US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to a Doordash delivery worker outside the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, DC, April 13, 2026. Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images Over the span of four days earlier this month, President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social account about his proposed triumphal arch, ballroom construction, the Iran war, a UFC fight at the White House and Bruce Springsteen’s alleged plastic surgery. He also posted (and later deleted) an AI-generated photo of himself as Jesus, on the heels of a screed aimed at Pope Leo XIV, who Trump said “should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” What’s absent for long stretches in the president’s social media presence and from his discourse more generally of late is the economy — an issue Trump rode to the White House in 2016 and 2024. “Trump’s original deal with the American people was ‘I’m a boorish lout …