Major MAGA ally issues huge warning about Trump’s spiraling economy

E.J. Antoni — chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, a major contributor to Project 2025, a Fox News pundit, and President Donald Trump's initial nominee to replace fired Erika McEntarfer as U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) commissioner — has been an outspoken supporter of the MAGA movement's economic agenda. But Antoni is now speaking out against Trump's decision to go to war with Iran, which, he warns, will have dire economic consequences for the United States.

Antoni told Financial Times, "I don't think this is an economy that is going to be able to handle $100 a barrel for oil, it's just not. The economy is weaker than we thought it was, and inflation is worse than we thought it was. The lower energy prices that we saw in 2025 helped put downward pressure on prices throughout the economy. Now…. we're going to see higher energy prices have exactly the opposite effect and put upward pressure on prices throughout the economy."

Although Trump withdrew his nomination of Antoni for BLS commissioner and went with Brett Matsumoto — who still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate — Antoni still has a lot of influence at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.

Financial Times' George Steer, reporting on Thursday morning, March 19, notes, "Antoni's remarks on the health of the world's largest economy come a day after the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, (Joe Kent), resigned in protest at the Iran war, marking the first significant defection from the Trump Administration since the conflict began. Republicans are, meanwhile, growing increasingly worried that high oil prices — Brent crude jumped 5 per cent to almost $110 a barrel on Wednesday — will dent their chances in the midterm elections. Petrol prices at the pump have surged to $3.84 a gallon from $2.92 a month ago, while diesel has exceeded $5 — exerting a heavy toll on U.S. consumers and businesses."

Antoni, the Daily Beast's Ewan Palmer notes, is also suggesting that "weak U.S. job growth could partly be blamed on the Trump Administration's firing of thousands of federal workers as part of cost-cutting measures."

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