With the 2026 midterms less than six months away and President Donald Trump suffering from persistently low approval ratings in countless polls, some GOP lawmakers have a warning for members of their party: voters are angry. A CNN/SSRS poll released on May 12 found that only 30 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy — and almost 70 percent fear the United States will go into a recession in the next year.
According to Politico reporters Jordain Carney and Meredith Lee Hill, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and other GOP lawmakers are urging fellow lawmakers to be more proactive about the economy — especially inflation.
"Americans are furious about the rising cost of living, and a series of internal battles on Capitol Hill this week is laying bare why Republicans are struggling to do anything about it," Carney and Hill report. "House and Senate Republicans are facing divisions over a gas-tax holiday being demanded by President Donald Trump, not to mention housing and energy permitting bills that have stalled for months…. The scale of the political challenges facing Republicans were further underscored Tuesday with the administration's latest cost estimate for the Iran war surpassing $29 billion and a brutal inflation report showing gas, grocery and housing prices surging last month amid the conflict."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Politico that the look is "not good" when Trump continues to push for a lavish White House ballroom while Americans are struggling with high gas prices.
Hawley told Politico, "I don't know that the Congress is doing a whole lot — that's the real issue. My advice to Congress would be, it might be good for us to do something on cost of living.… It seems like voters are making it very clear that they want some relief."
Trump is calling for a gas tax holiday, but Sens. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Jim Justice (R-Virginia) aren't impressed.
Justice likened the proposal to "taking aspirin for cancer," and Paul told Politico, "I think instead of suspending the tax, we should suspend the war."