MS NOW⁠95%

U.S. inflation surged in April, pushed higher by the effects of the war in Iran ⁠77%

By Steve Benen⁠95%

5/12/2026, 12:46:21 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Appeal to Emotion, and Pessimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 49.4% saturation with 196 hits. Analysis detected 932 faulty-reasoning hits from 397 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 68.1% and a BS Rank of ⁠77% (5,217 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 76.20% of the article peer group.

As April got underway, Donald Trump delivered an address to the nation about the war in Iran and took a moment to comment on the state of the economy. 
The president said Americans are currently enjoying “the strongest” economic conditions “in history” (a spectacularly wrong assertion) and that there’s “no inflation.” 
As the month came to an end, Peter Navarro, the White House’s top trade adviser, similarly boasted on Fox Business, “Inflation is going down.” 
It would’ve been great if these claims were true, but as is too often the case with the White House’s economic claims, they were not. 
Last week, the public confronted a fresh round of discouraging news, as the Commerce Department showed a jump in the core personal consumption expenditures price index, which reached its highest level in nearly three years. 
On Tuesday morning, conditions went from bad to worse. 
CNBC reported: 
Prices that consumers pay for a wide range of goods and services increased at a faster-than-expected pace in April, raising further concerns about the inflationary impact on the U.S. economy. 
The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. 
The data, which was even worse than expected, showed consumer prices in the U.S. rising at the fastest rate since May 2023. 
As a related report in The New York Times noted, the price increases were “driven largely by energy prices,” which climbed as a result of the unnecessary war in Iran. 
An NBC News report added, “April’s inflation rate is now rising faster than wages, which could exacerbate the affordability crisis that has already been gripping consumers.” 
The latest national CNN poll found that 77% — including a majority of Republican voters — agreed that Trump’s policies have increased the cost of living. 
The same poll found that just 30% of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy, a career low for the Republican across both of his terms. 
That mirrored the results of the latest national Associated Press poll. 
If White House officials, eager to peddle inane happy talk in defiance of Americans’ real lives, were counting on survey data to improve anytime soon, they’re likely to be disappointed. 
This post updates our related earlier coverage. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 2.8%Steve Benen: 10.5%MS NOW: 7.5%Confirmation Bias2.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.2%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 7.6%Steve Benen: 3.7%MS NOW: 3.7%Availability Heuristic7.6%This article: 6.5%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic6.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 2.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 23.0%MS NOW: 15.4%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.4%MS NOW: 0.7%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.3%MS NOW: 2.4%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 22.7%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 3.2%Pessimism Bias22.7%This article: 49.4%Steve Benen: 29.0%MS NOW: 19.2%Negativity Bias49.4%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.1%MS NOW: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 4.7%MS NOW: 3.1%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.3%MS NOW: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.4%MS NOW: 3.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.2%MS NOW: 2.5%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 2.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 4.4%MS NOW: 1.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 14.9%Steve Benen: 2.9%MS NOW: 1.8%Recency Bias14.9%This article: 5.5%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Primacy Effect5.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 7.6%Steve Benen: 7.8%MS NOW: 4.7%Ad Hominem7.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 6.5%Steve Benen: 6.3%MS NOW: 5.4%Appeal to Authority6.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 2.2%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.7%MS NOW: 2.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 13.4%Steve Benen: 8.9%MS NOW: 8.1%Hasty Generalization13.4%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.7%MS NOW: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 9.3%Steve Benen: 1.2%MS NOW: 0.9%Bandwagon9.3%This article: 23.9%Steve Benen: 11.3%MS NOW: 9.8%Appeal to Emotion23.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.5%MS NOW: 2.4%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 11.3%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 3.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)11.3%This article: 7.6%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Tu Quoque7.6%This article: 6.5%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 0.9%Burden of Proof6.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.0%MS NOW: 2.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.5%MS NOW: 0.3%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.2%MS NOW: 1.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 11.6%Steve Benen: 3.8%MS NOW: 2.5%Unattributed Quote11.6%This article: 0.5%Steve Benen: 2.6%MS NOW: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.5%This article: 27.2%Steve Benen: 22.9%MS NOW: 14.2%Biased Writer Voice27.2%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 2.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 8.6%MS NOW: 5.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.6%MS NOW: 0.6%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

397 words analyzed.

Speakers

8speakers55%attributed speech178writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 22 words • 100.0% coveragePeter Navarro • 24 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 100.0% coverageU.S. Department of Commerce • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coverageCNBC • 2 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageBureau of Labor Statistics • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageThe New York Times • 30 words • 0.0% coverageNBC News • 26 words • 0.0% coverageCNN • 26 words • 0.0% coverageCNN • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

NBC News

100%flagged-word coverage
26 attributed words12% of attributed speech80% writer coverage
0%25.0%50.0%Biased Writer Voice-48.3 ptsWriter: 48.3%NBC News: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.