In the first year of Trump’s second term, economic growth fell to a nine-year low, and domestic job growth fell to a 16-year low. It’s worth asking why.

Earlier this week, Peter Navarro, a leading White House voice on trade and economic policy, appeared on Fox News and insisted that the U.S. economy is “perfect.” In fact, during the same on-air comments, Navarro described the economic conditions in the first year of Donald Trump’s second term as the best since 1998, dovetailing with the president’s near-constant insistence that the domestic economy has literally never been as healthy as it is now.

The rhetoric was, by any fair measure, bizarre. Indeed, it was just last week when we learned that job growth in the United States fell to a 16-year low (excluding the 2020 pandemic) after the Republican president returned to power. There’s also extensive public opinion polling that shows most Americans are thoroughly dissatisfied with the nation’s economic conditions.

Describing the status quo as “perfect” reflected a White House that’s so desperate to peddle happy talk that it appears wildly out of touch.