{"id":36154,"date":"2025-12-06T09:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T09:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=36154"},"modified":"2025-12-06T09:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T09:59:55","slug":"trump-campaigned-on-affordability-now-hes-calling-the-idea-a-con-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=36154","title":{"rendered":"Trump Campaigned on Affordability. Now He\u2019s Calling the Idea a \u2018Con Job.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has promised not only that America will be \u201cgreat again\u201d but also that it will be \u201chealthy again,\u201d \u201cwealthy again,\u201d \u201cbeautiful again,\u201d and\u2014crucially\u2014\u201caffordable again.\u201d Now, as the country faces persistent inflation, a housing crisis, and rising prices on consumer goods, he claims that affordability is nothing more than a \u201ccon job,\u201d an opportunistic buzzword leveraged by a rival party. \u201cThe word affordability is a Democrat scam,\u201d he said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Incoming presidents don\u2019t get to pick the economy they inherit, but they can only credibly blame their predecessors for so long. In a Fox News poll last month, almost twice as many respondents said that Trump, not Joe Biden, is responsible for current economic conditions. Per new polling from Politico, 46 percent of Americans say the cost of living in the United States is the worst they can remember it being, and 46 percent think Trump is to blame for those high costs. The trend isn\u2019t entirely new; voters have blamed Trump for the economy throughout the year. As frustration persists, the president is pointing fingers at the Democrats, but he can\u2019t dispute the data.<\/p>\n

Americans now face both a weakening dollar and stagnant income levels. Trump\u2019s surprise implementation of punitive tariffs this summer ended up making all sorts of goods, including clothing and beef, more expensive. Meanwhile, millions have left the country (voluntarily or not) amid the administration\u2019s crackdown on immigration, according to the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s estimates. This exodus, combined with a reduction in newcomers, has the potential to harm local economies.<\/p>\n

Trump has tried conflicting strategies to deal with voter frustration. He has a tendency to invoke the previous administration when things go wrong\u2014at the start of his term, he said Biden\u2019s name an average of six times a day, often to fault him for the economy or immigration issues. But during a recent meeting with New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, the president appeared to check his impulse to vilify Dems, beaming over Mamdani\u2019s proposals to fix the cost-of-living crisis. \u201cSome of his ideas really are the same ideas I have,\u201d Trump said: \u201cThe new word is affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

About a week later, he dubbed himself the \u201cAFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT\u201d on Truth Social. But again, that only lasted so long: Affordability actually \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean anything to anybody,\u201d he said on Tuesday. Next week, he\u2019ll pivot once more as he sets off on a national tour to assuage voters\u2019 concerns about the economy and inflation.<\/p>\n

Sentiments about a president\u2019s approach to the economy usually carry over to the incumbent party\u2014and at the moment, Trump\u2019s relative unpopularity is Democrats\u2019 gain. The party has jumped at the chance to pummel Trump on affordability, which proved to be a winning issue in recent elections: The cost-of-living rhetoric that catapulted Mamdani to victory in New York City also helped two other Democrats win important races last month. The political scientist Lynn Vavreck told me yesterday that when Trump downplays the issue, he risks repeating some of what led to George H. W. Bush\u2019s downfall in 1992: Bush lost that election to Bill Clinton in large part because his optimism about the economy failed to connect with voters\u2019 reality. Biden suffered from a similar disconnect\u2014and the same problem is creeping up on Trump ahead of the midterms.<\/p>\n

Approval ratings for a president\u2019s first year in a new term often benefit from what the economic historian Robert J. Gordon calls the \u201choneymoon effect\u201d\u2014a bump that isn\u2019t neatly explained by anything other than voters\u2019 inclination to give leaders time to warm up. But by the time midterm season rolls around, voters tend to be less forgiving. Ten months into Trump\u2019s presidency, the polling is starting to track a similar pattern: His approval ratings started at 47 percent and have since slipped to 36 percent (thanks to more than just affordability). Trump has been known to bounce back. But if the honeymoon is ending, that\u2019s one thing he can\u2019t blame Biden for.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/p>\n

Here are three new stories from The Atlantic:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s News<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The CDC\u2019s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 8\u20133 to end the long-standing recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis-B shot at birth. For babies born to a virus-negative mother, parents can decide \u201cwhen or if\u201d to vaccinate; the panel recommends that the first dose be given two months after birth if parents choose to vaccinate.<\/li>\n
  2. The 2026 World Cup draw took place at the Kennedy Center, where President Donald Trump was awarded the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize.<\/li>\n
  3. The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Trump\u2019s effort to end birthright citizenship is constitutional; arguments are expected to begin in April, and a decision is expected by late June.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Dispatches<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Explore all of our newsletters here.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Evening Read<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Illustration by Ben Kothe \/ The Atlantic<\/p>\n

    No NFL Game Has Ever Ended in a Score of 36\u201323<\/p>\n

    By Josh Levin<\/p>\n

    There was no good reason to be thinking about NFL history when the Dallas Cowboys took on the Las Vegas Raiders a couple of weeks ago. Neither team had a winning record at the time, and the score was never close after halftime. But as the game stretched on that Monday night, the sportswriter and video maker Jon Bois sensed that something unprecedented could be afoot. \u201cI glanced up and realized 36\u201323 was very much in play,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

    Bois is the mind behind \u201cScorigami,\u201d a term he defines as \u201cthe act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Read the full article.<\/p>\n

    More From The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n

    Culture Break<\/p>\n

    Take a look. Here are the top 25 news photos from 2025, according to our photo editor, Alan Taylor.<\/p>\n

    Watch. Stranger Things (on Netflix) is back for a final season, but its brand is forever, Sophie Gilbert writes.<\/p>\n

    Play our daily crossword.<\/p>\n

    Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.<\/p>\n

    When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. President Donald Trump has promised not only that America will be \u201cgreat again\u201d but also that it will be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1227,6266,16415,6498,1025,2669,779,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-36154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-affordability","9":"tag-calling","10":"tag-campaigned","11":"tag-con","12":"tag-hes","13":"tag-idea","14":"tag-job","15":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}