LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Trump told a rally crowd in Pennsylvania Tuesday night that he has no higher priority than making America affordable again.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They caused the high prices, and we're bringing them down. It's a simple message.
(CHEERING)
TRUMP: If I had one message tonight - you know, this is being covered, like all over the world. This is crazy, 'cause I haven't made a speech in a little while. You know, when you win, you say, oh, I can now rest.
FADEL: He talked about a whole lot of other things, too.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here to help us decipher what the president had to say. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So did the president have some new message or some policy prescriptions for Americans who are upset about the high cost of living?
KEITH: The banners on the stage said, lower prices, bigger paychecks. And that was the message in essence. Trump insists prices are coming down and brought up on the stage a handful of people who stand to benefit from the tax cuts he signed into law earlier this year. There were no new policies and not a lot of new material, but if you go to see the Village People, you'd be disappointed not to hear "Y.M.C.A." So Trump spent much of this 90-minute speech going through the greatest hits, talking about how members of his Cabinet are straight out of central casting, denigrating Somali immigrants, weaving all over the place, joking about how it would be boring if he stuck to the teleprompter, and occasionally making it back to the economy.
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TRUMP: Lower prices, bigger paychecks. We're getting inflation, we're crushing it. And you're getting much higher wages. I mean, the only thing that's really going up, big, it's called the stock market, and your 401(k) is going up.
MARTIN: OK. That might be true. Stock values are up. But a lot of people, actually, more than a third of Americans, don't have money in the stock market.
KEITH: Yeah. And as our friends at marketplace always say, the stock market is not the economy. A recent Fox News poll found three-quarters of voters view the economy negatively, and 2-to-1, they blame Trump for the current economy rather than former President Biden. The economy used to be Trump's strength, but at the moment, it's a major weakness, and Democrats are certainly making the most of it. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro posted on social media that Trump spent his speech, quote, "telling Pennsylvanians not to believe what they can see with their own two eyes - the skyrocketing cost of living and rising prices at the grocery store."
MARTIN: So how is the president squaring the sour mood that voters are in with his pitch that he has ushered in a golden age for this country?
KEITH: He's not really. Take this from an interview he did this week with Politico's Dasha Burns.
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DASHA BURNS: I wonder what grade you would give your economy.
TRUMP: A-plus.
BURNS: A-plus?
TRUMP: Yeah. A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.
KEITH: You know, Trump typically has strong instincts for appealing to his base, but he does risk looking out of touch here.
MARTIN: And how does he respond when confronted with those concerns?
KEITH: Last night, yet again, he mocked the preoccupation with affordability.
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TRUMP: They have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability.
KEITH: He says that he inherited a mess. In other words, don't blame me, blame the former guy. And he says things are already cheaper. In particular, he talks a lot about gas prices. According to GasBuddy, prices are down about 8 cents on average a gallon from a year ago. But that's not really enough savings to make up for higher grocery prices and utility bills and health care costs.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thank you.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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