President Donald Trump launched into an angry tirade after being confronted about cost-of-living pressures, calling affordability a Democratic “con job” and insisting prices are “way down.”
Days after Democrats won a clean sweep of elections, largely over concerns about the economy, the president was confronted about the issue during a meeting at the White House with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The event began with the 79-year-old president looking and sounding relatively subdued, but the tempo immediately picked up when he was asked about the price of a Thanksgiving dinner from Walmart.
Trump had earlier insisted that Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal would be cheaper this year, which he pointed to as “irrefutable” evidence that Republicans are the party of “affordability.”
However, a reporter noted his glaring omission—that this year’s meal contains fewer items—and asked Trump to explain the disconnect many feel between how he talks about the economy and how Americans feel about it.
After hitting out at the NBC reporter as “fake news,” Trump insisted that people “feel much better,” and that the U.S. has more jobs and more investment “than any other country in history.”
“Affordability, they call it—it was a con job by the Democrats,” he added. “The Democrats are good at two things: cheating on elections and conning people on facts that weren’t true.”
Another reporter then asked Trump about his comments from the night before, at a dinner of Central Asian leaders, when he said he didn’t want to talk about affordability.
“When did I not want to talk about it?” Trump replied. “I talk about it all the time. We are much better than Biden and all of them.”
“Do you remember that Biden had the highest inflation in 48 years?” he asked the reporter.
“Did they have the highest inflation in 48 years? Did they? Just answer me the question! The answer is yes… We have almost no inflation.”
Trump then went on to list other costs that he said were falling, including energy, eggs, and groceries more broadly.
“We did a great job on affordability and groceries. The only problem is the fake news—you people don’t want to report it,” he lamented.
However, according to the Bureau of Labor’s latest data, which was widely reported at the time, the consumer price index rose to 3 per cent in September, with the price of gas, food and energy all up from the following month.
“The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it’s far less expensive under Trump than it was under Sleepy Joe Biden and the prices are way down,” Trump added.
The president’s reaction is emblematic of how sensitive the issue is for Trump, who came to office promising to reduce cost-of-living pressures “from day one.”
But the issue has become politically potent in recent weeks amid a government shutdown that has left countless federal workers without a paycheck and resulted in millions of Americans at risk of losing their food stamps or facing skyrocketing health insurance.
On Friday, the administration also asked an appeals court for an emergency pause on a judge’s order to fully fund SNAP benefits this month.
They argued that due to the shutdown, which they blame on Democrats, there was only enough money to pay partial benefits in November. However, Democrats disagree.
“This is food stamps - this is six bucks a day for the hungry,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal told CNN.
“It’s 42 million Americans across the country that depend on these food stamps.”
The optics of people struggling while the president embarks on lavish White House upgrades and parties at his Mar-a-Lago resort have also left the administration open to widespread criticism and punishment at the ballot box.
This played out on Tuesday, when Democrats gave the president a resounding rebuke by winning elections across the country, including in Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Affordability was central to Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign to be New York City mayor. His ambitious policies included freezing rents on rent-stabilized units, creating city-owned grocery stores, and free city bus services.
It was also a major factor in Abigail Spanberger becoming the first female governor of Virginia, a Commonwealth with high numbers of federal workers affected by the shutdown and Trump’s cutbacks.
