Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff | Opinion

 UPS, the United Parcel Service, just announced that it is laying off 20,000 employees and closing 73 of its buildings by the end of June. It attributes the downturn to reduced shipping volume from its largest customer, Amazon, due to Trump’s tariffs.

When a division of Amazon considered telling consumers the truth, by posting the costs tariffs added to the price of each imported product, the mere possibility set the White House on attack mode. Trump immediately called Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who reassured him Amazon would never do such a thing, while Karoline Leavitt accused Bezos of a “political and hostile” act just for thinking about it.

When a presidential team of incompetent egoists calls truth-telling a “hostile act,” we’re in trouble.

Ruinous economic indicators prompt ruinous deflection

Trump’s first quarter report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reflects a sharp contraction in the economy, showing an annual decrease in the GDP of 0.3 percent. Compared to Biden’s last quarter, when “real GDP increased 2.4 percent,” the data suggest that perhaps Trump isn’t the economic genius he claims to be.

These are not partisan data; that the Bureau falls under the US Department of Commerce suggests Trump may soon hobble its reporting capacity. For now, the data show economic contraction, reflecting a colossal reversal from Biden’s expansion. Wall Street sums up Trump’s first 100 days in office as the “worst for the stock market in half a century.”

On brand, when faced with these data, Trump lied, deflected, and blamed his predecessor, posting,“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. This… has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that (Biden) left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”

Trump continues to manufacture Biden’s “bad numbers”

Trump can’t stop parroting his own campaign lies about Biden’s economy. During the 2024 presidential campaign, when he wasn’t manufacturing a border invasion to enrage people, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden’s economy. It worked. While remaining mum on how his own COVID-19 mismanagement worsened the economy, he convinced 49% of voters that they were impoverished, despite economic indicators to the contrary.

After commerce reports came out this week, Trump doubled down. During an embarrassing televised cabinet meeting orchestrated to praise himself, Trump confirmed that he sought to undo everything Biden did to improve the economy, stating, “We came in and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy. … We took over his mess in so many different ways.”

Trump and his cabinet may drink their own economic Kool-Aid, but Wall Street is abstaining. Multiple indicators confirmed that Biden delivered the strongest post-COVID economic recovery in the world, including: growth and job creation that exceeded G7 and other advanced economies' growth in 2024; inflation control despite global inflationary pressures; avoidance of the post-COVID recession predicted by many; wage gains; strong market performance with record S&P 500 highs; and stellarinfrastructure investment that Trump, in a toddler-esque pique of jealousy, is scrambling to unravel.

During Biden’s term, the U.S. added 16 million jobs, low earners were experiencing wage growth, inflation levels approached the Federal Reserve’s target, and unemployment hit a 54-year low. By these metrics, Biden performed economic jujitsu, delivering an economy that The Economist called “the envy of the world.”

Teaching Trump media how to lie better

After Trump officially blamed Biden this week for economic contractions caused by his own ill-conceived tariffs, he went further, instructing right-wing media how to spin bad economic news of the future. During his televised “Praise Dear Leader” cabinet meeting, Trump told his preferred outlets (Fox, Newsmax, OAN) that they should also blame any economic downturns in the second quarter on Biden.

Trump showed similar intransigence during an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man Trump is keeping in an El Salvador prison despite a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. Trump insisted during the interview that an obviously photoshopped picture showed Garcia with “MS13” tattooed on his knuckles. When Moran told Trump that the image was clearly photoshopped, Trump acted like a tyrant. He first suggested Moran owed him something – it was thanks to Trump that Moran got the interview at all. Frustrated by Moran’s continuing refusal to lie, Trump told him, “you’re not being very nice,” before pivoting to attacking media as a whole, saying this “is why people no longer believe the news … It’s such a disservice…”