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo: “Throughout all these campaigns, one thing that Democrats keep missing is the strength of this economy.” Guest Adam Johnson agreed, saying, “Republicans need to be more proactive about talking, about demonstrating and citing data on how good this economy is.” To make her point, Bartiromo began talking about “corporate numbers after corporate numbers” being “stronger than expected.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 8/5/26]
    • Fox Business host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow: “We’re in a booming economy, all cylinders … are roaring.” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 8/5/26]
    • Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone: In his Nevada speech, Trump “focused on … healthcare” and “prescription drug prices, the administration going to lower those things.” During the segment, Bartiromo also highlighted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promising 3% or higher economic growth in the second half of the year and saying “we can start coming back toward the Fed’s target level” of 2% inflation. [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 8/6/26]
    • A Fox Business panel celebrated the July jobs report showing a loss of 23,000 jobs and a downward revision of 103,000 fewer jobs in previous months as “great news.” Later in the show, guest and former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore also said: “I would view this as not a bad report.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 8/7/26, 8/7/26]
    • Casone: Republicans “have a story” about “all the things that are going so well for the U.S. economy” under Trump’s policies, and Republicans should “hammer home and get that message out there that these policies … is what is helping them and helping their pocketbooks.” She added: “It’s affordability.” [Fox Business, The Bottom Line, 8/7/26]
    • Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy: “The economy and the fundamentals of it were very strong just before this war. You wrap up this war, you get this economy going on full cylinder in the next couple months … you will win the midterms.” In fact, 156,000 jobs were lost in February prior to Trump launching his war on Iran at the end of that month. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/8/26; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5/8/26]
    • After Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Griff Jenkins mentioned Trump “constantly talking about record markets” and “rising wages,” yet Democrats talk about “how horrible the economy is,” Bartiromo replied: “That’s just propaganda. I mean, look — things are going well and I think we all feel it, right, Griff?” Bartiromo continued: “I mean, look at where we are right now — you’ve got job creation, you’ve got economic growth.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/9/26]

  • Yet multiple economic indicators during the second Trump administration have been poor

    • Inflation, which was on track to drop to 2% at the beginning of Trump’s second term, has instead re-accelerated and remains elevated following Trump’s imposition of universal tariffs in April 2025, and his war against Iran at the end of February 2026. [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed 8/7/26]
  • A graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showing CPI, PCE, and PPI inflation rising during President Trump's second term
    • Jobs growth has been negative during six months of Trump’s second term so far. The July jobs report showed a loss of 23,000 jobs, and revised jobs during May and June down by 103,000. As Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg pointed out, “Trump now has the worst jobs record of any president since Hoover.” [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed 8/7/26; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8/7/26; Bluesky, 8/7/26]
  • A graph from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis showing monthly jobs creation during President Trump's second term
    • As of June, real average hourly earnings (earnings minus inflation) have increased by a mere 0.1% over the past year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, production and non-supervisory employees have seen a decrease of 0.1% in their real average hourly earnings between June 2025-26. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7/14/26]
  • A graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing barely any growth in real average hourly earnings between June 2025-26
    • Economic growth under Trump so far lags behind economic growth during the last two years of the Biden administration. [Bluesky, 8/7/26]
  • A graph from Simon Rosenberg's Hopium Chronicles showing that GDP growth has slowed under Trump's second term

  • And the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have taken numerous actions that have worsened affordability

    • Trump has continued to impose universal tariffs, even after the Supreme Court overturned his first series of import taxes on Americans. Trump’s latest round of universal tariffs have a thinly veiled justification to encourage trading partners to address the use of forced labor in their supply chains. Trump’s tariffs have been costly; the Tax Foundation has estimated that “in 2025, the Trump tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000 per US household.” And Yale’s Budget Lab estimated that Trump’s new tariffs will cost the average household “about $1,100 annually.” [Media Matters, 7/24/26; Tax Foundation, 7/27/26; The Budget Lab, 7/24/26]
    • Trump’s Iran war has caused gasoline and diesel prices to spike. Since Trump launched his Iran war at the end of February, prices for both gasoline and diesel fuel have spiked and remained elevated in the following months. [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed 8/10/26, 8/10/26]
    • Republicans are removing health insurance from at least 10 million Americans, and the Trump administration has moved to withhold Medicaid funding from some states. According to KFF, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that due to the cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and other Republican policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 10 million more individuals will be uninsured in 2034. The Trump administration in July “deferred more than $1 billion in federal Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota,” and as reported by The New York Times, the administration “has already been withholding around $250 million from Minnesota since February and $1.3 billion from California since May.” [KFF, 8/3/26 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 7/21/26; The New York Times, 7/21/26]
    • Trump has tariffed prescription medication imports and ended a federal subsidy of Medicare Part D, driving up costs for American seniors. In April, Trump imposed a 100% tariff on brand name medications from “a small portion of drugmakers.” In July, Trump announced that generic drug imports will face a 100% tariff beginning in 2028, doubling to 200% in 2029. Also in July, The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration plans to end a subsidy for Medicare drug plans, “resulting in higher costs for some seniors.” [CNBC, 4/8/26, 7/21/26; The Wall Street Journal, 7/28/26]
    • As electricity costs have continued to rise during the Trump administration, Trump has taken actions to slow down or halt renewable energy generation. The Consumer Price Index for electricity surged during the second Trump administration, from 1.8% in January 2025 to 7% in November, before declining slightly to its currently still elevated level of 4% in June 2026. Throughout this time, the Trump administration has engaged in a war against renewable energy; it “canceled more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era federal grants for clean energy projects in October” for purely political reasons, it spent billions paying energy companies to abandon offshore wind energy leases, and announced a 15% tariff on key solar energy components beginning in December. [Federal Reserve Bank of New York, accessed 8/7/26; The New York Times, 7/24/26; The Hill, 8/6/26; Politico, 8/6/26]
    • Republicans have made huge cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as food costs have increased more sharply under Trump. In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast that inflation for groceries (known as food at home) is predicted to increase 2.7% in 2026, and 2.9% in 2027, which, as reported by The Associated Press, is “higher than the grocery inflation shoppers saw in 2024 and 2025.” Yet the OBBBA included $186 billion in cuts to the SNAP program, which according to the Urban Institute, will affect “22.3 million US families” who would lose “some or all of their SNAP benefits.” Millions of Americans have already lost access to SNAP benefits during Trump’s second term. [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed 8/7/26; U.S. Department of Agriculture, 7/24/26; The Associated Press, 7/25/26; Urban Institute, 8/6/25, 7/2/25; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/29/26]