Trump Official Reminded on Air That Inflation Rose for 5 Past Months

National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett was optimistic about inflation under the Trump administration—even after he was fact-checked live.

“We’re comfortable that inflation has come way down, the 5 percent on average for Joe Biden, it’s probably a little less than half of that right now, and the trajectory is really, really, really good if you look at it. And inflation is one of those things that has a lot of momentum … and the momentum right now is headed towards the Fed’s target,” Hassett said in a CNBC interview Tuesday with Carl Quintanilla.

Then Quintanilla brought him back down to earth: “Even though it’s been increasing for five months, as of September?”

Hassett tried to explain away the fluctuation. “I guess if you look at it from January, there’s ups and downs, and seasonals.”

The NEC director is technically right that inflation is lower than it was, on average, under Biden—though comparing a four-year average that included the Covid-19 pandemic with less than a year of Trump’s presidency doesn’t seem incredibly illustrative.

As Quintanilla said, inflation increased every month from May to September. (We don’t yet have data for the month of October, thanks to the government shutdown.) It is currently around 3 percent, the same as it was in January before Trump assumed office.

It might be excusable that Hassett is choosing to see the situation through rose-colored glasses if Trump hadn’t been lying about the economy nonstop, from saying that grocery prices are down (they’re not), to saying that inflation is at only 2 percent (it’s not), to saying that he inherited the “highest inflation rate in the history of our country” (he didn’t).

President Donald Trump’s federal law enforcement crackdown has hit a disgusting new low, after federal agents reportedly pepper-sprayed a 1-year-old in Chicago and then lied about it.

Rafael Veraza, 25, claimed at a press conference Sunday that federal agents had deployed chemical agents on him and his family—including his young daughter—as they attempted to avoid an immigration raid at a Sam’s Club in Cicero, a Chicago suburb, the day before.

A video shared to X by Gregory Royal Pratt, an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, showed the incident and its aftermath. In one clip filmed from the inside of Veraza’s car, a large black truck sped in the opposite direction to the family. As the truck passed, the people inside appeared to spray a substance through the driver’s window of Veraza’s car, and the driver started rubbing his eyes.

Another clip showed the family out of the car, as Veraza’s wife, Evelyn, wiped her crying daughter’s face. “This is what ICE does. This is what these terrorists do to babies,” said a voice off-screen.

At the press conference Sunday, Veraza said he hadn’t noticed his daughter, who was sitting in the back seat, had been exposed to the chemicals until his wife instructed him to pull the car over. He said his daughter struggled to open her eyes and appeared to have labored breathing.

“We’re not protesters. We were not even attacking them,” Veraza said.

The Department of Homeland Security flatly denied Veraza’s account and the video evidence to the contrary. “DHS LAW ENFORCEMENT DOES NOT PEPPER SPRAY CHILDREN,” the agency wrote on X Monday afternoon.

“Here are the FACTS: during an operation rioters began throwing objects at agents and blocking the road. This did NOT occur in a Sam’s Club parking lot. Border Patrol deployed crowd control measures, and safely cleared the area,” the post read. “When rioters impede law enforcement operations they are putting officers, themselves, and others in danger.”

The statement did nothing to explain why agents would use crowd-control measures on a vehicle that was driving away from the area. The DHS has routinely provided false or misleading accounts of excessive force used by law enforcement. The agency’s statements have omitted essential details about arrests, contradicted witness testimony, and in one case, even gotten every single detail wrong.

This isn’t the first allegation that the DHS used chemical irritants on children. Just a few weeks ago, agents allegedly tear-gassed a group of children on their way to a Halloween parade.

Last week, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the use of force against protesters “unless such force is objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat,” citing a systemic use of force that “shocks the conscience.” In her ruling, the judge slammed Border Protection Commander Gregory Bovino, who reportedly led the aggressive operation Saturday, for lying about his own use of force against protesters.

The injunction requires officers to issue two clear warnings before administering crowd-control measures, to place identifiers conspicuously on their person, and to wear a body camera. In the video, it appears that no warnings were given as agents deployed irritants into the car and then continued driving.

The Trump administration has asked for a stay on the judge’s order while it files for appeal, so may continue its reign of terror on Chicago residents—including those in diapers.

Watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability has filed a bar complaint against Lindsey Halligan, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan is currently leading the president’s retaliatory prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Halligan is also one of Trump’s former defense attorneys.

“CfA asked the Florida and Virginia Bars to investigate Interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan,” the organization wrote on X on Tuesday. “By using the power of her office to prosecute Former FBI Director James Comey and New York AG Letitia James despite a dearth of evidence, Halligan may have violated myriad bar rules.”

The complaint also highlights Halligan’s Signal messages to Lawfare journalist Anna Bowers last month, arguing that they’re a clear violation of Virginia Bar rules, as well as the Federal Records Act.

“Screenshots of Ms. Halligan’s texts indicate she had ‘set disappearing message time to 8 hours.’ In other words, each message Ms. Halligan sent and each message she received would automatically disappear from her device 8 hours after she sent it. Ms. Halligan was clearly aware that her messages would autodelete. After Ms. Bower reached out to DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs, Ms. Halligan texted Ms. Bower that ‘the whole convo is off the record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on signal.’ It therefore appears Ms. Halligan was using Signal deliberately because records would not be preserved,” the complaint reads.

“Making the proactive decision to use a message app that does not preserve records for the purpose of an official conversation regarding Ms. Halligan’s actions as Interim U.S. Attorney appears to be a flagrant violation of the FRA. Ms. Halligan’s actions in contacting a journalist through Signal, setting her messages to disappear in 8 hours and retroactively claiming the exchange was off the record in an effort to secretly influence media coverage of the James case appears a deliberate violation of the FRA and, therefore, a violation of RCP 8.4(b).”

The 17-page complaint then calls for investigations into Halligan’s Bar license in both Virginia and Florida. Read it in full here.

The Trump administration has declared that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism is illegal, which could force the agency to close in the coming months when it runs out of cash, reported Politico.

Normally, the CFPB is funded using money from the “combined earnings” of the Federal Reserve—but Republicans, in an attempt to defund the agency, have been putting forth an argument to interpret “combined earnings” as profit. The Justice Department said in a legal memo that since the Fed has no surplus cash, it can’t transfer any money to the CFPB.

This is the latest tactic in an ongoing effort by Republicans and the Trump administration to dismantle the agency.

The CFPB was created after the 2008 recession in order to protect consumers from the kinds of predatory, risky lending practices that contributed to the crash. At a time when more and more Americans are falling into debt and struggling to keep up with their loan payments, the loss of the CFPB would remove oversight from lenders.

Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, is the mastermind behind the fight to eliminate the CFPB: In February, he requested $0 from the Fed to fund the CFPB, not arguing that the funding was illegal as the administration is now, but rather that the agency just didn’t need the funds. He’s also fighting in court for the ability to suspend 90 percent of CFPB staff.

Without funding, the agency “anticipates exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026,” it said in the court filing.

The Department of Homeland Security is patting itself on the back for Chicago’s dip in crime—even though the record low has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of federal agents.

“Celebrating with Chicagoans that since Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago started, homicides decreased 16 percent, shootings decreased 35 percent (the lowest in four years), robberies decreased 41 percent, vehicular carjackings decreased 48 percent, and transit crime decreased 20 percent,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin emailed the Chicago mayor’s office Monday afternoon.

“Thanks to DHS law enforcement, Chicago has experienced the fewest summer murders since 1965!” McLaughlin concluded.

Crime was down across the board by the end of August, according to the Chicago Police Department. But how the Trump administration is responsible for the drop in Windy City crime doesn’t make sense, considering that DHS didn’t arrive in Chicago until September 8.

“Crime is down in Chicago, but ICE/CBP has nothing to do with that work,” posted the Chicago mayor’s office on Tuesday.

If anything, the presence of federal agents in Chicago seems to have made the city less safe. State-sanctioned violence has been nearly nonstop in Chicago over the last few months.

In October, agents used tear gas in residential areas “multiple times without audible warnings,” according to court documents, surprising families with the painful chemical irritant. A couple of weeks later, federal agents allegedly tear-gassed a group of school-age children on their way to a Halloween parade, in a residential Chicago neighborhood.

Regardless, DHS’s Chicago presence is apparently here to stay.

“We aren’t leaving Chicago,” McLaughlin posted on X Tuesday.