G. Elliot Morris: “As of Q3 2025, the Democrats have their first lead on the economy in over 5 years — and the largest lead over Republicans in over a decade.”

“Manhattan rent prices ticked higher in the month before Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election on promises to improve affordability,” Bloomberg reports.

“White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens,” Politico reports.

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics was largely idle for the duration of the 40-plus day shutdown, save for temporarily recalling some staff to ensure that the September consumer price index was released in time to set the Social Security cost-of-living-adjustment for next year.”

“President Donald Trump is carving out his own brand of capitalism — launching extraordinary federal interventions in the economy through ownership stakes in private companies alongside sweeping tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation. But the way he’s using these tools isn’t really guided by a discernable economic strategy, according to one of the world’s experts on industrial policy,” Politico reports.

Mariana Mazzucato, an economist who has advised governments around the globe, said Trump’s policies, taken together, are more like “an idiosyncratic hodgepodge.”

“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that the Trump administration would soon unveil reductions in import duties on coffee, bananas and other foods — taking action after voter anger over the cost of living saw Republican reversals in state elections last week,” Bloomberg reports.

Said Bessent: “You’re going to see some substantial announcements over the next couple of days in terms of things we don’t grow here in the United States, coffee being one of them, bananas, other fruits, things like that.”

“President Donald Trump’s advisers have had conversations about him traveling the country to give economy-focused speeches as they privately weigh a number of strategies to improve his standing on the issue,“ CNN reports.

“Trump’s advisers acknowledge that they have an affordability problem that the president has bristled at in public: Americans’ outlook on the economy is dour, and the administration’s efforts to ease their financial anxieties aren’t resonating.”

“Voter frustration over affordability fueled Democratic wins in last week’s state and local elections, and on top of that, Americans are becoming uneasy about the job market too,” Bloomberg reports.

“Some 55% of employed Americans say they’re concerned about losing their jobs, according to a recent Harris Poll conducted for Bloomberg News.”

From the New York Times:

“Mr. Trump risks being in a similar position as his predecessor, defending his record by pointing to statistics that don’t capture a troubling reality that many Americans are feeling.”

Paul Krugman: “Sorry, but that’s a false comparison. You might even call it fake news — because Trump is not, in fact, pointing to any statistics. He’s just lying.”

“It is true that Biden officials liked to cite statistics that presented a favorable picture of the economy, but they were genuine statistics and did indeed seem to show an economy in pretty good shape.”

“Trump, by contrast, is engaged in what CNN calls a ‘lying spree’ about inflation.”

Jonathan Last: “National socialism is at the heart of Trumpism, which currently controls all three branches of government. Democratic socialism is on the march in the Democratic party.”

“Why would the richest, most advanced economy in the world be re-examining the fundamentals of its social compact? I have two names for you: Elon Musk and Brian Kelly.”

“Last week Elon Musk’s company awarded him the richest pay package in human history. If Musk meets his targets, he will be paid $1 trillion… Tesla has just had the worst year in the history of the company. Elon Musk made the brand toxic. Tesla sales around the world fell off a cliff… In every other business, a CEO who hobbled his company in this way would be fired. But Tesla’s board gave Musk a… huge raise?”

“Brian Kelly…  is the recently fired coach of LSU’s football team. Kelly was hired by LSU in 2021. He was given a ten-year, $95 million contract. Last week he was fired by LSU for poor performance. Four years into his contract, his team has consistently gotten worse. Kelly is demanding that he be paid the $54 million remaining on his contract. For doing nothing.”

President Trump said the U.S. economy is strong and insisted polls showing Americans are feeling economic pain are “fake” during an interview, ABC News reports.

Trump said bad news about the economy amounted to a “con job by the Democrats,” adding Democrats “feed” major news network anchors with the message the economy is bad and then “every anchor” does “exactly what they say.”

He added: “I’ll never forget, they used a word like ‘manufactured.’ You remember the word ‘manufacture’? It’s a ‘manufactured’ economy. Nobody uses that word. Every anchor broke in ‘manufactured.’ They do exactly what they say. It’s such a rigged system.”

G. Elliot Morris: “The more you look at the data on the economy today, the more Trump just, frankly, looks screwed on the issue. And this is not the usual political albatross or bad policy proposal blown out of proportion; Trump has set himself up for failure on prices since setting foot in the Oval Office in January.”

“American importers say that if the Supreme Court rules that the money they paid for President Donald Trump’s tariffs must be refunded to them, it would be relatively simple to do and not the ‘mess’ that some have claimed it would be,” CNBC reports.

“The drubbing that Republicans took at the ballot box last week highlighted President Donald Trump’s weakness on the issue of affordability. But if voters are frustrated over high prices, the GOP’s challenges are unlikely to be resolved until consumers see a pickup in their paychecks,” Politico reports.

“Inflation-adjusted wage growth has been falling, government and private-sector data show, with inflation climbing faster than after-tax pay for lower- and middle-income households since the start of the year, the Bank of America Institute says. The rate of real income growth has slowed to levels last seen in the early 2010s, when the economy was still recovering from the financial crisis and the unemployment rate was roughly double what it is today.”

“The longest government shutdown on record has taken a bite from the economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“But the roiling effects of the closure, as well as the data disruptions it brought on, are likely to make it hard to know just how big that bite was.”

“I can’t see into the future, but I see Republicans losing the House if Americans are continuing to go paycheck-to-paycheck.”

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), quoted by Semafor.

New York Times: “For the better part of two years, well before the federal government shut down and SNAP payments were paused, lower-income consumers have been slowing their spending, especially for discretionary items. Nearly three-quarters of individuals who receive SNAP benefits live below the poverty line, making less than $32,000 a year for a family of four.”

“The ripple effect of that spending pullback is being felt by retailers, food companies and restaurant chains.”