“We have the greatest economy we've ever had.”

The "greatest economy ever" had just posted the highest inflation in nearly three years when Trump said this. The April 2026 inflation rate was 3.8%, higher than in every one of Biden's last 20 months in office, and the national average gas price hit $4.39 a gallon in early May, with all 50 states above $4. Prices were rising because of a war Trump chose to launch. The jobs record is the weakest in years, not the best ever. Per Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the economy added just 359,000 jobs in Trump's first 12 months back in office (0.2% growth) versus 1.2 million jobs in Biden's final year. The employment-population ratio fell from 60.1% in January 2025 to 59.8% in January 2026, and manufacturing lost 83,000 jobs in Trump's first 12 months.

Even the growth numbers Trump brags about are not records. GDP grew at a 4.4% annualized rate in the third quarter of 2025, strong, but below the 4.7% rate hit in the third quarter of 2023 under Biden, and nowhere near the historic records of 16.7% in 1950 and 34.9% in 2020. Economists told FactCheck.org there has been no economic turnaround, just "a continuation of trends that were already well underway" before Trump took office. "What we're really seeing is a continuation of trends that were already well underway before Trump took office in January 2025." — Aeimit Lakdawala, Wake Forest University economist, to FactCheck.org, February 2026