The White House may lean on surrogates to drum up support for President Donald Trump’s economic agenda ahead of next year’s midterms, according to a new report, which comes after the president veered off script at a recent rally on affordability.
While many Trump supporters are glad to see him back on the campaign trail, some allies acknowledged the president is an “imperfect messenger” when it comes to his ability to quell voter concerns about the economy, Politico reported.
“I think a lot more domestic events outside of Washington are great. Let’s do more of it,” a former senior adviser to Trump told the outlet. “Unfortunately I just don’t think Trump is temperamentally capable of reversing himself and saying, ‘Yes, affordability is a concern.’ He’s stubborn.”
As a result, people in Trump’s orbit have signaled the White House may begin relying on other messengers — such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice President JD Vance — to address affordability.
The issue has proved a key concern among Americans and a potent motivator in recent elections, helping Democrats romp to victory in a number of states, including Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Republicans, keen on maintaining their majorities in Congress, are now going on the offensive on the issue ahead of the 2026 midterms.
On Tuesday, Trump traveled to Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania — an all-important battleground state — to host a rally centered on the economy.
During a speech meant to assuage concerns about pocketbook pressures, Trump went off script and advocated for austerity. He said American children should be content with “one or two” pencils and “two or three” dolls.
“They have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability,” he said.
Democrats have complained that “prices are too high,” Trump added. “Yeah, they're too high because they caused them to be too high. But now they're coming down.”
Earlier this week, when asked what grade he would give the economy, Trump expressed extreme confidence, saying, “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”
But, recent polls show that most Americans — including many of Trump’s own voters — are indeed feeling squeezed by current economic conditions.
A Politico survey conducted in November found that 46 percent of respondents believe the current cost of living is the worst they can remember. This figure includes 37 percent of Trump 2024 voters and 53 percent of voters who casted their ballots for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
At the same time, nearly half said they struggle to afford groceries, health care, housing, utility bills and transportation. And more than one quarter indicated they’ve gone without a medical appointment in the past two years because of high costs.
“The president would be wise to listen to his smart polling team that is focusing him on this issue,” Kristen Soltis Anderson, a GOP pollster, told the outlet. “He cannot afford to fall into the same trap as the Biden administration, where he feels compelled to tout a supposedly great economy nobody is feeling.”
This concern was shared by a former Trump official, who said the president is in peril of “repeating Biden’s errors, which is telling people things are great when that’s not what they’re feeling.”
However, not all Trump allies share this worry.
For one thing, some said that the president’s description of affordability as a hoax has been misinterpreted. He isn’t brushing aside Americans’ economic pains, but calling out hypocrisy among Democrats who are attempting to “rewrite their own history,” a White House official said.
The administration has also telegraphed optimism that concerns about affordability will ease up in the coming year, when some of his newly implemented policies go into effect — such as the no tax on tips provision in the Big, Beautiful Bill.
There are signs the tide may already turning. A December Reuters poll found that, for the first time since October, Trump’s approval rating has increased to 41 percent, largely as a result of growing support for his handling of the economy.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai told Politico that Trump won the 2024 election “precisely because he understood just how much damage Joe Biden’s economic disaster had inflicted on American families.”
“With inflation having cooled and trillions in investments pouring in, President Trump’s agenda is indeed delivering the booming economy that Americans enjoyed during his first term — and both he and the Administration will continue to underscore the work we are doing to make this happen,” Desai added.
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