Trump gifts Dems ready-made midterm ads
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President Trump has been on a roll of rhetorical missteps that could come back to bite Republicans in the midterms.
Why it matters: Trump has served up a platter of ready-made campaign ads to Democrats, suggesting he's fine with rising prices and unconcerned about Americans' financial struggles.
Driving the news: Trump delivered three eye-popping quotes in the span of a month:
- "I don't think about Americans' financial situation," he said on May 12.
- Two weeks later, on May 27, Trump said, "I don't care about the midterms."
- And when Trump was asked Wednesday about the latest inflation numbers showing a 4.2% rise in prices, he responded, "I love the inflation."
The big picture: Michael Kinsley famously defined a gaffe as "when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."
- Trump's gaffes revealed something different: not an inconvenient truth, but the truth as he wishes it to be.
Zoom in: The first came in mid-May, when Trump said, "I don't think about Americans' financial situation." His point was that he wouldn't let domestic financial pain prevent him from stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But that nuance is likely to be lost in the heat of campaign season.
- "The president could have chosen different words, but this is what he thinks," a Trump adviser told Axios at the time. Two days later, Trump told Fox News it was "a perfect statement. I'd make it again."
- Trump's "I don't care about the midterms" remark came as he argued against letting Iran exploit the U.S. political calendar as leverage in the war.
- In the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump was asked about inflation hitting a three-year high. "You know what I really love? I love the inflation," he said, before predicting that prices would drop "like a rock" once the war in Iran is over.
Between the lines: Trump's remarks — and his refusal to walk them back — show how consumed he is with winning the war, no matter the political cost to congressional Republicans.
- The party has pleaded for him to turn his attention to cost-of-living issues, but Trump has made clear that Iran is his priority.
The context: Compounding the problem for Republicans, Trump has pushed for hundreds of millions of dollars for a White House ballroom and $1.8 billion for an "anti-weaponization" fund that could've benefited people who participated in the Jan. 6 attacks.
- The bipartisan pushback to both ideas revealed how hard they were for Republicans to defend.
By the numbers: Just 29% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while 63% disapprove — his worst numbers on the issue in either term, according to an Economist/YouGov poll out this week.
- Even at his 2023 low, former President Biden's economic approval never fell below 39%, according to the same Economist/YouGov polling — 10 points above where Trump sits now.
The other side: Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday that he meant to say that he loved that inflation wasn't higher.
- "Despite the fact that we're in a war, the numbers are much lower than anticipated, and when we're out of that war, the numbers will be at lower numbers than they were even before it started," he said.
- "Delivering economic relief for the American people has been a Day One priority for the Trump administration," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, pointing to tax cuts and drug pricing deals.
The bottom line: Congressional Republicans are focused on winning an election. Trump is focused on winning a war.
