Copyright The Boston Globe
Over the past week, he could barely stand to hear the word. Since Democratic victories in elections last week on platforms that focused on bringing down the cost of living, Trump has angrily confronted the reality that he has lost ground on an issue that helped deliver him a second term. In social media rants and in misleading claims about the economy, Trump and his Cabinet have tried to wrest back a message of affordability that has buoyed Democrats and is resonating with an American electorate that is souring on his economic agenda. In the days after the elections this month, the president struggled to craft a coherent and consistent message on the issue. He called affordability a “new word” and said that Republicans had not talked enough about it. He then blasted it as a “con job” by Democrats. Eventually, he declared, “I don’t want to hear about the affordability.” By the end of the week, Trump was so perturbed by questions about the topic that he lashed out at a reporter and stopped a news conference with the Hungarian prime minister to have his press secretary come in and defend his record. “The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability — everybody knows it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden,” he said. But in reality, Trump has mentioned the word affordability as much in the last week as he has in the past nine months. His renewed attention to the issue comes after weeks in which he faced mounting criticism for appearing out of touch with everyday Americans. The week before the election, Trump was on a trip to Asia, showcasing his ability to broker trade and peace deals abroad, while thousands of federal workers missed paychecks and millions of low-income Americans were scheduled to lose food benefits. When he returned, he attended a lavish “Great Gatsby”-themed party at Mar-a-Lago. On social media, Trump posted incessantly about the new Lincoln bathroom, remodeled in black and white marble with gold faucets and light fixtures, and on renovations at the Kennedy Center, which he said would be outfitted in marble and “magnificent high-end carpeting.” The posts provided fodder for Trump’s opponents, especially congressional Democrats, who for the past six weeks withheld their votes to reopen the government, seeking to prevent health care costs from skyrocketing for some Americans on the federal marketplace. Even as the Senate moved toward ending the shutdown without an agreement to extend expiring health insurance subsidies, many Democrats were vowing to make the cost of health insurance a defining issue in the midterm elections next year. Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., said on Sunday night that he would oppose the deal to reopen the government because it “still leaves millions of Americans wondering how they are going to pay for their health care or whether they will be able to afford to get sick.” As Trump sought to recalibrate his economic messaging after the election, he claimed there was “no inflation,” that gas prices were almost at $2, and grocery prices were “way down.” To illustrate the point, he repeatedly pointed to a report from Walmart showing that the cost of a Thanksgiving meal would be 25 percent less than under President Joe Biden. “2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart,” Trump wrote in a post on Thursday. “My cost are lower than the Democrats on everything, especially oil and gas! So the Democrats ‘affordability’ issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!” Trump risks being in a similar position as his predecessor, defending his record by pointing to statistics that don’t capture a troubling reality that many Americans are feeling. The latest government data shows that inflation persists, even ticking up slightly in the most recent consumer report. Grocery prices have risen since he took office. Experts are mixed on whether Trump’s policies have led to a drop in gas prices, which hover around $3 a gallon. And the Thanksgiving meal cost that Trump has cited comes with a caveat — there are fewer items in this year’s Walmart bundle, analyses have shown. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans say they are spending more on groceries and utilities than they were a year ago, and many blame Trump. A recent NBC News poll found that only 30 percent of voters believe Trump has lived up to their expectations for tackling inflation and the cost of living. The White House continued to defend Trump’s record Sunday, blaming Biden and the news media for the state of the economy. In a statement, a spokesperson pointed to lower inflation, cheaper eggs, and Trump’s efforts to drive down prescription drug costs as evidence that the president was focused on affordability. “President Trump has been aggressively tackling Joe Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis since Day 1 of his presidency, when he signed an array of executive orders to lower energy and regulatory costs,” Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “The president and administration will continue to deliver historic trade deals, investments, and economic relief for the American people — the fake news media should try covering these initiatives and their results honestly for a change.” And on the television circuit, Trump’s Cabinet members painted an optimistic picture of the economy when pressed about the issue of affordability. “Energy prices, gasoline prices are way down, and we are doing what we can every day,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think we are on a very good path to bringing prices down.” Over the weekend, Trump signaled that he was tuning into the growing frustrations. On Friday night, he announced that he was directing the Justice Department to investigate whether meatpacking companies were engaging in “collusion” and driving up the prices of beef. On Saturday, he announced a proposal to reroute health care subsidies paid to insurance companies to Americans’ savings accounts. On Sunday morning, he proposed doling out $2,000 dividends from tariff revenue — “(not including high-income people),” he wrote.
