{"id":629438,"date":"2026-05-07T19:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/629438\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:05:19","slug":"the-trump-team-still-cant-figure-out-how-to-talk-about-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/629438\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump team still can\u2019t figure out how to talk about the economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Trump administration accounts for one of the highest concentrations of billionaires<\/a> in the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n And often, it shows.\n <\/p>\n

\n As negative economic perceptions have proliferated in recent months, the administration has repeatedly made comments that were ill-advised at best and gobsmackingly out of touch at worst. And there\u2019s no sign of a course correction.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Republican-turned-independent former congressman Justin Amash of Michigan wagered Wednesday: \u201cIt\u2019s like this administration is now just trolling MAGA<\/a>.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He was responding to White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Wednesday touting Americans\u2019 increasing credit card spending.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn fact, I had the head of one of the big five banks in my office yesterday going through the credit card data, and just as [Treasury] Secretary [Scott] Bessent said, credit card spending is through the roof,\u201d Hassett told Fox Business Network<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re spending more on gasoline, but they\u2019re spending more on everything else, too.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Hassett, who like Bessent is not among the administration\u2019s billionaires, was arguing that consumer spending is strong, which suggests a healthy economy. But it could certainly be read as a reflection of rising prices and Americans going into debt, too \u2014 which Amash and many Trump critics quickly cited.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Trump Administration is now CELEBRATING Americans paying more for gas and putting more on their credit cards,\u201d California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s office said<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re literally bragging about people getting squeezed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n President Donald Trump offered some similar comments Monday at a White House small business summit.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd thanks to these pro-growth policies, our economy is roaring and factory construction is way up,\u201d he said. \u201cConsumer confidence is way up.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Neither measure is \u201cway up\u201d or even \u201cup.\u201d In fact, factory construction is down under Trump<\/a> after increasing greatly under former President Joe Biden. And the data shows measures of consumer confidence hitting their lowest points in the post-World War II era<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cRoaring\u201d is also a claim that precious few Americans would agree with; just 6% rated the economy as \u201cvery strong\u201d<\/a> in polling released last month.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump has consistently betrayed his billionaire lifestyle. Last month, for example, he signaled that he was unfamiliar with the concept of a \u201ccorner store.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhat is a corner store? I\u2019ve never heard that term,\u201d he said in Las Vegas at an economic event, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve never heard it described a corner store. Who the hell wrote that, please?\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A day earlier, Bessent cited strong spending numbers to submit that Americans actually felt good about the economy<\/a>, deep down \u2014 no matter what they said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWell, look, in their heart of hearts, they feel good,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what they\u2019re telling the survey people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That certainly risked condescending to Americans who routinely rate the economy as quite poor.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was hardly the first head-scratching comment from the Treasury secretary. In January, he said the administration didn\u2019t want its proposed ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes to inadvertently hurt \u201cmom and pop\u201d investors.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMom and pop\u201d investors who \u2026 owned up to a dozen homes<\/a>, that is.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSomeone, maybe your parents for their retirement,\u201d Bessent told Fox Business\u2019 Maria Bartiromo, \u201cbought five, 10, 12 homes. So, we don\u2019t want to push the mom and pops out. We just want to push everyone else out.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That same week, Trump traveled to Davos, Switzerland, and proceeded to brag to the world\u2019s elite about how much richer he was making them<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI don\u2019t even ask anybody how you\u2019re doing now,\u201d Trump told a gathering of CEOs. \u201cIt\u2019s like everybody is making so much money.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The president also riffed on how, during his first term, things were so good that a wealthy friend bought an airplane he didn\u2019t even use. Just to underscore, these are the kinds of elites that Trump\u2019s MAGA movement often derides.\n <\/p>\n

\n The episode epitomized the kind of tone deafness we\u2019ve often seen from Trump. He remains focused on putting his name on things and building a massive arch and ballroom in Washington, DC \u2014 he also proudly displayed a gold statue of himself<\/a> on social media Thursday \u2014 even as Americans overwhelmingly think he\u2019s neglected their major cost-of-living concerns. Polls suggest this tone-deafness is a problem for Trump<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n And these are just the most recent episodes in this long-running saga. There were several other incidents before Trump spoke in Davos<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n That includes Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins talking about saving money with backyard chickens and running \u201csimulations\u201d to produce $3 meals that included a \u201cpiece of broccoli\u201d; Trump talking about how Americans could respond to rising prices due to his tariffs by buying children fewer dolls; and billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick assuring that his mother wouldn\u2019t complain about missing a Social Security check.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s as if there\u2019s nobody internally flagging that these kinds of comments risk sounding out of touch. What seems to matter more to the administration is that they echo Trump\u2019s preferred framing that things are, in fact, great.\n <\/p>\n

\n Which might be true for wealthy Americans. But that message hasn\u2019t seemed to convince the rest of America \u2014 and could potentially backfire. Views of the economy have only worsened in recent months, after all.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration accounts for one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the world. And often, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-629438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}