“Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.”

Remarks on night one of the Republican midterm convention, Dallas

Prices were rising, not falling, on every published measure available to him. The most recent consumer price index release before the speech, covering July 2026, put overall prices up 3.4 percent over 12 months, food up 3.0 percent, food at home up 2.7 percent and energy up 14.7 percent, with gasoline up 24.6 percent. The next release, two days after he spoke, put overall prices up 3.4 percent again over 12 months and up 0.4 percent in August alone. The Agriculture Department's own outlook reported food prices 2.7 percent higher in August 2026 than a year earlier and forecast a 2.9 percent rise for the year.

Two things in the passage are true, and they are the claim's best defence. Grocery prices dipped 0.1 percent from June to July and gasoline fell 2.9 percent in the same month. Eggs, which he credited himself with, fell 25.7 percent over 12 months on the July index and 23.0 percent over the year to August on the Agriculture Department's measure. Neither reaches the claim. Groceries were still 2.7 percent and gasoline 25 percent more expensive than a year earlier, so almost every other item was not going down.