Trump Called Rising Egg Prices 'Dropping FAST'

Introduction

At 8:34 p.m. on July 19, Trump posted on Truth Social that egg prices, along with oil, gas, and prescription drugs, are "dropping FAST." His own Bureau of Labor Statistics had published the June figures five days earlier. Seasonally adjusted, eggs rose 4.3% in June after rising 4.0% in May, back to back monthly increases and the largest percentage move of any item in the meats, poultry, fish, and eggs group.

If the carton in your cart cost more in June than the one you bought in April, the government's own series agrees with you. The same post praised Giant Eagle by name as "absolute Patriots" for a summer sale. Kroger is buying Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion, in a deal now sitting under federal antitrust review.

"I Won an Election Based on That"

The promise is twenty months old. On NBC's Meet the Press, recorded December 6 and aired December 8, 2024, Trump said he "won on the border, and I won on groceries," walked through apples, bacon, and eggs doubling and tripling in price, then closed: "I won an election based on that. We're going to bring those prices way down." Eggs were on the list he read out.

He has restated it at least five times since October 2025, always in the same shape. In Tokyo: "Groceries are down except for the beef, which I'll get down too." On Fox News, November 5: "Groceries are way down, other than beef." At the White House the next day: "We have much lower prices than (Democrats) do, and we only have one thing, beef." At the Detroit Economic Club in January, prices were "starting to go rapidly down." CNN's Daniel Dale and Matt Stiles checked the November versions against CPI data and found dozens of grocery categories rising.

July's posts make the same claim without the phrase. CNN wrote on July 6 that the Walmart post "echoed the false claims from Trump" about grocery prices going "way down" in his current term.

Table 2 Versus "Only Beef"

Food at home, which is what the CPI calls groceries, rose 2.7% over the 12 months ending June 2026, per the BLS release published July 14. Month over month it went 0.1% in May, then 0.2% in June, an acceleration, not a reversal.

Table 2 is where the "only beef" version comes apart. Beef and veal, up 11.8% over 12 months. Coffee, up 12.9%; lettuce, up 32.1%; tomatoes, up 19.5%; fresh vegetables as a group, up 9.9%; sugar and sweets, up 6.9%. Meats as a group are up 7.4%, but calling beef the only thing up means ignoring most of the table.

Eggs are the biggest decline in the table, down 27.9% over 12 months, and USDA's Economic Research Service forecasts a 30.7% full-year decline, which it attributes to egg-laying flocks recovering from avian flu. The same USDA page has food at home up 2.7% for full-year 2026 on its own annual-average series, above the 20-year average of 2.6%, after 1.2% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025. Eight of roughly fifteen grocery subcategories are forecast to beat their own 20-year growth rates this year.

The Walmart Discount That Was Already Running

Two weeks before the Giant Eagle post came the Walmart one. On July 6, Trump wrote that Walmart would drop the price of a pound of ground beef "by almost 15%," and that it would do it "at my Administration's request."

Walmart's own press release, quoted directly by USA TODAY, prices a one-pound roll of 73% ground beef at $5.94, down from $6.74. That is just under 12%. At Sam's Club, same parent company, same announcement, a comparable Member's Mark 88/12 roll went from $6.17 to $5.97, roughly 3%. The Sam's Club figure is the one that gets me, since it's the same company and the same announcement, yet the discount lands at a quarter the size.

Then there's the timing. Those cuts had been running since June 29, a week before the post. A Walmart spokesperson told The Bulwark's Catherine Rampell the discount was part of a regular "Rollback" event, and The Wall Street Journal reported that a USDA official had called Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons urging price cuts ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai said the administration "stays in close contact with retailers to ensure savings are getting passed on to American consumers," and argued separately that what was new was the sale being extended all summer.

