Amna Nawaz:
President Trump is in Rome, Georgia today, talking about affordability and the economy, a theme he’s expected to spotlight again in next week’s State of the Union address.
Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, has more on this and joins us now.
So, Liz, as you have been reporting, the president has been frustrated he’s not getting enough credit when it comes to the economy. That’s why he went to Georgia to talk about this. What did he say?
Liz Landers:
Well, today he was focused on affordability, the economy. This was also a political visit for him. This is a congressional district that’s going to have a special election soon, so kind of several birds with one stone here.
He was touting the stock market. He was touting some signature legislation that has also passed recently.
President Donald Trump:
The great Big Beautiful Bill is basically a tax cut bill. And when you hear the fake Democrats talking about it, like, oh, the great Big Beautiful Bill, they try and mock it, put four years’ worth of goodies into that bill and everybody said it couldn’t be done.
Liz Landers:
The president visited a restaurant there and then he gave that speech at a steel mill in Georgia.
This was his first domestic trip on this issue talking about affordability in the economy since he went to Iowa a few weeks ago. But, Amna, there was some mixed messaging here today. He goes off on tangents when he gives these speeches sometimes, was talking about the operation in Venezuela a few weeks ago at the beginning of the year, also talking about a number of grievances on issues where he doesn’t think he’s getting credit on.
So he still has trouble sometimes sticking directly to the messaging.
Amna Nawaz:
Liz, your reporting has also shown that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, held a sort of unusual closed-door strategy session this week to talk about messaging for the midterms. What do we know about that?
Liz Landers:
Yes, a source who participated in the meeting talked to me about this and said that this was an effort to get Republicans both inside the administration and outside allies on the same message and talking about the same priorities.
This person said that affordability is the number one issue right now for the White House going into the midterm election. Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, talked about this. So did James Blair, who is the deputy chief of staff, and then pollster Tony Fabrizio, who’s worked with the president for a while. They were among the speakers.
And this Republican said that, look, these issues like affordability on energy prices on housing, on health care, fuel prices and groceries, those are sort of the main tenets that they’re focused on right now.
And this person said, the president has now been in office for more than a year, and there are only so many things that he, the president, can blame Biden, his predecessor, on at this point, and recognizing that they need to get out there and sell their affordability message to the American public right now.
And so this was about that kind of coordination, and also, Amna, I would add, getting Cabinet members out on, not the campaign trail, per se, but across the country touting these messages.
Amna Nawaz:
At the same time, we know Democrats have also sort of landed on affordability as one of their primary messages going into the midterms. What do we know about how effective that will be?
Liz Landers:
It probably will be effective, based on polling.
Look, the White House actually doesn’t have bad economic numbers to be touting. The jobs report that came out for January was better than anticipated. Gas prices are dropping in some parts of the country. In Georgia, I was looking at the average price of gas there is $2.71, per AAA, which is lower than it has been in the last year.
The average Georgia resident is also going to save more than $3,000 on their taxes this year from that signature tax bill that passed. That’s according to the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation.
But when you look at the poll numbers of what Americans are actually feeling, FOX News had a poll, found that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s job handling on the economy; 68 percent say that he’s not spending enough time on the economy, so going back to that sort of dual messaging that the White House is dealing with between foreign policy and also domestic issues.
Amna Nawaz:
Meanwhile, we should underscore, it’s February.
Liz Landers:
Yes.
Amna Nawaz:
We’re talking about strategy sessions for messaging around the midterms in November at the White House. Why? Why is it such a concern for them?
Liz Landers:
Because the margins are so slim in Congress. Right now, the Republicans only have a four-seat majority in the House. And, historically, a president loses the midterm elections.
President Trump experienced that in 2018. Republicans lost 40 House seats in that election. And that also gave Democrats the power to then set into motion some of those impeachment trials, which we know President Trump is already thinking about.
He has said in a few speeches recently to Republicans that you have got to win the midterms, because, if we don’t win the midterms, it’s going to be — I mean, they’re going to find a reason to impeach me.
So we know that this is sort of a concern of President Trump’s right now. And also, if Democrats win control, they can do a number of other things. They could stall other kinds of legislative priorities for the White House and also investigate the Trump administration.
Amna Nawaz:
That’s our White House correspondent, Liz Landers.
Liz, thank you.
Liz Landers:
Of course.
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