Democracy Now • Dec 18, 2025
"Divorced from Reality": Economist Dean Baker Fact-Checks Trump's Primetime Speech
President Trump praised the state of the U.S. economy in a primetime address Wednesday evening, even though new government statistics show the nation’s unemployment rate is at a new four-year high of 4.6%. Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says Trump’s aides should be “wondering about the man’s sanity” after Wednesday’s speech. “This is utterly divorced from reality.” Though Trump blames former President Biden for the poor economy, Baker notes that Trump had inherited an “incredibly strong economy by almost every measure imaginable.”