President Donald Trump gestures at the end of an event during a visit to Coosa Steel Corporation, in Rome, Georgia. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump has managed a uniquely "terrible" feat, one veteran D.C. reporter explained, with his "colossally dumb" decisions making him directly responsible for things in ways unlike almost any other president.
Asawin Suebsaeng is a senior political correspondent for Zeteo who also previously covered national politics and the Trump administration for Rolling Stone and The Daily Beast. In a thread posted to BlueSky on Monday, he was unsparing in his assessment of the president's economic record, stressing that he was directly responsible for rising costs, an issue most past presidents have been blamed for despite having little actual impact on.
"I need younger generations to understand how weird it is that Trump is such a unique terrible f—— up that it’s actually correct to blame the president for a demonstrably s—— economy and costs," Suebsaeng began. "The job of president is largely: you get to take credit for things that weren’t really your doing, but that means [you] will get blamed for the 'happened on your watch' stuff even [though] presidents don’t generally have that much control over the economy."
He continued: "It is insanely funny that Trump is so colossally dumb that he found ways that maybe no one else would have to make it absolutely right and factual for you to blame him. Under almost any other year of your life, yelling about a plane ticket costing much more than it should and then blaming the president would hopefully get [you] yelled at, like [you] were that guy in Forrest Gump blaming [former President Lyndon] Johnson for him being an a——. You can absolutely [though] correctly yell at this president for your plane ticket. Your gas prices. Your homeowner insurance being much much more expensive. And so many other things big and small, that are *directly* tied to *his* unilateral moves. It’s astounding."
Experts have long noted that many of the economic trends that voters reward or punish presidents for are largely beyond their control, with many reiterating the point while Trump claimed that he would be able to rein in prices during his 2024 reelection campaign. Now, however, Trump's tariffs, trade wars and war with Iran have contributed directly to inflation in unprecedented ways.
Responding to Suebsaeng's posts, former White House economist Aaron Sojourner shared his own take on Trump's economic malpractice from last year, in which he lambasted Trump for driving the economy into a "ditch" after Joe Biden managed a largely successful soft landing from the impacts of COVID-19.
"Our economy was 'the envy of the world.' We had stuck the soft landing," Sojourner wrote. "All he had to do was run his first term playbook. Sit back and claim credit for the economic trends he inherited. But nope. Swerved us towards the ditch."
