President Donald Trump attempted to claim credit for falling prices at a regional grocery chain, but according to a report from The Daily Beast, the truth about the company’s timeline dealt him an “awkward reality check.”
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Giant Eagle is a prominent regional grocery chain, with locations serving states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia and Indiana. In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump praised the company’s ongoing initiative to lower prices and also appeared to take credit for the decision, claiming that it was in response to his demand grocery stores cut prices.
“Giant Eagle, like Walmart, is stepping up in a big and bold way to answer my call to lower costs for working families,” Trump’s post read.
In a Monday report, The Daily Beast dumped cold water on this claim, noting that Giant Eagle’s pricing promotion has already been underway for weeks, and has been in the works for much longer. According to Yahoo Finance, Giant Eagle’s summer price cut initiative is set to run through Labor Day, with around 300 staple products discounted by an average of 10 percent.
“However, the grocer actually announced the move on July 9 as part of the company’s ‘On Sale This Season’ pricing initiative, which dates back to September last year,” the report detailed. “That is part of the grocer’s ‘Because It Matters’ strategy, which aims to keep prices of staples from rising with inflation.”
The report noted further that Giant Eagle’s chief marketing officer, Justin Weinstein, did not mention any sort of response to Trump’s demands in a statement about the initiative earlier this month, but did, however, allude to the growing affordability crisis under his watch.
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“We know our customers are seeking value in the face of elevated expenses,” Weinstein’s statement read.
When pressed by The Daily Beast for comment on Trump’s post, Giant Eagle said only that it was “aware of the president’s message in support of the On Sale This Season pricing initiative.”
Trump previously took credit for a similar summer promotion underway at Walmart, which includes a 15 percent cut in beef prices at the company’s superstore locations.
“But Walmart later told reporters the discounts had already been in place for a week before Trump’s post and were part of its routine summer ‘Rollback’ promotions,” The Daily Beast explained. “The White House scrambled to defend the claim, with Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai insisting the administration was helping ensure savings were passed on to consumers, even as Walmart’s own statement made no mention of Trump.”
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