‘I’m very proud of it’

President Donald Trump says his economy is now taking care of it.

In an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, the 47th president said the country already knows about Trump’s economy.

“Where are we in the Trump economy? » asked the lamas.

“I’d say we’re there now,” he replied. “I’m very proud of it.”

His remarks come at a time when most Americans are telling pollsters they are dissatisfied with the state of the economy and Trump is implementing a storm strategy to take his economic message to political battlegrounds ahead of the November midterm elections.

An NPR/Marist/PBS News survey released last week showed that 36% of adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 59% disapprove. In last November’s off-year elections, Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and New York emphasized “affordability” en route to victory.

In the interview, recorded Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump said the economy was doing so well that Democrats were abandoning that message — and also blamed his predecessor, President Joe Biden, for stubbornly high prices for some commodities.

“In the last four days, it’s only been four days, Democrats haven’t said the word ‘affordability,'” he said. “They’re the ones who caused the problem. I took care of the mess every which way.”

Using numbers that are not supported by the administration’s own data, Trump claimed that gross domestic product grew 5.6% under his leadership. According to the Department of Labor, the economy grew at a strong annualized rate of 4.4% in the third quarter of 2025. It has not grown more than 5% in any quarter since 2021, when the United States was recovering from the Covid pandemic.

The country’s economic output also contracted in the first quarter of 2025, in part due to anticipated trade and tariff policies that Trump unveiled later in April, affecting the global economy.

The Labor Department did not release its data for the fourth quarter of last year due to a government shutdown. Although most estimates for the quarter’s growth are much lower, the president was referring to the Atlanta Fed’s forecast of 5.4%, according to a White House official.

“I think 2026 will be even better,” Trump told Llamas. “You know, hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in our country. In fact, trillions – $18 trillion is being invested in our country as we speak. And there are factories and thousands of businesses being built all over the country.”

While Trump has secured foreign investment – ​​and promises of investment – ​​in the United States, even the White House website gives a figure of $9.6 trillion, a little more than half the sum he cited. And examinations of this figure concluded that it was inflated.

Llamas asked whether foreign companies’ factories and factories would open in the United States during Trump’s term, which expires on January 20, 2029.

“Oh, yeah,” Trump said. “They’ll open within the next year, year and a half, yeah.”

In May, Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the “good parts” of the economy belonged to him, while the “bad parts” belonged to Biden.