NYT NUMBSKULLERY: Today's 3 Percent Growth Is Bad, 1.1 Percent Under Biden Was Good

NewsBusters ^ | 07/30/2025 | Joseph Vazquez

[JV3MRC]

No matter what happens in President Donald Trump’s economy, you can bet your bottom dollar that The New York Times hacks will find some way to splatter it with bad news, even when it's easily demonstrated these partisans offered a very different spin under Declinin' Biden. The latest news on the banger Q2 GDP numbers was no exception.

Bidenomics toady and Times chief economic correspondent Ben Casselman twisted the entire story into a pretzel to still make it look like a net negative for Trump. This was the absurd headline deck to describe 3 percent growth:

"U.S. Economy Slowed in First Half of 2025 as Tariffs Scrambled Data

Gross domestic product rebounded in the spring after contracting at the start of the year, but consumer spending remained weak."

His bizarre conclusion? “Taken as a whole, the data from the first six months of the year tell a more consistent story of anemic, though positive, economic growth,” he snorted.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: donaldtrump; economy; gaslighting; gdp; media; newyorkslimes; nyt

[Owen]

First of all, there is no more frequently revised economic parameter than the GDP offerings. Today’s number will be revised twice before it’s finalized.

Secondly, the explosion in imports to try to front run the tariffs, was the cause of q1 problems. Remember that GDP has a formula and the end of that formula is exports minus imports. An explosion of imports reduced the q1 numbers to slightly negative.

That explosion reversed as soon as tariffs were actually applied and the impact of that explosion and imports was reversed in today’s report. I guess that’s what the nyt economist is claiming and if so he’s correct.

And of course we also have the recent uptick in inflation which we will have a look at as confirmation tomorrow morning for the PCE. Always remember that the GDP number is what is called real. Real means after inflation. So an increase in inflation will reduce the reported GDP and we should see that this fiscal quarter

[3RIVRS]

The market has been doing it best to deny Trump that 52 week high number. Wonder why?

[Pearfect]

GOES TO SHOW THE NYT HAS NO CREDIBILITY.

NYT ( NOT YET NEWS).

[oldtech]

Maybe last but not least depends on the questionable agency that is reporting these figures.

[Owen]

CPI comes from BLS, Labor.

PCE comes from BEA, Commerce.

It’s really hard to claim fudge on these. Their constituent make incrementals are public and Wall Street pretty much always does their own estimates, based on knowing the constituent parts. That’s where the “better than expected” stuff or “worse than expected” stuff comes from. The comparison to Wall Street survey or consensus.

One can absolutely say that the constituent components are not what they should be, but that’s not fudging. If they changed (like using a rent survey vs Owner Equivalent Rent), then Wall Street would get that raw data too and again, project better or worse than expected.

CPI and PCE were both up. There is a leap to blame it on tariffs, but it doesn’t have to be that. They can go up for any of 1000s of reasons.