As the Trump Slump lingers, the administration scrambles to move the goalposts (September 2025)
www.yahoo.com

... When Americans learned last week that inflation inched higher in August, despite Donald Trump's demonstrably false claims to the contrary, it was the latest in a series of discouraging economic developments. In recent weeks, unemployment claims, job growth and the manufacturing sector have all moved in the wrong direction amid sluggish economic growth.

The president and his team have largely stuck to the idea that the White House's faltering agenda will eventually produce encouraging results (though they're not yet entirely sure when), and when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sat down with Axios, he offered a variation on the talking point. From the Axios report:

President Trump will own the economy's performance by the end of 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tells Mike Allen on the The Axios Show' -- a much later window than he and other administration officials have previously claimed. ...

The economy that Donald Trump owns starts at the end of this year,' Lutnick said.

To his credit, Allen pushed back against the claim, and for good reason: The Cabinet secretary's efforts to move the goalposts were not to be taken seriously.