Claim: President Trump said on Tuesday night that the core inflation rate had fallen to 1.7 percent in the last three months of 2025.
Verdict: True
Using the standard three-month annualized measure of inflation based on the seasonally adjusted core consumer price index (CPI-U less food and energy), the rate was about 1.7 percent at the end of 2025. That’s the lowest three-month annualized rate since the first quarter of 2021, the end of President Trump’s first term in office and the beginning of Joe Biden’s.
This end-of-period calculation compares the December 2025 core CPI index level (331.814) to the September 2025 level (330.418) and annualizes the three-month change. By that widely used measure, Trump’s claim is accurate.
It is also worth noting that the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish October 2025 CPI data due to the federal government shutdown, which complicates some “quarterly” inflation calculations for late 2025 and can lead analysts to rely on estimates or partial-month averages.
An alternative quarterly approach—comparing the average level of the index in the fourth quarter with the average level in the third quarter, then annualizing—yields a roughly 2.2 percent annualized rate for fourth quarter 2025. That compares with around 3.5 percent for the period a year earlier, the final full quarter of the Biden administration.
Both approaches are widely used, but they measure slightly different things: the three-month annualized figure captures end-of-year momentum, while the quarterly-average method is a smoother read on the quarter’s overall trend.
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