LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Donald Trump made rising costs a central theme of his 2024 presidential campaign. Here he is during a campaign rally last year.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Under Kamala Harris and crooked Joe Biden, the American dream is dead. You don't hear about the American dream anymore. It's dead. Their radical liberal policies have caused horrific inflation, decimated the middle class and gutted the finances of millions and millions of American families.
FADEL: But 11 months into Trump's second term, consumer prices are rising, and he's trying to distance himself from the problem.
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TRUMP: Just about everything is down. You know, this whole thing is - they use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax. They're the ones that drove the prices up.
FADEL: How's that message playing with voters, and could it be a problem for Republicans in the midterms? Let's talk about it with Republican strategist Brendan Buck. He's a partner in the consulting firm Seven Letter and previously worked as a staffer for two former House speakers, Paul Ryan and John Boehner. Good morning.
BRENDAN BUCK: Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So the president campaigned on affordability. Then from the White House, he's calling it a Democratic hoax, but at the same time, blaming higher prices on Democrats. How's that going to play with voters?
BUCK: Yeah. Messaging on the economy is always hard because you're confronting people's experiences every day and trying to - especially when you're trying to tell them something that is different than what they feel. So it takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of discipline. I think the challenge for this White House is that this is a president who seems very not-bought-into this idea that it is even a problem. And they can send him to Pennsylvania, and they can put the right talking points in the teleprompter. But if he doesn't actually believe it, I think it's going to be hard for them to continue to make a difference on people - how people feel about it. All it takes is one or two more lines like that - that this is a hoax or a con job - and Democrats are going to be able to take this issue away from him. And, like, as you said, it's the issue that he won the election on.
FADEL: So you mentioned Pennsylvania. He's expected to talk about high costs at a rally later today. What should he tell Americans? I mean, you're saying he doesn't even believe there is an affordability issue.
BUCK: Well, one of the things that Donald Trump was always very good at, and polls showed this, is that he had - was better than most Republicans at empathy. People felt like he was actually fighting for them. And that was an issue where polls showed that Donald Trump cared more about people than the Democratic Party. And that's something that Republicans had always struggled with, and that was an advantage that he took. And now I think he's squandering that away. It certainly doesn't feel empathetic when he's telling people that their issue is a con job.
At the same time, people don't see him focusing on this issue every day. You know, they're talking about a few of these economic issues now, but most of this administration has been spent focusing on economic or, excuse me, foreign policy issues, or even some trivial issues. I mean, people look up and see him working on the - a ballroom or hosting Kennedy Center Honors, and that doesn't project a message that you are laser-focused on the thing that they care about. So they need to talk about it. They need to put policies in place. I would start with the tariffs. Getting rid of those would be, I think, a huge start. But I'm not holding my breath that he's going to give up on what he considers one of his signature policy achievements.
FADEL: Is this president making the same mistake as President Biden, trying to convince Americans that affordability - that what they're feeling is not really what they're feeling? The economy's good. Affordability isn't an issue.
BUCK: Clearly. And we've seen what happens with voters when you do that. Voters will take it out on the party in power. I mean, I think every party suffers from this a little bit, where you get elected and you think that you were elected based on everybody loving all of your ideas, when in reality, they - it was really more likely just a rejection of the previous administration and what they did. Voters will take it out on you if you do not make their lives feel better. And right now it's very clear that the president has squandered his polling on the economy. And it would be one thing if there really was a bright light at the end of the tunnel here, if there was something coming next year that we could reliably think is going to make people feel better. I'm just not convinced that the One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax act that they did last - this past year, is actually going to change people's feelings going into next year. So, yeah, it's a huge problem.
FADEL: So is this lane that the Democrats now own politically, messaging-wise with voters, because they're not in power? We saw that work really well in elections this year for Democrats like New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's race.
BUCK: Yeah. And it's as simple as you said - just not being in power. I mean, sometimes we overthink these things, that Democrats need a 10-point plan of how they're going to lower inflation. I think that is good to have if they have it. But as a matter of pure politics, simply being the out party and the party out of power and saying that the people in charge aren't getting it done is really powerful. That's what happened with Joe Biden. He was in charge. It was on his watch. Didn't solve the problem. And Donald Trump will probably meet the same fate in the midterms if he faces the same situation. You've been in charge for a year, or two years by the time the midterms comes around, and you haven't solved the problem. It's as simple as that. And people will swing to the other party unless they feel like you are addressing their core concerns.
FADEL: Brendan Buck is a Republican strategist with the firm Seven Letter. Thank you so much for your time.
BUCK: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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