U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he and Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 7, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein
National Review senior political correspondent Jim Geraghty says there are people in the White House crafting “a solid, fact-based message” on rising inflation concerns. But President Donald Trump isn’t one of them.
“When Trump talks about the economy, he prefers to insist that the problems are already solved,” said Geraghty, citing Trump boasting of a “golden age of America” at a November summit and claiming to have “stopped inflation in its tracks” in the nine months since he took office.
But this is not the reality for many Americans, said Geraghty, adding that in November, Americans “metaphorically grabbed candidates by the lapels and shook them, screaming that the cost of living was still too high, and they felt squeezed in every direction, month after month.”
“So, no, this is not a great time for the president to contend that gas prices are close to two dollars a gallon, or that we’re living in a golden age, or that ‘affordability’ is some new word, or that inflation has been stopped in its tracks, or that ‘prices are coming down and all of that stuff,’” Geraghty said. “It’s been a long time since President Trump pumped his own gas or shopped for his own groceries, if he ever has.”
Geraghty admitted that there are Americans out there “who voted for Donald Trump because they really wanted to see Jim Comey and Tish James punished,” as well as Trump voters who want to see the Pentagon investigate and punish Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for advising members of the military to ignore unlawful orders.
“But the number of Americans with those attitudes is dwarfed by the number of Americans who voted for Trump because they thought he would make the cost of living more manageable,” said Garaghty.
According to 2024 exit polls, 22 percent of Americans said inflation had caused their family ‘severe hardship.’ This group split in favor of Trump, 76 percent to 23 percent, said Garaghty. Fifty-three percent said inflation had caused their family “moderate hardship,” and this group split in favor of Trump, 52 percent to 46 percent. Only 24 percent of respondents said inflation had caused their family no hardship, and this group split in favor of Kamala Harris, 78 percent to 21 percent.
“If the Republicans head into the midterm elections with a president who keeps insisting the economy is doing terrific and the cost of living is manageable, when the American public strongly disagrees, the GOP is going to get absolutely shellacked,” Geraghty said
Read the National Review report at this link.