The Butter and Cheese Defense

Grocery inflation is running below headline inflation, which was 3.5% in June and 4.2% in May, and that is a real point for the administration. The egg figures also depend on which series you read: unadjusted, eggs fell 0.8% in June, and the seasonally adjusted series used here is the one that strips out the predictable seasonal swing. Eggs also aren't the only category down: butter is off 8.7%, cheese 3.6%, chicken 2.3%, bacon 1.5%, flour 1.3%. Prescription drugs are down 2.5%, so that piece of the July 6 post is directionally true, though "historic levels" is a stretch for 2.5%.

Beef isn't a Trump story either. Ground beef averaged $3.97 a pound in January 2021, $5.55 in January 2025, and $6.75 in May 2026, per Newsweek's read of BLS average-price data: roughly 40% under Biden, roughly 22% since. USDA attributes the run to a cattle herd at its lowest level in 75 years, and Michigan State food economist David Ortega calls beef "fundamentally a supply story compounded by strong demand," with tariffs secondary to herd dynamics per USA TODAY.

Kip Tom's best line for the defense, in the Washington Examiner on July 28: "A retailer can schedule a sale whenever it likes. What it cannot do is cut prices it cannot afford." He's vice chairman for rural policy at the America First Policy Institute, so weigh it accordingly; he also names butter, cheese, and chicken accurately.

Who Benefits

The beneficiary is the administration, and what it gets is cover on its worst polling number. A Harris Poll for The Guardian, fielded May 28 to June 6 among 4,100 adults, found 95% saying the country faces an affordability crisis, and 57% saying the economy is getting worse, up from 46% in February. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS put 77% on the view that Trump's policies have raised the cost of living in their own community, a majority of Republicans included.

You can't move the CPI inside a news cycle, but you can post about a retailer's summer promotion. The mechanism runs like this: a chain schedules a rollback it planned anyway, a USDA official calls to encourage it, the president claims credit within days, and the story becomes "prices are coming down" while the grocery index keeps climbing. Ortega told USA TODAY the Walmart cuts look "less like a turning point on food inflation and more like an aggressive summer promotion."

Praise for a Company Awaiting Antitrust Clearance

The Giant Eagle sequence, in order. July 1: Kroger announces a $1.65 billion acquisition, roughly 197 supermarkets and 11 pharmacies, subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino review and expected to close in 2027. July 9: Giant Eagle cuts prices on 300-plus items through September 9. July 19: the president calls the chain "absolute Patriots" answering "my call."

No quid pro quo is documented, and the pushback is real. Giant Eagle EVP Justin Weinstein frames the sale as a repeat of "learnings from our seasonal pricing efforts last fall," and Stop & Shop ran a comparable summer program with no merger pending. Antitrust attorney Barry Barnett told Grocery Dive he expects the FTC to be "much more friendly towards the merger, not because of anything having to do with the merger, [but] just because they're friendlier to mergers." Three other experts in the same piece cut the other way: Thomas Paulson of Advan Research puts only about 7% of Giant Eagle stores within five miles of a Kroger, Jeffrey Cross says divestitures in overlap areas should get it through, and Spencer Waller, an FTC adviser under Biden, expects a second request and possible state opposition. Kroger's own 8-K says divestitures are expected.

The National Grocers Association has asked regulators to scrutinize the deal, and the American Economic Liberties Project's Morgan Harper called it a "power grab." A Farm Action study cited by the association puts four chains, Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons, at 69% of U.S. grocery sales. The president's post did not mention the merger.

The Bottom Line

Every number that breaks the claim came from inside the administration. BLS published the egg figures five days before the post, and USDA forecasts grocery inflation running past its own 20-year average this year. The document that undercuts "almost 15%" is Walmart's own press release, issued by the company being credited.

The next CPI lands August 12 and resets every 12-month figure here. One thing already changed: Section 122's temporary 10% surcharge expired at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 24, and USTR's final Section 301 action took effect that same minute, 10% to 12.5% duties on 60 economies covering roughly 99% of U.S. imports, with no statutory expiry. A temporary regime converted into a permanent one rather than lapsing, though that isn't why beef costs what it costs. What I keep turning over is the drift in the claim itself. "Way down" has quietly become "rising more slowly than everything else." At what point does that stop counting as a promise kept?