Trump’s Top Advisers Wage Campaign to Shift His Focus to High Prices

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WASHINGTON—Just before President Trump left the White House for Thanksgiving, top aides met with him in his private dining room to discuss inflation and the economy in hopes he would calibrate his message on affordability.

In another meeting last month, this time in the Oval Office, aides presented Trump with surveys from one of the president’s own pollsters detailing voters’ concerns about the cost of living. His team has begun showing him social-media posts that illustrate how Americans view the economy. Top aides have taken turns talking to their boss about his economic messaging—and the need to emphasize what voters are feeling. Almost every senior White House official is involved in the effort.

It is part of an across-the-White House bid to change Trump’s messaging on the economy, as many advisers worry that voters’ concerns about high prices are dragging down his presidency and hurting Republicans, according to people familiar with the matter. In conversations in recent weeks, Trump’s advisers have encouraged the president to talk more about what the administration is doing to increase wages, lower the cost of housing and reduce inflation, the people said.

So far, Trump has largely avoided any “I feel your pain” messaging, telling aides that the economy is strong. And he has dismissed Washington’s focus on affordability as a trap set by Democrats intent on papering over the administration’s economic achievements. In many of the private conversations, the people said, Trump has argued that former President Joe Biden was responsible for inflation, not him.

“There is this fake narrative Democrats talk about. Affordability. They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody,” Trump said during a meeting with his cabinet secretaries at the White House this week. “The word ‘affordability’ is a con job by the Democrats.”

The behind-the-scenes effort to press Trump to talk about affordability has been unfolding for weeks, and it started even before Republicans faced greater-than-expected losses in last month’s elections, the people said.

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Economic growth by its broadest measure has been solid since Trump took office, but job growth has been tepid and the unemployment rate has edged up. Inflation has remained stuck around 3%. In surveys, consumers have signaled deep concern about costs and scarcer job opportunities.

White House aides are reorienting some of Trump’s public events to focus on costs. They are planning economy-focused speeches around the country in early 2026, the people said, and they are making plans to shift to domestic matters after Trump spent some of his first 10 months in office on foreign policy. Republicans fear big losses in the midterms next year if perception of the economy doesn’t improve, administration officials and others close to Trump said.

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“It is a fact the Biden administration created the worst inflation crisis in a generation; and President Trump and his entire administration have been working hard to actually fix it through tax cuts, deregulation and driving down energy prices,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. Leavitt said Trump calls the word “affordability” a con job because “Democrats are pretending to fix an issue THEY created.”

Trump won the 2024 election in part because of voter bitterness about Biden’s handling of the economy and concerns about inflation.

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Joe Manchin, the former Democratic senator who criticized Biden for dismissing inflation as transitory, said the economy had stabilized in many ways under Trump. But costs are still deeply concerning to people, he said, and should be a warning sign to the president.

“What they might say: ‘It’s taking longer than we anticipated. We’re working very hard. We’re stabilizing things,’ ” Manchin said. “They don’t want to re-create the same mistakes Biden made before. You can’t tell me it’s sunshine outside when it’s raining like hell.”

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On Tuesday, a special election in a solidly red Tennessee district proved competitive, after Republicans poured money into the race to fend off a progressive Democrat who centered her campaign on rising healthcare and grocery costs.

“Inflation is the death of a presidency,” said Paul Begala, a longtime Democratic strategist. “The graveyards are littered with leaders who presided over inflation.”

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