‘The President Has Been Lying About a Bunch of Prices’: Daniel Dale Fact Checks Trump’s ‘Repeated Deception’ on Tariff Fallout
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
CNN’s senior reporter Daniel Dale might have some of the best job security in cable news at the moment, with a seemingly endless supply of targets for his comprehensively detailed fact-checking — and recent claims by President Donald Trump were egregious enough for Dale to deem them “lies.”
Dale usually refrains from directly stating that Trump has lied; scrolling through his recent articles at CNN.com shows he strongly favors branding them “false claims” or “exaggerations,” with an occasional citation to something the president “doesn’t mention” or even “wildly exaggerates.”
In his latest article, however, he bluntly and without hedging calls Trump’s recent claims about the prices of gas, groceries, and eggs “lies.”
“Gas. Groceries. Eggs,” wrote Dale. “Over the last week, President Donald Trump has lied about the price of all of them — using this repeated deception to try to minimize widespread concerns that his tariffs will fuel inflation.”
In a tweet sharing a link to his article, Dale summarized his fact-checking, writing, “The president has been lying about a bunch of prices.”
“No, the price of eggs hasn’t fallen 93% since Trump came back in,” he wrote. “No, the overall price of groceries isn’t down. No, there wasn’t any state, let alone three, where gas was $1.98 last week.”
The article spells out the facts debunking Trump’s claims. For example, contrary to the president’s claim of $1.98/gallon gas, according to Dale, the lowest price in the US was $2.19, found at a gas station in Texas. AAA’s data showed that the national average gas price was about $3.17/gallon, and no state’s average price was below $2.70/gallon, Dale added.
Just a few weeks ago, the Consumer Price Index for March was released showing egg prices had hit a record high, days after Trump claimed they were “down 79%.” The president has continued to make “wildly inaccurate” claims about egg prices, Dale noted, including saying on Tuesday they had “come down like 93, 94% since we took office.”
Dale reached out to the White House and reported that not only was the administration unable to “substantiate” Trump’s claims, it actually added at least one “new false claim” in its responses.
