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President Donald Trump has faced no shortage of criticism over his sweeping tariff policy — much of it focused on the risk of higher inflation. But the latest consumer price index report delivered a genuine surprise.

CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Liesman, who issued stark warnings about Trump’s tariffs earlier this year, appeared caught off guard as he read the CPI numbers live on air Thursday morning.

“Oh,” he said, glancing down at the release (1). “Maybe coming in a little bit better than expected.”

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He soon added: “I'm not calling, I'm just reading the headlines here, year over year, 2.7. Ex food and energy, core, 2.6. So four tenths off. That is a very good number here.”

Headline U.S. CPI rose 2.7% year over year in November, down from a 3.0% increase in September (2). Core CPI — which strips out volatile food and energy prices — also eased to 2.6% year over year in November, from 3.0% in September.

Liesman has been among the most vocal critics of Trump’s tariff strategy (3). Back in March, he warned bluntly: “I’m going to say this at the risk of my job. What President Trump is doing is insane,” adding that “there’s no bounds around President Trump.”

But on Thursday, as he dug deeper into the latest report, even the month-over-month figures looked encouraging.

“I have not looked at the internals — I’ll look at them now — but it suggests that the internals are good as well,” he said. “Let's see. ... Seasonally adjusted index for all items, less food and energy, rose 0.2% over the two months. So correct my math here … but 0.2 divided by two is 0.1. So therefore that's a very, very low monthly rate.”

Liesman wasn’t alone in his reaction.

In a separate CNN segment, Harvard economist Ken Rogoff acknowledged he was surprised too.

“I was surprised. It was a better number than anyone was expecting,” he said (4). “People were expecting it to be above 3% — it was well below 3%.”

Good news for investors

Rogoff also highlighted the market implications of the softer inflation print.

“I think the president will take this as good news. The investors will think that interest rates will get cut more, so it was positive news — there’s no other way to spin it.”