Transcription
Where President Trump continues to talk about the issue of affordability and its role in last Tuesday's elections. He hit on the topic multiple times yesterday during an Oval Office event on lowering costs for weight loss drugs. He also said several times this week that Walmart's Thanksgiving meal will be cheaper than it was last year.
"So Walmart to me, you know, that's AAA came out that nobody going to influence them. I don't know them, but they just came out with a very powerful statement. They've done it for many years. Uh that under the Biden administration Thanksgiving meal, a Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings cost uh 25% more. In other words, our Thanksgiving this year coming up will cost 25% less than sleepy Joe Biden's. Now, to me, that's better than anything there is. I was uh angry last night with the Republicans. They say, "You don't talk about this stuff. Nobody talks about it." You know, I rely on a question from a reporter to get that out. We should be talking about it because uh they talk about affordability. They don't have affordability. What the Democrats do is they lie. We are the ones that have done great on affordability. They've done horribly on affordability. The only thing is they go out and they took they take commercials. Now, uh, under the Democrats, you have affordability. It's just the opposite. We have much lower prices than they do. And we only have one thing, beef, because the cattle ranches are doing well. We're going to bring the beef prices down, and they understand that, even if we have to help them out. But the beef also is not a big difference. But every price is down. The biggest price is energy. We're at almost $2 for gasoline."
Okay, maybe I'm an armchair psychologist, but the president didn't sound particularly happy there, sounding a little frustrated with things. And it's worth a quick fact check on that Walmart promotion. As ABC News points out, this year's bundle of Thanksgiving meal from Walmart has fewer items, 15 compared to 21, and a higher percentage of store brand items, which cost less. So, overall bundle costing less, but there's less in it, too.
On the topic of groceries, prices in September are about 2.7% higher than they were last year and about 1.4% higher than they were in January when Mr. Trump took office. That's all according to the most recent consumer price index figures. Meanwhile, the national average for a gallon of gas is $3.38 according to AAA. That's only 2 cents lower than this time last year.
John, it's so interesting to hear President Trump have to deal with exactly what Joe Biden had to deal with. Trying to tell the American public that the economy is doing well when the American public is feeling that the economy is doing badly and that prices are high. I mean, it just sounds like exactly. Maybe he should give him a call and get some tips because it sounds like the two men are having to deal with the same issue.
The odds of that phone call slim, Caddy. Um, I think that uh, but there's no question it's a similar tone for President Trump. It's just not what Americans are feeling right now and and and and to to sort of be exist almost in a denial, Sam Stein about how affordability is this was the central issue on Tuesday. I'm going to read from uh to you uh a post from our colleague Chris Hayes on X the everything site. He says, "Trump saying I don't want to hear about affordability is in Chris's estimation a real gift." Chris writes usually he meaning Trump exists outside the realm and logic of gaffs but that one's going to get a lot of play and I think he's right that the idea that Trump is just being dismissive affordability now we've already solved that that's simply not what Americans think.
Yeah. And there's this there's this idea in politics that you just don't want to feel or present yourself as out of touch with voters. Right. The whole "I feel your pain" idea that Bill Clinton popularized. This is the exact opposite of it. It's "You don't have pain. I solved your pain." Uh and I don't really think that translates. I mean, who knows what I know, right? But, uh, for a lot of Americans, obviously, uh, I mean, look at any polls. It's not just that they feel like, uh, their situation is, uh, bad economically. It's that they feel like Donald Trump has worsened their situation. And they look at the tariffs and they say, "Well, that's not really help matters." They look at the cost of groceries. They say, "What's going on?" They look at the cost of gas. They say, "It's not down that much." And here he is saying he's reduced everything. So, it's deeply out of touch. And then I'll go back last I can't get over it because it's so absurd. But to do all this while your family is profiting uh from a cryptocurrency, while you have wealthy donors giving to your gilded ballroom, and while your ex best pal Elon Musk gets a trillion I just like a trillion dollar pay package, the juxtaposition is just insane. And I don't know why he doesn't see it. Usually his instincts are a little bit better than this, but he doesn't see it.
Now, Trump always exists in a sort of denial, but actually someone made this point to me uh that I will repeat here that every president of course lives in a bit of a bubble. That's how it works. But this one, Trump in particular this time around, Trump 2.0, so insular. He doesn't travel the country anymore. He doesn't do hold rallies. He does he very rarely holds events outside of Washington. He does some foreign travel to be sure, but very little domestic. He wasn't on the campaign trail at all. He's not talking to local officials. He's not talking to Republicans. I mean, he never was one for the rope line, but he's not hearing from voters. And even social media, when he was on Twitter, he'd at least would, I'm told, would see things from other people and sometimes it would make him mad, but he'd be exposed to other points of view. Now that he's only on Truth Social, which is just his acolytes, he's not getting that either. He is remarkably uh locked in his own little world right now and remarkably out of touch.