Takeaways: Trump doesn’t acknowledge price concerns in Pennsylvania return

ANALYSIS — Donald Trump and Republicans have an affordability problem, even as the president appeared reluctant Tuesday night to admit it.

After spending most of his second term at the White House, overseas or at his south Florida resorts, Trump jetted to Monroe County in Pennsylvania Tuesday — one of the most competitive counties in the must-win battleground state — to talk stubbornly high prices.

But the populist GOP president did not spell out a clear plan to provide Americans relief at the cash register, gas pump or ticket counter. Instead, he echoed some of his aides by promising major economic improvement in the new year, touting his tariffs and blaming his predecessor for higher costs.

“You’re going to see what happens over the next two years. It’s like a miracle is taking place. But we’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars, really trillions,” said Trump, who was accompanied on Air Force One by Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Dave McCormick. “And if you add to that, all of the companies that are pouring their money to building right now, building plants in Pennsylvania and many other states, auto plants, AI plants, plants of every type, which we would have never had if we didn’t put the tariffs on.”

A Harvard-Harris survey released this week showed 57 percent of respondents believe the president is losing his fight with inflation. The same Harvard-Harris poll found inflation was most respondents’ (47 percent) top issue by a wide margin over “restoring basic American values of merit” at 13 percent and immigration at 11 percent. That survey also found 56 percent said Trump’s policies have been harming the economy, against 44 percent who replied helping — with 67 percent of independents going with harming.

And 46 percent of those who participated in a Politico poll released last week said the cost of living in the United States is the worst they have ever experienced. Most participants also said Trump holds more responsibility over the state of the economy than Biden. 

Here are four takeaways from a rare Trump 2.0 domestic trip.

‘Always have a hoax’

Trump struggled to hit his affordability message, veering from topic to topic under a speech style he calls “The Weave.”

“I have no higher priority than making America affordable. Again, that’s what we’re going to do. And again, they cause the high prices, and we’re bringing them down. It’s a simple message. If I had one message tonight, you know, this is being covered like all over the world. This is crazy, because I haven’t made a speech in a little while,” he said, not quite getting to that affordability message.

Soon he was on to the 2026 midterm campaign, then his push to revive the U.S. coal industry. He briefly weaved back to the event’s ostensible topic.

“Prices are coming down very substantially,” he said, falsely. “But they have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability.  So they look at the camera and they say, ‘This direction is all about affordability.’ Now, they never talk about it.”

Except that Democratic lawmakers bring up high prices on a daily basis.

Despite the poor poll numbers for Trump and the GOP on prices and the economy in general, one veteran Senate Democrat said his party should not feel overconfident even as voters side with them on kitchen table issues.

Asked last Thursday if the president’s struggles to craft an effective affordability message and plan makes him more confident going into next November’s midterm elections, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., replied, “I’m never confident.”

Other Democrats agree, including strategist Mike Nellis.

“Remember: [at] this time in 2020, nobody thought we’d flip two Senate seats in Georgia. But we did. Strange things happen,” he wrote last Wednesday on Substack. “We’ve got the makings of that now. … Trump is in free fall. The GOP is in trouble. And the Democratic Party — flawed as it is — is on the rise heading into the midterms. … But heading into 2026, I’m feeling pretty damn good about our chances.”

‘Start campaigning’

The president, still the top draw in Republican politics, signaled he intends to be active on the midterms campaign trail after doing very little domestic travel this year.

“The chief of staff, and she’s fantastic, she said, ‘We have to start campaigning, sir.’ I said, ‘I won. … Already?’ They said, ‘We have to win the midterms, and you’re the guy that’s going to take us over the midterm,” he said, referring to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

One Trump surrogate suggested he will talk about trying to lower prices when he campaigns.

Reince Priebus, a former Trump White House chief of staff, said his former boss remains irked at how Republicans talk about prices ahead of the Monroe speech. 

“I think what … he’s cranky about is the fact that some of the messaging, I think, on the Republican side isn’t where it needs to be. I mean, he had the huge tax bill,” Priebus told ABC News in a Sunday interview. “Gas prices are down. Inflation, from where it was a year ago, is in a much better place, and I think it’s going to take some time for it to come around.

“And I think that impatience, of that time, [on] this issue [is] coming around,” he added. “Them getting hammered on affordability is making him cranky, that’s true. But I think, all in all, he’s got a lot to be proud of. … Everyone says, ‘Oh, that must mean Trump has high prices.’ No.”

In many ways, Trump’s message to a crowd assembled at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono on Tuesday mirrored what he has claimed on the affordability issue for weeks: Former President Joe Biden’s administration remains solely responsible for inflation and still-high prices, and he, almost single-handedly, has quelled inflation. He also ticked off his usual list of questionable claims about his second term and said 2026 will be the year his policies kick in.

The Consumer Price Index hit a Biden-era high of 9.1 percent in June 2022, before cooling to 3 percent when he left office in January. It stood at 3 percent at the end of September after dipping to 2.3 percent in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, several new polls show big trouble for Trump and Republicans on all issues economic.

‘Send her back’

While the president opted against focusing on curbing prices and inflation, he did flash that vintage Trump rally vitriol. 

“We ought to get her the hell out,” he said of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. “Throw her the hell out.”

The crowd, many standing on risers behind him in “Make America Great Again” gear, chanted of the Somali-born Omar after he mocked her traditional Muslim headwear, “Send her back.”  After she pushed back on his argument that Somali migrants were leading a crime wave in her state, Trump said to loud applause: “Throw her the hell out.”

“She comes in and does nothing but bitch,” Trump said. “She’s always complaining.”

During a television interview Sunday on ABC, Omar said Trump has an “unhealthy obsession” with Somali migrants.

‘Lucky, David’

Trump contended McCormick literally dodged a bullet on July 13, 2024 — the day Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

“I said, ‘David, come on up.’ He was working like hell. … And very few people could have done what he did,” he said of McCormick’s election win over former Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.

“But I said very right at the beginning of the speech, I said, ‘David, come on up. Come on up.’ … Before the thing happened. And then I looked at him and said, ‘You know what, David, just stay there. I’ll get you later.’

‘You’re so lucky, David,” the president told him. “I could have had a little differently shaped ear if it weren’t for you.”

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