Mike Johnson attempts to defend Trump after president says ‘I love the inflation’ – as it happened

Hours after Donald Trump brushed off concerns about new data showing that inflation jumped to an annual rate of 4.2% in May by saying “I love the inflation”, the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, accused a CNN journalist of taking the president’s comment “totally out of context”.

“The president is laser-focused on the domestic economic situation”, Johnson insisted. “He is working to bring down prices; his working to get the strait of Hormuz reopened.”

As he walked through the US Capitol, trailed by reporters, Johnson said that the meaning of the president’s comment, which was made in his presence during an Oval Office event, was crystal-clear, at least to him.

“What he was saying is: ‘It’s going to be great to have that number and compare it to what comes next, when we get these situations resolved, that’ll be a fun thing to consider,’” the Republican congressman suggested.

In fact, Trump’s meaning was far from clear, coming at the start of a rambling answer to the question of whether he was concerned “about the latest inflation number, which came out this morning”.

“No, I love it, the numbers were great. You know what I really loved? I love the inflation n – you know why? Because as soon as this war is over,” the president began, before interrupting his answer with a long tangent on what he called the success of a US military effort to sneak oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz, which he said had contributed to a drop in oil prices.

“I can say it now, something you didn’t know. Do you know we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until right now. We took out the other night 22 ships late at night with no lights because they don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it. We took out – that’s why oil is $85 a barrel,” the president said, without further explaining why he “loved” the inflation data showing the third consecutive monthly increase since the start of the Iran war and a three-year high.

Trump then continued for three more minutes, recounting what he called the success of the US attacks on Iran, and Venezuela, and never returning to the question of inflation, but instead repeating his familiar, baseless claim that he told advisers in February that war was necessary because “Iran’s going to have a nuclear weapon very soon” and that he had expected the impact of his war on Iran on the price of oil and the stock market to be worse. In fact, US intelligence agencies had assessed that Iran had given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003 and not restarted the effort.

When Trump finished speaking, a reporter reminded him of the topic, asking if he expected “inflation to come down between now and November”.

“When the war is over? It’s coming down,” Trump replied. “It’s going to come down like a rock.”