Trump spent the week making a bold case about a booming U.S. economy with even better times ahead, as his economic policies kick in. The problem for Trump is that polls show a wide swath of Americans aren’t feeling that optimism yet — and in his initial attempts at addressing the cost of living, he called the affordability issue a Democratic “hoax.”
Hoping to tackle the messaging disconnect, the White House rolled out a $12 billion farmer aid package and sent Trump to Pennsylvania this week to make his case.
Trump has frequently shown himself a strong economic messenger — winning reelection in 2024 by lambasting Joe Biden’s economy. But one year into his presidency, Trump is struggling to convince Americans that the economic pain they see in their cost-of-living expenses isn’t real.


The only messages Trump has are lies and bigotry, and even his supporters aren’t buying his lies anymore. Normalizing his demented horseshit as some kind of coherent economic message is how we got to where we are today.