California Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest attack on Donald Trump is a masterclass in political distortion.
He claims Trump has “betrayed the American people,” citing rising prices for beef, coffee, cars, utilities, and healthcare as proof. But when you look past the rhetoric and examine the actual data, every one of those claims falls apart.
Inflation and supply issues exist—but they stem from long-term global pressures, not Trump’s economic policies.
Take beef, for example. The average retail price of ground beef reached $6.32 per pound in September 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s higher than in previous years, but the cause isn’t government mismanagement—it’s the smallest U.S. cattle herd in seventy years.
Droughts, high feed costs, and export disruptions have all contributed to increased prices. Coffee prices tell a similar story.
Weather disasters in Brazil and Vietnam, two of the world’s largest coffee-producing countries, caused crop shortages and sent global prices soaring. These trends are tied to supply chain and climate issues, not to anything Trump has done.
Car prices are another misleading talking point. The BLS consumer price index for new vehicles rose just 1.3% over the past year, a fraction of the massive spikes Americans saw in 2021 and 2022.
Those earlier surges stemmed from pandemic-era supply chain disruptions and chip shortages—issues that had taken root well before Trump returned to the White House.
Utility bills have also climbed modestly, up about 2.8% year-over-year, primarily due to higher natural gas costs and state-level regulations.
In California, which has the highest energy rates in the country, those costs are driven by Newsom’s aggressive renewable mandates and bureaucratic inefficiency, not federal energy policy.
The most outrageous claim from Newsom is that “healthcare is about to triple.” In reality, the medical care index rose only 3.3% in the last 12 months—steady, but nowhere near a tripling.
Hellbound and Down 