Donald Trump calls inflation ‘fake’, urges Republican win in midterms

US President Donald Trump has defended economic policies and cast aside wartime inflation as fake, urging people to vote for the Republicans in the midterms. Trump denied his own Labour Department report that showed a 0.9-point hike in inflation last month, the highest consumer price hike in four years.

“Don’t forget, we’re having some fake inflation because of the fuel, the energy prices,” said US President Donald Trump to a crowd in Nevada. The Trump administration has been framing the inflation and job-loss report as “short-term pain”. Trump, at the event in Nevada on Thursday, emphasised that "see what happens over the next week or so.”

Trump's Vegas event was themed around the “no tax on tips” policy goal, which was passed under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” last year. The law applies to 60 service industry and eliminates tax on tips. Las Vegas has a large concentration of tipped workers in the country. Around 180,000 workers in the Las Vegas metropolitan area work for tips, according to an estimate last year from the University of Nevada. Trump claimed that around 26 million Americans have already claimed this benefit.

“Every single American at every income level has more money in their pockets this week because of the Republican tax policies, and we’ve got to win the midterms,” Trump said. “If we don’t, these policies are going to be taken away from you. The taxes are going to go through the roof."

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While discussing a new deduction for American-made cars that was part of the "One Big Beautiful Bill". He contrasted how wealthy individuals actively seek out tax write-offs compared to middle-income and poorer Americans.

“So when rich people do something, they always look for deductions, right? It's always deductions... And middle-class and middle-income people, poorer people, they don't get — they don't think in terms of deductions. So I said, you buy a car that's American-made, give a deduction on the interest you pay on the loan that you used to buy the car, ” said Trump.

While reading from prepared notes about the impact of the “Big Beautiful Bill” on small businesses, he veered off script and questioned the terminology of “corner store”.

“Millions of American small businesses, including corner stores. What is a corner store? I've never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I've never heard it described as a ‘corner store.’ Who the hell wrote that, please?” said Trump. Later in the event, Trump acknowledged that his tariffs and war on Iran has choked the global oil supply and hurt the financial market, but he maintained that the economy was never better.