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Trump test-drives affordability message as Republican election losses mount
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U.S. President Donald Trump is embarking on what the White House describes as a campaign to show Americans that he’s addressing their cost-of-living concerns, an effort to reverse the Republican Party’s sinking popularity.
Trump’s move comes with the Democrats adding to a recent string of city- and state-level election wins, a trend that has deepened Republicans’ worries they could lose control of the House in the midterms next November.
The latest Republican losses came in Miami, where voters elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 30 years, and in Georgia, where a Democrat flipped a state House district that Trump won by 12 points last year.
Affordability issues were key in both races, and as the votes were being counted on Tuesday evening, Trump was in Pennsylvania, making a speech designed to be the kickoff of his cost-of-living campaign.
Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump is aiming to pin the blame for the high prices of consumer goods on the Biden administration and the Democrats.
“They caused the high prices and we’re bringing them down,” Trump told the crowd in Mount Pocono, Pa., while standing in front of a sign reading “Lower Prices Higher Paychecks.”
“I have no higher priority than making America affordable again.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, in a speech on Tuesday, touted what he said will be his message about the high cost of living: that the Democrats are to blame, and his administration is bringing it down. Official statistics put U.S. inflation at three per cent, about the same as when he took office in January.
Yet if Trump’s team had even the faintest hope that he’d stick generally to the script, their boss made it clear that wasn’t going to happen
“If I read what’s on the Teleprompter, you’d all be falling asleep right now,” he said.
‘Biggest tax cuts ever’
In the 90-minute speech, Trump demonstrated his biggest challenge in trying to persuade voters that he understands their concerns about the economy: stopping himself from crowing about how great things are since his return to the White House.
His speech was peppered with hyperbole: “The best 10 months ever in the history of the presidency … the biggest tax cuts ever, even bigger than the first term … the hottest country anywhere in the world … the strongest border in the history of our country.”
He spent as much time off the topic of affordability as he did on it. He laced his speech with attacks on Democrats including ex-president Joe Biden and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. He spoke about White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s lips. He complained about wind farms in Scotland and immigrants from what he called “shithole countries.”
Absent from the speech: anything empathizing with people’s financial struggles, any attempt to persuade voters that he feels their economic pain.
Instead Trump alternated between slamming Democrats for their failings and insisting that his agenda is working at keeping costs down.
He also indicated that the push for him to speak about affordability is an effort to boost Republican fortunes in the midterms, driven by his chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
“She said, ‘We have to start campaigning, sir … We have to win the midterms, and you’re the guy that’s going to take us over the midterm,’” Trump said.
‘Like it’s 2024’
Wiles, who rarely gives interviews, spelled out the strategy on the latest episode of The Mom View, a conservative online chat show.
Referring to last month’s Democratic wins in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia, Wiles said that Republicans have seen what happens when Trump is not on the ballot.
“Typically in the midterms it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House. You localize the election, and you keep the federal officials out of it,” Wiles said.
“We’re actually going to turn that on its head and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”
The midterms “will be very important to us,” said Wiles, adding that her plan is to have Trump “campaign like it’s 2024 again” over the coming months.
Trump is taking a beating in the polls over the cost of living.
The Democrats are hoping those dismal numbers will continue and translate into winning a majority in the House next November.
Trump’s speech showed a president “living in an alternate reality,” said Kendall Witmer, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee.
“Prices are soaring and wage growth has slowed dramatically since Trump took office, yet Trump continues dismissing concerns about rising costs as a ‘hoax,’ and made it clear that he couldn’t care less about working families,” Witmer said in a statement.
The Democrat who won Miami’s mayoral race, Eileen Higgins, says her city’s residents concerns about affordability are real.
“They’re facing expensive rent, expensive property insurance, costs of all sorts of things, especially even now the things they’re buying in the stores due to the tariffs,” Higgins said after her victory.
“I think every leader in America needs to think deeply about what they can do to help get the affordability crisis under control for the American people.”