In his first year, President Donald Trump claimed that the affordability crisis was nothing more than a "Democrat hoax." Now, that the so-called hoax is tearing apart his 2024 coalition of voters that ensured his election.
The New York Times spoke with eastern Pennsylvania voters who cast their ballots for Trump but now feel like the post-pandemic recovery has not only stopped, but is going in the opposite direction.
Democrats, Trump said in his 2026 State of the Union Address, “suddenly discovered” the word “affordability." He accused them of having “weaponized” the term and declared that their affordability claims were a “dirty, rotten lie,” insisting that the economy was actually “roaring” and that voters’ struggles were not his doing.
Speaking to the Times, mortgage loan officer Carmen Dancsecs said that she knows a few people who are Republicans, but they abandoned MAGA amid the financial disaster. She said she calls them "closet people."
William Bonilla, however, is not one of those in the closet. The retired forklift operator and GOP voter is furious.
"On his porch in Allentown, he ticked off what he saw as the administration’s mistakes, the immigration raids, the war with Iran," the report said.
“He was saying, ‘Oh, things are going to get better, and prices are going to go lower,’” Bonilla recalled, “and then you go and start a freaking war!”
“I was like, wow, he really took us for a ride there. I hate getting taken," complained Bonilla.
Francis Amigo blames the Iran war, but he has "mixed emotions," after voting to support Trump three times.
“Sometimes it seems like maybe he’s overdoing it, like shoot first and ask questions later,” he said. “But at least he’s doing something," said the 63-year-old loading dock worker.
Trump is still unconcerned. He was asked whether he takes the Americans' financial situation into account when considering how to end the Iran war.
“Not even a little bit," he said when asked if he considered Americans' financial situations while deciding Iran policy.
A Nov. 2025 report by the New York Times revealed that just six months ago, Trump snapped at his aides, “I don’t want to hear about the affordability!"
A month later, after denying the problem exists, Trump told a Pennsylvania crowd that Democrats caused the problem. “They caused the high prices, and we’re bringing them down," he claimed.
Now, as the November election quickly approaches, Trump has made it clear that the problem he said didn't exist will quickly be resolved as soon as the Iran war is finished.
“When the war ends, gasoline prices are going to tumble," Trump said in late April as gas approached an average of $4.39.
Trump said in 2024 that he would "bring your cost of energy down by 50 percent."
