Trump and his aides struggled to coalesce around a message about the GDP number, simultaneously saying it was bad because of Biden administration policies but also good because of Trump's efforts.

President Trump and his administration navigated some alarming points in the nation's latest gross domestic product report by blaming the previous administration and explaining how trade preparations ahead of tariffs may have impacted the data.

Indeed, the only constant in all this self-imposed economic pain is Trump’s own random mood swings and social media tantrums—and the record already shows that neither is likely to calm the mood of either the paper economy or the actual goods-and-services one.