The morning after President Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, MAGA-aligned U.S. Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is running for governor with Trump’s endorsement, echoed the unvarying message of Trump and the Republican Party that under the Biden administration “inflation was higher” and now during the second Trump administration, the “economy is roaring.”
[Note: Trump currently polls poorly on his handling of the economy, but the SOTU painted a rosy picture that Republicans like Donalds, New York Congressman Mike Lawler, and others are amplifying — even as the right-leaning Fox News published poll results showing “only one quarter of voters say they are better off financially than they were a year ago, and more than 4 in 10 say the administration’s economic policies have hurt them, about twice the share who say they’ve been helped.”]
As seen below on CNN, host John Berman responded to Donalds, “Inflation was higher but GDP growth was also higher in the Biden administration than certainly it was in the last quarter and the average of year-to-year.”
[Note: GDP growth is the percentage increase in the value of all final goods and services produced within an economy over a specific period, adjusted for inflation (real GDP). As the IMF explains it: “When GDP is growing, especially if inflation is not a problem, workers and businesses are generally better off than when it is not.”]
BERMAN: GDP growth was higher during the Biden administration than certainly it was last quarter and the average of year to year
BYRON DONALDS: That’s not true, but okay
BERMAN: You can go check it pic.twitter.com/VfnMRRy0Km
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
Donalds replied to Berman, “That’s not true, but okay,” to which Berman said, “GDP growth? You can check GDP growth. I mean, you can say what you want about inflation but GDP is what GDP was. GDP growth last quarter was 1.4 percent.”
Donalds responded saying that “under Joe Biden’s economy, wages adjusted for inflation were down.” Berman replied, “All I was saying was that GDP growth, which you said was higher under Trump than Biden, that’s actually not true.”
MAGA influencer Paul Szypula responded to the exchange on social media by echoing Donalds’ emphasis. Not arguing about GDP growth, Szypula replied: “Real wages were down under Joe Biden. They’re up with President Trump. That’s what matters most to Americans.”
Note: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real wages have increased modestly overall since Trump’s second term began: “average hourly earnings — taking inflation into account — were up about 1.5% from January 2025 to January 2026.” According to the Economic Policy Institute, “real wages for low-wage workers declined in 2025, even as middle- and higher-wage workers saw modest gains.”