GEOFF BENNETT: And those spiking energy prices sent inflation to a three-year high in May, up 4.2 percent annually.

The Labor Department said the cost of energy was responsible for over 60 percent of the increase.

Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, was up a more modest 2.9 percent.

It comes as renewed fighting in Iran threatens to extend disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial energy choke point responsible for transit of roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply.

For more, we're joined now by Roben Farzad, host of public radio's "Full Disclosure."

Roben, it's good to see you.

ROBEN FARZAD, Host, "Full Disclosure": Thank you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: So inflation is now running at more than double the Fed's target rate of 2 percent.

What more does today's report tell us?

ROBEN FARZAD: It's a tough beast to kill, especially when you're trying to pull this off in Iran with the Strait of Hormuz.

I mean, you wonder if inflation would have gone down to the Fed's ideal 2 percent target, the better to cut interest rates, if Iran was not engaged, so to speak, this year.

But the entire nation saw we got in the springtime quite an oil shock.

And that obviously percolates down to everything, especially at a time when people were feeling it in food prices.

You have seen the misery index numbers, which really don't jibe with an economy that's still really buoyant and creating jobs and interest rates are low on the stock market is giddy.

So there's definitely pain and a disconnect and residual misery from the great inflation of '22.

GEOFF BENNETT: Residual misery.

You have got gas is up.

Gas is now up a dollar per gallon over last year.

Electricity prices are up almost 6 percent from a year ago.

Fruit and vegetables are up 6 percent, airline fares up 27 percent, apparel up 5 percent.

What's causing all of these prices to rise on so many fronts simultaneously?

ROBEN FARZAD: Clearly, energy is an input.

If we look at fertilizer, the price of tomatoes, beef, everything that goes into the inputs of soybeans and everything, there was a huge pinch point in the Strait of Hormuz.

I mean, you underestimate how vastly interconnected we are in the supply chain.

If you look, you go to a Wegmans, a Kroger and the grocery in the produce section, I mean, the things that you could take for granted, avocados, year-round mangoes, grapes, produce, all that stuff requires significant free trade, low barriers to trade, constant supplies of low-cost fuel and fertilizer.

And when that's pinched, especially after a time of opportunistic inflations where manufacturers, food manufacturers, retailers, car insurance companies, the automakers, they all used '22 and '23 as cloud cover to raise prices.

So you're not helping situation by exacerbating fuel and fertilizer, for example.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to play you with what President Trump said today when he was asked about this report.

Take a look.

QUESTION: Are you concerned, Mr.

President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?

Could that be a... DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I love it.

The numbers were great.

You know what I really love?

I love the inflation.

QUESTION: ... inflation to come down between now and.. DONALD TRUMP: Oh, when the war is over?

QUESTION: Yes.

DONALD TRUMP: It's coming down.

It's going to come down like a rock.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's remarkable to hear any president say, "I love the inflation."

But the White House argues that this is temporary pain and when the war is over, so will the inflation woes.

Do they have that right?

ROBEN FARZAD: It was a great pipe dream in January, if you think back to the extraction of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and Caracas.

It was so easy.

We can pull off something like that in Iran.

And can you imagine the deluge of easy oil, I mean, just flooding the system.

And we have all these refiners that are eagerly going to take it up, driving oil down -- back down to the 30s and 40s.

Obviously, it was a lot harder that way.

Obviously, they didn't do their homework with Hormuz and how much this would hurt the economy.

It's such a fungible commodity.

It was almost like a curse what happened with Venezuela so easily.

And I remember I was getting calls from people linked to the administration that, do you understand how much this is going to inundate the hemisphere with heavy crude?

And our refiners are at the ready to crush the price of gas.

So to be seen and remains to be seen if they could pull that feat off.

GEOFF BENNETT: And it's not just gas and food prices, also the cost of health care.

There was a report out today from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that found that nearly half of all working-age adults struggle to afford health care.

This was in 2025 and, even increasingly, those with insurance.

I mean, what does all of that suggest?

ROBEN FARZAD: Yes, I mean, if you look at the Affordable Care Act, and this administration has not been in love with it.

It hasn't been able to kill it with Congress several times.

So, at best, it gives it benign neglect.

I wouldn't even call it benign.

If you're cutting Medicaid options to the states and Medicare, you're giving it just neglect and ignoring it and making sign-ups difficult.

And there was a bottleneck.

And inflation is still running course and people are still getting older.

And parents are getting older and kids have various illnesses and we're coming out of this pandemic.

And, of course, you're going to see this disconnect.

Of course, you're going to see that inflation persist, because it's where demographics and kind of the physics of this economy finally catch up.

And that's something that we can't ignore forever.

Let's not forget that they were litigating this when Bill Clinton was first elected president.

And it's still something that the nation has not solved nearly 40 years later.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, as all of this unfolds, Roben, you have got the Fed set to meet next week under the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh.

What kind of dilemma does all of this present for him as the Fed gets ready to set right?

ROBEN FARZAD: You have a president that's more than jawboning him.

I mean, he shamed Jerome Powell, his own handpicked man, out of office.

You remember the -- kind of the cringe hardhat scene at the Federal Reserve?

Like, you have cheated.

Get out of here.

You're not -- you waited too long to cut.

You can't cut into this environment.

Inflation has not been snuffed out.

And this is a problem.

If you're rules-based Fed and you have the dual mandate of full employment and price stability, prices are not quite stable yet.

Unfortunately, Geoff, it's a blunt instrument.

If they hike right now, some people at the lowest very end of this, you talk about health care, you talk about food inflation, the people who need credit card debt to pay for health care, to pay for foods, to pay for their monthly nut, they're going to disproportionately take the hit, where those who've been involved in asset markets, who have an abundance of savings, an abundance of stock and crypto and the like, they're not going to feel it nearly as much.

So it brings back that K-shaped economy theme.

GEOFF BENNETT: Roben Farzad of public radio's "Full Disclosure,.

Thanks, as always, Roben.

Good to see you.

ROBEN FARZAD: My pleasure.

Thank you.