What to Know
During a White House press briefing on January 20, President Donald Trump boasted about his own achievements and talked about how much the economy has improved since his return to office (according to him). Although Trump claims the economy is amazing, a lot of Americans aren’t feeling it. According to a December 2025 Quinnipiac University poll, nearly 60% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, and 65% said the economy is not looking great.
And though Trump spends a lot of time talking about the alleged damage done by Former President Joe Biden, the poll also found that 57% of Americans think Trump is more to blame for the current state of the economy. So, if the economy is so amazing, why do so many people not see that? When asked about this, Trump blamed his own press team.
He implied that his press team isn’t doing enough to communicate how amazing he’s doing.
During the press briefing, Trump spoke about his “tremendous success” and claimed that the United States is “the hottest country anywhere in the world by far.” A reporter later asked him if he’s concerned that he’s actually making the same mistakes as Biden, given that polling shows a lot of Americans are currently worried about the economy. Trump immediately said he’s not worried about that and emphasized that he “inherited a terrible, terrible mess.”
According to Trump, “The whole country was falling apart,” but now, prices are “much lower than they were.” He also took credit for “[bringing] down eggs immediately.”
If people don’t see all of his achievements, it might be because of his press team, he suggested. “We’ve had the best stock market in history, the best 401Ks in history. And we inherited a mess,” he said. “The numbers that we inherited were way up. And now we brought them, almost all of them, way down. I mean, I’m not getting—maybe I have bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across.” Oof — how does White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt feel about this?
Another reporter asked if Americans are ‘wrong’ if they still feel like prices are too high.
Trump unsurprisingly blamed the media on some level, but once again suggested that his own team was responsible for not properly communicating how much he’s been doing. In response to the question, Trump said, “So, I think a lot of people are listening to the fake news a little bit. And I’m not blaming anybody. I think I blame ourselves.”
He continued, “I think we’ve done a much better job than we’re able to promote. We’re not promoting. We’re doing a great job, and we’re sort of letting the promotion take care of itself.”
Because his press team has apparently failed in getting his message across, Trump also added that he joined this press briefing to explain to people that he took “a mess” and turned it into something “really good.” Interestingly, it seems like Trump thinks he’s merely dealing with a PR problem.
