The latest inflation data for consumer prices in February effectively kneecapped all of the media fear porn over the Trump tariffs. So what does the media do? It’s very simple: We won’t admit we were wrong, but Trump’s war in Iran is sure to make prices go up now! The Bureau of Labor Statistics’s consumer price index for February showed a muted 2.5 percent bump in core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, marking the lowest rate of increase since 2021. The all-items index increase was also innocuous at 2.4 percent, in line with expectations but still reinforcing the argument that the Trump tariffs were NOT inflationary for all the lefty media kvetching to the contrary. But instead of acknowledging that the tariff doom prophecies never materialized, consumers were treated to goalpost-shifting headlines like this beauty from Bloomberg News, “US Core Inflation Slowed as Expected Before War With Iran.” To be clear: this is a textbook example of an apples-to-oranges juxtaposition. Any inflation that occurred prior to the month of March was more of a reflection of the fundamentals underlying the Trump economy amidst the tariffs the president imposed to reshuffle the deck on global trade. Any significant price hikes for March — if any — will reflect the brief market shocks in oil trading that occurred following a joint international effort to topple the Islamist regime in Tehran, which has been largely successful up to this point. Despite the shocks, oil prices have drastically fallen, emphasizing commodity traders anxiously trading off of doom headlines rather than market fundamentals. Both Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil indexes were trading at, around, or below $90 a barrel as of 1:37 p.m. EST on March 11. That’s after media talking heads like CNBC’s Jim Cramer stupidly plastered the airwaves and the internet with impulsive forecasts that prices would shoot up to as high as $200 a barrel, which never came close to happening.  With this mind, reading how the lefty media are now attempting to shift the focus away from their missed calls on tariff-driven inflation to the Iran war is proof positive that they’ll do anything and anything to get Trump even if it means putting logical consistency on the chopping block. CNN economics reporter Elisabeth Buchwald emphasized this trend clearly with her March 11 headline: “Inflation held firm last month — but the war with Iran could change that.” What’s crazy is that after spinning attention to the Iran war, she still tried to use the proverbial defibrillators to keep CNN’s obsession with the Trump tariff-driven inflation disaster narrative alive with a sub-header, “Tariffs showing up at the checkout.” She continued: The impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff continued to show up in the prices consumers pay for highly imported goods. Among those, apparel prices rose 1.3% last month and household furnishings increased by 0.3%.  CNN apparently has no problem looking utterly ridiculous by clinging to an argument that’s very much dead in the water at this point. Buchwald’s propaganda is about as nutty as when her colleague Allison Morrow audaciously conceded that Trump’s economic agenda “could work” but somehow will still hurt Americans.  Buchwald's piece is also pretty humorous coming from the same outlet that proclaimed the "war on inflation has been won" in August 2024 just a day after it was revealed that core inflation spiked 3.2 percent overall in July of that year, which is .8 percentage points higher than the current reading for February 2026.   Politico also played this stupid game. In its March 11 Playbook newsletter, reporter Eli Okun and intern Makayla Gray tried to get in a dig at Trump in this sensationalistic line item, “INFLATION NATION.” The authors railed how “In another world, President Donald Trump might be breathing a partial sigh of relief today at the latest Consumer Price Index report, which showed prices holding steady in February. In this one, the wartime economy has already rendered the data wildly out of date.” The authors channeled their inner Jim Cramer and tried to keep the idiotic $200-a-barrel rage bait talking point alive and cause a ruckus over the oil trading price shocks in March: Watch out for March: The bad news for Americans, and for Republicans hoping to avoid voters’ cost-of-living wrath, is that the U.S.-Israel war with Iran has already spiked oil prices, which will ripple out into the broader economy. AAA data shows U.S. gas prices today at an average of $3.58. And how does $200 a barrel sound? That’s what Iranian military leaders threatened today, per Reuters. Intense regional fighting showed no sign of letting up, as a U.K. agency said three cargo ships were attacked in or near the effectively shuttered Strait of Hormuz. Iran claimed that it completely controls the passageway.  Here’s a surprise (not): There was absolutely mention of the Trump tariffs. Coincidence? Not likely. The New York Times was no better. The newspaper’s reporters plastered its live business coverage feed with narrational spin jobs reflective of the overall goalpost-shifting headline: “Inflation Had Steadied Before War With Iran.” But what more can you expect from a newspaper that prematurely cried oil prices doom on Monday morning just before the oil benchmarks entered freefall hours later for one of the largest single-day market reversals in oil trading history?