For the Republican campaign team, which is determined to win, Trump always seems to be reading from the wrong page of the economic playbook.
Insiders reveal that White House staff and allies are acutely aware: if Trump cannot focus on the core issue of the cost of living in the coming months, the Republican Party is highly likely to lose control of Congress in this November's midterm elections.
However, keeping the president on task has become a mission impossible. Trump not only habitually goes off on tangents and reacts with fury to poor polling data, but is also easily distracted by flashy so-called "diplomatic victories." As the intense midterm election campaign schedule kicks off, his team must urgently correct this course and prove to voters that the president genuinely cares about their financial well-being.
Trump's instinctive reaction to the issue of high prices is not to solve it, but to deny its very existence.
This disconnect was on full display during Tuesday's event in Iowa. He dismissed voters' concerns about high prices as a "trick" fabricated by Democrats, claiming the responsibility lay entirely with the opposing party.
"This is caused by the worst inflation in history, and then they invented this word 'affordability'," Trump said. "But you don't hear that word anymore, you know why? Because prices have fallen so much they don't want the election to be about low prices."
But the data paints a different picture. In Trump's first year back in the White House (2025), the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 2.7%. While the "tariff inflation shock" warned of by many experts did not fully materialize, the current inflation rate remains above the average of the past decade. Furthermore, the lingering effects of the post-pandemic cost-of-living surge continue to compound, meaning the pressure on ordinary American families has not truly eased.
This "head-in-the-sand" rhetoric from Trump is not new. Last November, after Republicans suffered defeats in several key local elections where livelihood issues were a primary factor, he called the cost-of-living crisis a "hoax."
At the Davos forum in Switzerland last week, where he was supposed to deliver an important speech on "affordable housing," Trump spent most of his time criticizing European allies and discussing Greenland—a classic geopolitical hotspot that might grab international headlines but is meaningless to American voters worried about their next meal.
Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer hit the nail on the head: "For him, prices aren't a 'sexy' topic. He only likes to focus on big, attention-grabbing events, and mundane issues like the cost of groceries obviously don't give him the attention he craves."
Currently, Trump's attention seems to be elsewhere: strikes on Venezuela, ambitions to purchase Greenland, and the recent strong backlash in Minnesota against his immigration policies. Although White House spokespeople insist the president has kept his promise to "fix the economy," highlighting cooling inflation, accelerating GDP, and border security, the public remains unconvinced.
A series of poll numbers are causing anxiety among Republican allies. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll shows that 51% of respondents believe Trump's policies have made life less affordable, with only 24% holding the opposite view.
Trump's team hopes he will make this issue the core of his campaign tour. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles claimed the president would be traveling "weekly" before the midterms. However, a Republican insider revealed that specific plans remain vague, and there is widespread frustration within the party over the White House's obsession with geopolitical crises at the expense of domestic livelihood issues.
Even in Iowa, while Trump made grand promises to farmers and boasted about macroeconomic data, he rarely mentioned the cost of everyday goods. In a restaurant packed with supporters, he briefly mentioned falling prices before quickly pivoting to boast about his immigration record. In an interview with Fox News, when asked about inflation, he even asserted, "We either fixed it, or it's a thing of the past."
Trump likes to talk about energy prices, especially gasoline prices (which hit a five-year low this month), but he ignores a new pain point: the money many families save at the gas pump is immediately swallowed up by higher utility bills.
As the government vigorously promotes energy-intensive AI data centers, coupled with severe cold weather hitting the U.S., surging utility costs have become a new source of anxiety for voters.
Ironically, Trump's current predicament is strikingly similar to that of his predecessor, Biden—it was Biden's inability to quell voter anger over prices that paved the way for Trump's return.
Trump frequently boasts about the S&P 500 index breaking through 7,000 points, proclaiming "America is back." But privately, Republicans worry that his behavior seems "out of touch": he built a lavish ballroom at the White House and frequently travels to his private club in Palm Beach. Choosing to discuss housing issues at the elite gathering in Davos was eyebrow-raising in itself, and Treasury Secretary Besant's suggestion that someone owning "5 to 12 homes" qualifies as a "mom-and-pop" small investor caused an uproar, seen as a sign of being detached from the struggles of ordinary people.
On specific policies to address the cost of living, the White House often lacks detail. Trump has proposed capping credit card interest rates at 10%, but this requires congressional cooperation; an executive order to restrict institutional investors from buying single-family homes lacks follow-up rules. Even the proposal to allow homebuyers to use their 401(k) retirement funds has been watered down due to Trump's own vacillating stance, exposing the arbitrariness of the decision-making process.
All of this gives Democrats confidence about regaining control of the House of Representativesyat, although winning the Senate remains a challenge.
Trump himself cannot hide his fear about the elections. At a closed-door Republican meeting this month, he warned that losing the House could lead to another impeachment. More worryingly for the party, he seems to be preparing excuses for a potential defeat.
"Sitting presidents usually don't do very well in midterm elections," Trump told reporters upon returning from Davos. This statement sounds more like a pre-emptive admission of defeat than a rallying cry for battle.
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