Trump shifts focus to tax cuts, drug prices after elections

Inflation is a weakness for the GOP as voters said last week that the economy is a worry.

- BY JOSH BOAK

PRESIDENT TRUMP stands by after a man fainted Thursday in the Oval Office.

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds AFP)

President Trump is adjusting his messaging strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting inflation.

The messaging is centered on affordability, and the push comes after inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was their biggest concern.

Democrats took advantage of concerns about affordability to run up huge margins in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races, flipping what had been a strength for Trump in the 2024 presidential election into a vulnerability going into next year’s midterm elections.

White House officials and others familiar with their thinking requested anonymity to speak for this article in order to not get ahead of the president’s actions. They stressed that affordability has always been a priority for Trump, but the president plans to talk about it more, as he did Thursday when he announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would reduce the price of their anti-obesity drugs.

"We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the Democrats," Trump said at an event in the Oval Office to announce the deal. "We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s a con job by the Democrats."

The White House is keeping up a steady drumbeat of posts on social media about prices and deals for Thanksgiving dinner staples at retailers such as Walmart, Lidl, Aldi and Target.

"I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now, we're much less," Trump told reporters Thursday, arguing that things are much better for Americans with his party in charge.

"The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it," he said.