Dem
47
GOP
53
Presidents generally like to be upbeat. Herbert Hoover promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Ronald Reagan talked about morning in America. During his campaign, Donald Trump promised a golden age if he won. In his final campaign rally, in Michigan, he said: "Your paychecks will be higher, your streets will be safer and cleaner, your communities will be richer, and your future as an American will be much better than it ever has been when I get in." Things are definitely not going his way and he is now changing his tune and trying to prepare his supporters for the worst. No more lowering prices on Day 1 or deporting 11 million immigrants. He is warning that the road ahead will be bumpy.
All of a sudden Trump is talking about sacrifice, something Americans are not keen on unless there is a popular war going on. He is talking about the need to "take your medicine" in order to have a bright future sometime in the indefinite future. He seems to be convinced bad times are ahead and wants to steel people for them.
It might not work. Marc Short, Mike Pence's former chief of staff, said: "I don't think it will resonate very well. I think it's particularly optically difficult when the president is earning a billion dollars in crypto while asking Americans to cut back on toys and products for kids. That seems like a disconnect to me." Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, said: "This feels tone-deaf to me. This is, 'You're too materialistic. You don't need as many dollars as you think.' And he's a very strange messenger for that message, and I don't think it's going to sell."
In his Meet the Press interview with Kristen Welker, Trump upped the doll count. At first he said little girls might have to do with two dolls for Christmas instead of 30. However, he told Welker: "I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China." It is completely tone-deaf. People who can't put food on the table and who are struggling to save enough to buy one doll for their daughter (or son) for their birthday or Christmas aren't going to like hearing that they will have to make do with three or four dolls to punish China. And if the tariffs stay up long enough, the shelves in toy stores will be bare and there will be no dolls for sale at all. Trump made it even worse by comparing the U.S. to a department store and himself to the owner of it. He said: "And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I'll say, If you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay." After that, how is he going to blame the economy on Joe Biden? Biden doesn't own the department store. Trump does.
Cabinet members are echoing his gloom and doom. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins told Fox that people could beat high egg prices by raising chickens in their backyard. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CBS News that a recession would be "worth it." Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent gave a speech at the Economic Club of New York saying that the American Dream was not about "access to cheap goods." How will ordinary folks barely making it (or not) respond to a cabinet full of millionaires and billionaires telling them they will have to make do with less while Trump is trying to ram a big tax cut for his billionaire buddies through Congress? (V)