{"id":334218,"date":"2025-12-09T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334218\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:00:09","slug":"trump-says-hes-fixing-affordability-problems-hell-test-out-that-message-at-a-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334218\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he’s fixing affordability problems. He’ll test out that message at a rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump will road-test his claims that he\u2019s tackling Americans\u2019 affordability woes<\/a> at a Tuesday rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania \u2014 shifting an argument made in Oval Office appearances and social media posts to a campaign-style event.<\/p>\n

The trip comes as polling consistently shows that public trust in Trump\u2019s economic leadership<\/a> has faltered. Following dismal results for Republicans<\/a> in last month\u2019s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters<\/a> that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump.<\/p>\n

The president has consistently blamed his predecessor<\/a>, Democrat Joe Biden, for inflation even as his own aggressive implementation of policies has pushed up prices that had been settling down after spiking in 2022 to a four-decade high. Inflation began to accelerate after Trump announced his sweeping \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs<\/a> in April. Companies warned that the import taxes could be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced hiring, yet Trump continues to insist that inflation has faded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re bringing prices way down,\u201d Trump said at the White House on Monday. \u201cYou can call it \u2018affordability\u2019 or anything you want \u2014 but the Democrats caused the affordability problem and we\u2019re the ones that are fixing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s reception in the county hosting his Tuesday rally could give a signal of just how much voters trust his claims. Monroe County flipped to Trump in the 2024 election after having backed Biden in 2020, helping the Republican to win the swing state of Pennsylvania and return to the White House after a four-year hiatus.<\/p>\n

As home to the Pocono Mountains, the county has largely relied on tourism for skiing, hiking, hunting and other activities as a source of jobs. Its proximity to New York City \u2014 under two hours by car \u2014 has also attracted people seeking more affordable housing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also an area that could help decide control of the House in next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Trump is holding his rally in a congressional district held by freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan<\/a>, who is a top target of Democrats and won his 2024 race by about 1.5 percentage points, among the nation\u2019s closest. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is running for the nomination to challenge him.<\/p>\n

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said on the online conservative talk show \u201cThe Mom View\u201d that Trump would be on the \u201ccampaign trail\u201d next year to engage supporters who otherwise might sit out a congressional race.<\/p>\n

Wiles, who helped manage Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign, said most administrations try to localize midterm elections and keep the president out of the race, but she intends to do the opposite of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually going to turn that on its head,\u201d Wiles said, \u201cand put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wiles added, \u201cSo I haven\u2019t quite broken it to him yet, but he\u2019s going to campaign like it\u2019s 2024 again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has said he\u2019s giving consumers relief by relaxing fuel efficiency standards for autos and signing agreements to reduce list prices on prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

Trump has also advocated for cuts to the Federal Reserve\u2019s benchmark interest rate \u2014 which influences the supply of money in the U.S. economy. He argues that would reduce the cost of mortgages and auto loans, although critics warn that cuts of the scale sought by Trump could instead worsen inflation.<\/p>\n

The U.S. economy has shown signs of resilience with the stock market up this year and overall growth looking solid for the third quarter. But many Americans see the prices of housing, groceries, education, electricity<\/a> and other basic needs as swallowing up their incomes, a dynamic that the Trump administration has said it expects to fade next year with more investments in artificial intelligence and manufacturing.<\/p>\n

Since the November elections where Democrats won key races<\/a> with a focus on kitchen-table issues, Trump has often dismissed the concerns about prices as a \u201choax\u201d and \u201ccon job\u201d to suggest that he bears no responsibility for inflation, even though he campaigned on his ability to quickly bring down prices. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump\u2019s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Josh Boak And Marc Levy, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump will road-test his claims that he\u2019s tackling Americans\u2019 affordability woes at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-334218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}