Scripps News: Presidents get blamed for the economy. A new report argues Trump actually deserves it.
As cost of living concerns loom large over the upcoming midterm elections, Democrats have coalesced around a unified message: President Donald Trump bears unusual responsibility for the financial pain many Americans are experiencing. A new report from progressive advocacy group Defend America Action, shared first with Scripps News, seeks to draw a direct line between policies enacted by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans and Americans’ broader struggles with affording housing, health care, food and energy.
“Trump and Republicans in Congress have spent almost two years rewarding their rich and powerful friends at the expense of everyone else, and working families across America are the ones paying the price,” the report states. “[T]he average American household has had to spend an estimated $4,700 more on everyday essentials under Trump, and less than two years into his second term, 79 percent of voters disapprove of the job he is doing on the cost of living.”
The Defend America Action report lays out a wide-ranging case that Republican policies have worsened Americans’ cost-of-living problems, pointing to tariffs on foreign imports, rising energy costs resulting from the Iran conflict, GOP-led changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and reductions in food assistance.
The energy shock brought on by the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz offer perhaps the clearest test of the report’s central thesis.
Before the Iran conflict began, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $2.98. Today, it’s $4.24, according to AAA. The spike in diesel costs is even more drastic: $3.75 per gallon on average on Feb. 28, compared to $6.35 today, a surge impacting any goods that require shipping before they are bought or sold.
“We say that cars run on gas, but economies run on diesel,” Bernstein noted.
Trump and many congressional Republicans have argued Americans’ elevated gas costs are a small price to pay to ensure global safety from a nuclear Iran. Yet the president has also, at times, acknowledged the benefits elevated oil prices bring to American energy producers.
Speaking at a political rally in Perry, Georgia on Saturday, Trump boasted about the record profits U.S. oil and gas companies are raking in.
“The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said. “I don’t give a damn, I’m going to say it: we’re making a freaking fortune.”
Yet Americans remain unconvinced; 76% disapprove of Trump’s handling of gas prices, an October poll by Navigator Research showed.
Tariffs offer another clear connection between presidential policy and consumer costs. The duties on foreign imports have been a centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda, and, despite Trump’s insistence they are paid by foreign exporters, a Tax Foundation analysis estimates they cost the average American household $920 in 2026.
On health care, officials placed more blame for rising costs on Republicans in Congress – suggesting their failure to extend tax credits for Americans receiving care through Affordable Care Act exchanges and actions to impose stricter requirements for individuals receiving Medicaid or Medicare coverage have forced people to drop coverage.
Jessica Schubel, who oversaw Medicaid, Affordable Care Act and employer-sponsored health coverage issues in the Biden White House, acknowledged that rising health care costs considerably predate the current administration, but argued Republicans have nevertheless made coverage less affordable since taking back power in Washington.
“We’ve seen over the last decade or so that health care costs have continued to go up, and I don’t really think that this administration has done, or at least attempted to try, any measures that would help lower costs,” she told Scripps News.
But there’s no debate that Trump’s policies have also significantly contributed to inflation, and voters tend to fault the person in power for their problems.
“At some point, you’ve got to man up and own the economy,” Bernstein said of Trump’s predicament.
Americans seem inclined to agree; a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month showed 78% of Americans blame Trump’s policies for rising prices that are outpacing their earnings.
On Monday, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, went so far as to argue on Fox Business that the idea of an affordability crisis was a “myth” and “inconsistent” with broader economic data.
The fight over which president deserves blame belies an arguably more consequential question for voters: what can Washington actually do to make life more affordable?
For Democrats, the answer begins with undoing many of the changes Trump instituted in the past two years: ending the Iran war and tariffs, reversing GOP-pushed changes to Medicaid and nutritional assistance and once again expanding ACA subsidies.
Bernstein argued the response also necessitates addressing lagging wages, perhaps by raising the federal minimum wage standard.
Schubel, meanwhile, said more action was needed to address rising costs for Americans receiving health care through their employers, with most energy in Washington instead focused on government plans.
Ohio state Rep. Karen Brownlee, a Democrat who spoke to Scripps News in connection with the report, said one of the fundamental problems facing her state is straightforward: Ohio doesn’t have enough homes. While she praised Congress for passing a bipartisan measure intended to boost housing construction, she nonetheless said it’s a problem that will take significantly more action at the state and federal levels to fully solve.
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