Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
Let’s take a look at what kind of a job that the Trump Administration is doing when it comes to helping out the American consumer at the grocery store.
As you will recall, he claimed that he was going to drive prices way down.
Or, in his inimitable words:
“I won on the border, and I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost—you know, who uses the word? I started using the word—the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. We’re going to bring those prices way down.”
(Who knew that he made the words “the groceries” popular?)
This review is a bit tricky because it uses figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we know what President Trump thinks about numbers from the BLS. . .or, at least, some of the numbers.
To make a fair comparison, we’ll look at the prices in June 2021, when Biden was in office for a few months, and June 2025, when it was (and is) Trump’s economy.
Apples are not listed, so we’ll have to use bananas and navel oranges, per pound.
- Bananas: 2021: $0.60 2025: $0.65
- Oranges: 2021: $1.35 2025: $1.63
Bacon is not listed, but chicken and ground chuck beef are, with prices per pound.
- Chicken: 2021: $1.47 2025: $2.09
- Beef: 2021: $4.57 2025: $6.10
And then there’s milk, per gallon:
- Milk: 2021: $3.56 2025: $4.03
Clearly, when American consumers go to the market to buy the groceries they are spending more across the board than they were before Trump was going to “bring those prices way down.”
An increasing number of grocery stores have gasoline stations on their lots.
As you will recall, during the campaign he repeatedly claimed that if elected he would get the price of gas under $2.00 per gallon. In May he said on “Meet the Press”: “I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now.”
A slight problem with that is there wasn’t $1.98 gas in any states.
So let’s go back to the June 2021 and June 2025 comparisons and see how gas prices are doing per gallon. These numbers come from the Energy Information Agency.
- 6/7/21: $3.128
- 6/14/21: $3.161
- 6/21/21: $3.153
- 6/28/21: $3.185
That was Biden.
Here’s Trump:
- 6/2/25: $3.256
- 6/9/25: $3.235
- 6/16/25: $3.365
- 6/23/25: $3.338
- 6/30/25: $3.288
So not only was gas less expensive under Biden, but Trump’s prices are 46% higher than that $2.00 per gallon he was talking about.
He can bloviate all he wants. He can fire the heads of agencies. He can create diversions of all types.
Sooner or later these prices are going to catch up with him.
And remember this: In May he was responding to criticism of tariffs by saying: “Maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe those two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.”
Come the holiday season, when the tariffs really kick in and prices across the board rise for everything from cars to coffee, “a couple bucks more” is going to be a whole lot of money for regular working Americans—you know, the kind of people who voted Trump.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.