On the 10th of June 2026, a report from the Department of Labor showed that inflation in May hit its highest level since early 2023, reaching an annual rate of 4.2%, up from 3.8% in April. The Federal Reserve likes to keep inflation at 2%. Energy costs are the biggest driver of that inflation, with fuel oil up 59% and gasoline up 41% over their costs last year. Airline fares have risen 27%. Fruits and vegetables are up 6% over their cost a year ago.
At a signing event for the budget reconciliation measure Republicans passed to add an additional $70 billion in funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protect (CBP), the parent agency for Border Patrol, a reporter in the Oval Office asked President Donald J. Trump if he was concerned about the inflation number. Trump answered :
“No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love ? I love the inflation. You know why ?”
And then his speech slid into a fantasy rewriting of the history of his war on Iran and his decision to launch it.
President Donald Trump claimed that he was telling reporters—and Iran—for the first time that the U.S. was secretly taking oil from Iran. “Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil ?” he asked. “Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it ? Iran, until right now. We took out the other night 22 ships, late at night, with no lights, ’cause they don’t have any radar, ’cause we blasted the crap out of it. We took out, that why oil’s $85 a barrel.”
As Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Swan of the New York Times report, President Donald Trump appeared to be referring to the well-known U.S. operation to help dozens of commercial vessels traverse the Strait of Hormuz. So far, the journalists report, the U.S has guided more than 200 ships through in a little more than a month. Before the war, about 3,000 ships a month traveled through the strait. The reporters say they could not confirm Trump’s claim that the effort had enabled more than 100 million barrels of oil to reach the market.
Then President Donald Trump segued into a rewriting of why he started the strikes in the first place in order to suggest the dramatic hit the economy has taken from the war was part of his plan all along. He claimed he had deliberately made the choice to hurt the economy to stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon, which he claimed—contrary to his own intelligence officers’ assessments—it was going to have “very soon.”
“I said, look, the one bad thing will be, we hit the best economy we’ve ever hit,” President Donald Trump claimed. “And I said to my people, I had [Treasury Secetary] Scott [Bessent], I had [Commerce Secretary] Howard [Lutnick], I had [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth], I had all—I had [then–deputy attorney general] Todd [Blanche] in the room. I said, The one thing we have to do now, we had just hit the highest stock market in history. Highest 401Ks in history. Everything was going well, and I said, I hate to do this to you guys, but Iran’s gonna have a nuclear weapon very soon. We have to go and attack.”
In fact, in his video announcing the strikes and in comments in the early days of the war, President Donald Trump emphasized that the U.S. intended to end the Iranian regime, which he claimed had been at war with the U.S. for 47 years, and he urged Iranians to rise up against it. Ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions would come from the regime change he advocated.
In any case, he said on the 11th of June 2026 that, oil was not nearly as expensive as the $250 a barrel people had said it could reach, so its current level is “pretty amazing.” And the stock market, he said, remains high. He went on to say that his strikes on Venezuela were “a great success” and that Venezuela has “become a happy country,” and that “we went to Iran and essentially we’ve done the same thing.” He claimed Iran’s military has been destroyed and all the Iranian leadership is gone.
When a reporter finally brought him back to the question about inflation coming down, he said that when the war is over, “it’s gonna come down like a rock.”
Meanwhile, John Knefel of Media Matters noted on the 09th of June 2026 that Fox News hosts, many of whom supported the initial strikes on Iran, are now arguing that President Donald Trump should start bombing again. Their mantra is that it will take only two weeks to win a decisive military victory.
With the renewed strikes, the price of oil jumped more than $1 a barrel.
On the 10th of June 2026, President Donald Trump posted on social media a demand that Republicans in Congress give the U.S. military an additional $350 billion and pass the SAVE America bill that would suppress voting. “No games, no delays, and no weak compromises ! Do this ASAP,” he wrote.
“This is a GENERATIONAL Investment in our Military, even bigger than President Reagan’s,” he wrote. The “$350 Billion Reconciliation Bill,” which could pass without any Democratic votes, “is the ONLY path to the full $1.5 TRILLION DOLLAR Military Budget our Warriors need in order to build THE ARSENAL OF FREEDOM.”
He also demanded Republicans pass “THE SAVE AMERICA ACT” requiring proof of citizenship to vote and an end to mail-in ballots “EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL !” in order to “protect our Elections for Generations to come” and “to secure the NATION for our children and grandchildren.”
Then he added “NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS” and “NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION SURGERY FOR OUR CHILDREN,” then concluded : “Thank you for your attention to this matter ! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
