President Donald Trump has been telling Americans “economic fairy tales” about one of his signature campaign promises, according to a blistering new column.
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Trump repeatedly vowed to slash energy and electricity prices by 50% within 12 months of taking office. Instead, diesel recently surpassed $6 per gallon, while electricity and other household energy costs have also climbed.
That’s according to The New Republic editor Michael Tomasky, who argued Monday that Republicans believe in slogans but ignore the complicated and unpredictable forces that actually determine prices.
“Republicans screw up the economy, and they screw it up because they believe in economic fairy tales that fit on a bumper sticker,” he wrote.
Tomasky went on to accuse Trump of “lying out his know-you-what” when he made the sweeping energy pledge without considering whether he could deliver it.
“Trump himself is fool enough to think this,” Tomasky wrote, pointing to the president’s belief that opening federal lands to more drilling would automatically send prices tumbling.
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Drilling has expanded, he noted, and the Trump administration approved thousands of oil and gas permits during its first year, while lease sales covered hundreds of thousands of acres of public land.
But lower prices did not follow, Tomasky added Monday. He cited Trump’s tariffs, the war with Iran, AI data centers’ growing electricity demands and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries as factors complicating the president’s “drill, baby, drill” formula.
The columnist ultimately widened his attack beyond Trump, arguing that Republican economic promises sound simple and appealing but quickly fall apart when confronted with real-world scenarios.
He concluded in his opinion piece that Democrats should challenge more than Trump’s broken promises.
“Discrediting Trump is an important part of every Democrat’s job,” Tomasky wrote. “But the Republicans will keep on wrecking the economy, with or without him.”
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