President Trump hunted for silver linings in the higher-than-expected September inflation numbers. The surge in prices was fueled by a 9% month-over-month jump in gas prices. Nancy Cordes reports.
Page F119From§Eachthe morning edition — 15 October 2026
Inflation prints 3.7%, gas up 9% in a month; president reports very little inflation
As it ran on the front
The September consumer price report landed Tuesday: prices up 3.7 percent over the year, higher than expected, with the heavy lifting done by gasoline, up 9 percent in a single month. That is page one of the file. Page two arrived Wednesday in Kalispell, Montana, where the president told a rally, "We have very little inflation." NBC spoke with people who had driven to that rally to hear it. They said they feel the pinch.
So we reconcile. The difference between 3.7 percent and "very little" is not a rounding convention or a seasonal adjustment. It is two different accounts of the same month, filed by the same government, one of them typed up by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and one of them delivered standing up.…
…(cont) The public has already filed a third. A Harris poll for the Guardian, out the same day, finds 61 percent believe the country is in a recession and 65 percent of independents say the economy is worse; three-quarters are worried about a recession arriving. The Guardian notes, correctly, that by the standard definition the country is not in one. Nobody at the pump is reading the standard definition. They are reading the sign, and the sign moved 9 percent in thirty days.
This is not a mood that showed up with the CPI release. On 21 September, an NBC poll had 55 percent saying the administration's policies made economic conditions worse against 26 percent saying better. On 23 September, rural approval was reported slipping on the cost of living, which is the column that was supposed to be load-bearing. On 28 September, food bank directors described demand up and shipping costs up, which they tied to higher energy costs from the Iran war and to cuts in food assistance. Food banks keep a ledger too, hon, and theirs is in cases, not percentages.
The approval numbers are the same reconciliation in another currency. Reuters/Ipsos had 32 percent on 5 October and 32 percent again on 6 October, a record low that did not move. Wednesday's Fox News poll put overall approval at 36 percent and disapproval at 64 — also a record low across both terms, and that one is Fox.
Four surveys, one price index, one speech. Five of the six agree. The administration's position is that the sixth is the accurate one, and that the gasoline receipt in your glovebox is a misunderstanding of very little.
“The man says "very little inflation" on the same day the government he runs says 3.7 percent and gas jumped nine points in a month — he's not arguing with the Guardian, he's arguing with his own Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the folks who drove to Kalispell to cheer told a reporter in the parking lot that they feel it, because a tank of gas doesn't care who you voted for. When the official number and the podium number stop matching, the only ledger left is the one in your glovebox, and the food banks already know how that one reads.”
“Look, 3.7 is a backward-looking number, it's one month, it's gas — strip out gas and you're basically talking about very little inflation, which is, I believe, exactly what he said. Did I say strip out gas? That doesn't sound like me, gas is important, obviously. And the 61 percent recession thing? The Guardian itself admits we're not in a recession, so what you've got there is a vibes problem, not an economy problem, and you can't poll your way out of a vibes problem three weeks before an election.”
The receipts
Nearly 61% believe country is in recession and 65% of independents say economy is worse, according to new Harris poll Send us your questions on how the US economy is shaping the midterm elections With the midterm elections less than three weeks away, key voting groups including independents, rural voters and even some Republicans are…
President Trump’s overall approval rating hit a record low for either of his terms, according to a new Fox News survey amid growing voter dissatisfaction with his handling of key issues. The Fox News poll found 36 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s overall handling of the presidency, while 64 percent disapproved. The decline…
KALISPELL, Mont. — On a day when the U.S. inflation rate was shown to have climbed 3.7% over the past year, President Donald Trump said at a rally in Montana on Wednesday, “We have very little inflation.”
· Majority of voters say Trump’s policies worsened the economy: Poll from the morgue, 21 Sep 2026
· Trump approval ratings plummet to new low, polls show from the morgue, 5 Oct 2026
· Trump approval rating mired at record low: Poll from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
· Economic frustrations chip away at Trump's rural support from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· US Food Banks Under Strain as Trump Policies Drive Up Costs from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.