Trump is ramping up a new effort to convince a skeptical public he can
fix affordability worries
[November 08, 2025] By
JOSH BOAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is adjusting his messaging
strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living
with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting
inflation.
The messaging is centered around affordability, and the push comes after
inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in
Tuesday's elections, in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was
their biggest concern.
Democrats took advantage of concerns about affordability to run up huge
margins in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races, flipping what had
been a strength for Trump in the 2024 presidential election into a
vulnerability going into next year's midterm elections.
White House officials and others familiar with their thinking requested
anonymity to speak for this article in order to not get ahead of the
president's actions. They stressed that affordability has always been a
priority for Trump, but the president plans to talk about it more, as he
did Thursday when he announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would
reduce the price of their anti-obesity drugs.
“We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the
Democrats,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office to announce the
deal. “We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s
a con job by the Democrats.”
The White House is keeping up a steady drumbeat of posts on social media
about prices and deals for Thanksgiving dinner staples at retailers such
as Walmart, Lidl, Aldi and Target.
“I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now, we’re
much less,” Trump told reporters Thursday, arguing that things are much
better for Americans with his party in charge.
“The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it," he said.
The outlook for inflation is unclear
As of now, the inflation outlook has worsened under Trump. Consumer
prices in September increased at an annual rate of 3%, up from 2.3% in
April, when the president first began to roll out substantial tariff
hikes that suddenly burdened the economy with uncertainty. The AP Voter
Poll showed the economy was the leading issue in Tuesday's elections in
New Jersey, Virginia, New York City and California.
Grocery prices continue to climb, and recently, electricity bills have
emerged as a new worry. At the same time, the pace of job gains has
slowed, plunging 23% from the pace a year ago.
The White House maintains a list of talking points about the economy,
noting that the stock market has hit record highs multiple times and
that the president is attracting foreign investment. Trump has
emphasized that gasoline prices are coming down, and maintained that
gasoline is averaging $2 a gallon, but AAA reported Thursday that the
national average was $3.08, about two cents lower than a year ago.
“Americans are paying less for essentials like gas and eggs, and today
the Administration inked yet another drug pricing deal to deliver
unprecedented health care savings for everyday Americans,” said White
House spokesman Kush Desai.
Trump gets briefed about the economy by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
and other officials at least once a week and there are often daily
discussions on tariffs, a senior White House official said, noting Trump
is expected to do more domestic travel next year to make his case that
he’s fixing affordability.
But critics say it will be hard for Trump to turn around public
perceptions on affordability.
“He’s in real trouble and I think it’s bigger than just cost of living,”
said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a
liberal economic advocacy group.
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President Donald Trump speaks during an event about drug prices,
Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House in
Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
 Owens noted that Trump has “lost his
strength” as voters are increasingly doubtful about Trump's economic
leadership compared to Democrats, adding that the president doesn't
have the time to turn around public perceptions of him as he
continues to pursue broad tariffs.
New hype about income tax cuts ahead of April
There will be new policies rolled out on affordability, a person
familiar with the White House thinking said, declining to comment on
what those would be. Trump on Thursday indicated there will be more
deals coming on drug prices. Two other White House officials said
messaging would change — but not policy.
A big part of the administration's response on affordability will be
educating people ahead of tax season about the role of Trump’s
income tax cuts in any refunds they receive in April, the person
familiar with planning said. Those cuts were part of the sprawling
bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July.
This individual stressed that the key challenge is bringing prices
down while simultaneously having wages increase, so that people can
feel and see any progress.
There's also a bet that the economy will be in a healthier place in
six months. With Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's term ending
in May, the White House anticipates the start of consistent cuts to
the Fed's benchmark interest rate. They expect inflation rates to
cool and declines in the federal budget deficit to boost sentiment
in the financial markets.
But the U.S. economy seldom cooperates with a president’s
intentions, a lesson learned most recently by Trump’s predecessor,
Democrat Joe Biden, who saw his popularity slump after inflation
spiked to a four-decade high in June 2022.
The Trump administration maintains it's simply working through an
inflation challenge inherited from Biden, but new economic research
indicates Trump has created his own inflation challenge through
tariffs.
Since April, Harvard University economist Alberto Cavallo and his
colleagues, Northwestern University’s Paola Llamas and Universidad
de San Andres’ Franco Vazquez, have been tracking the impact of the
import taxes on consumer prices.
In an October paper, the economists found that the inflation rate
would have been drastically lower at 2.2%, had it not been for
Trump's tariffs.
The administration maintains that tariffs have not contributed to
inflation. They plan to make the case that the import taxes are
helping the economy and dismiss criticisms of the import taxes as
contributing to inflation as Democratic talking points.
The fate of Trump's country-by-country tariffs is currently being
decided by the Supreme Court, where justices at a Wednesday hearing
seemed dubious over the administration's claims that tariffs were
essentially regulations and could be levied by a president without
congressional approval. Trump has maintained at times that foreign
countries pay the tariffs and not U.S. citizens, a claim he backed
away from slightly Thursday.
“They might be paying something,” he said. “But when you take the
overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously.”
_____
Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Michelle L. Price
contributed to this report.
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