The MAGA faithful are thrilled President Donald Trump is back on the road.
But some concede he is an imperfect messenger more apt to voice bullishness on his stewardship of the U.S. economy than he is to acknowledge the financial squeeze voters say they’re feeling.
Trump stirred up fresh concerns Tuesday at a Pennsylvania rally that was supposed to focus on easing Americans’ anxieties over pocketbook pressures. Instead, he veered off script, at one point urging austerity amid the holiday shopping season by resurfacing a line from earlier this year that American kids should be happy with “two or three” dolls.
The speech demonstrated that Trump’s return to the trail is a gamble: It’s just as likely to provide Democrats campaign fodder as it is to motivate his MAGA base heading into the midterm elections. And, as Trump plans more rallies in the coming months, his Tuesday performance raises new questions about how the White House can best deploy the president to help ensure Republicans win key congressional and gubernatorial races.
“I think a lot more domestic events outside of Washington are great. Let’s do more of it,” said one former Trump senior adviser, granted anonymity to share a candid assessment of the president’s Pennsylvania rally. But, “unfortunately I just don’t think Trump is temperamentally capable of reversing himself and saying, ‘Yes, affordability is a concern.’ He’s stubborn.”
Off-year elections this month and last, when Democrats saw resounding success in running on affordability concerns, have rattled the GOP — spurring debate about the party’s strategy heading into next year’s consequential midterms. The White House, in turn, has responded by refocusing its message on the president’s economic policies, with plans for Trump to hit the road to gin up the base in 2026.
And there are signs the White House is looking to other surrogates to help carry the administration’s affordability push into next year, as Trump allies concede the president is unlikely to morph into a nuanced and empathetic messenger. Following Trump’s visit to northeast Pennsylvania, Vice President JD Vance will travel to Allentown next week where he will emphasize “how much the Trump administration is focused on the issue of affordability,” according to a Vance spokesperson.
People close to the White House see value in other messengers — like Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — helping to carry the White House’s affordability message, while the president focuses on motivating his die-hard supporters who might not otherwise vote when he isn’t on the ballot.
During a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania that ran upwards of 90 minutes, Trump again used the word “hoax” to talk about affordability concerns even as advisers push him to avoid the word, fearing Americans are missing his broader point. And he continued to blame former President Joe Biden for handing him a weak economy.
A new POLITICO Poll conducted last month in conjunction with Public First found that nearly half of Americans said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford. More than a quarter said they have skipped a medical check-up because of costs within the last two years, and 23 percent said they have skipped a prescription dose for the same reason.
“The president would be wise to listen to his smart polling team that is focusing him on this issue. He cannot afford to fall into the same trap as the Biden administration, where he feels compelled to tout a supposedly great economy nobody is feeling,” said Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.
A former senior administration official echoed this concern, saying Trump is at risk of “repeating Biden’s errors, which is telling people things are great when that’s not what they’re feeling.”
Some Trump aides counter that the president’s “hoax” line is being taken out of context. The president isn’t dismissing Americans’ pain, said one White House official, but is instead calling the Democrats’ affordability campaign “hypocritical” and a “con job” because the left is trying to “rewrite their own history” and “hijack the phrase.”
“The word that they use is a hoax because they’re the ones that caused the problem,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
The White House is also cautiously optimistic that some of the president’s affordability woes will fade next year, particularly as some of the new policies take effect. The senior official pointed to Republicans’ domestic policy and tax legislation, which included no tax on tips, overtime and social security. The official also said to expect the president to highlight energy prices and rental and mortgage prices coming down since the Biden era, as well as the president’s efforts to bring manufacturing and investments back to the United States.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump was elected “precisely because he understood just how much damage Joe Biden’s economic disaster had inflicted on American families.”
“With inflation having cooled and trillions in investments pouring in, President Trump’s agenda is indeed delivering the booming economy that Americans enjoyed during his first term — and both he and the Administration will continue to underscore the work we are doing to make this happen,” Desai said.
As Trump this week gave himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” grade on the economy, the White House is also grappling with how to square Americans’ grim perceptions of their economic realities with indicators that show that the economy is, actually, improving. Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in September showed that real wages — which are adjusted for inflation — have grown 0.8 percent over the last year.
The president, during his Tuesday rally, displayed graphics that showed how the cost of certain foods — like eggs, ham and ice cream — had risen under Biden but decreased under Trump. And Trump continues to argue that the trillions in investments he has secured from companies to open new manufacturing facilities will pay off in the long run, even if those gains haven’t manifested yet.
“It’s the long game that benefits President Trump,” said Matt Schlapp, a Trump confidant and chair of the American Conservative Union. “I feel optimistic that over the course of this year, this will be pretty obvious to people.”
Cheyenne Haslett, Benjamin Johansen and Irie Sentner contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: Due to a production error, an incorrect version of this story was initially posted. The version is now corrected.
