As President Donald Trump calls Democrats’ push for affordability a “con job,” a “hoax,” and a “scam,” the White House continues to try to promote his focus on that very word — a focus many Americans say is, at best, insufficient.

“It’s a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday, as CNN reported. The news network noted that “for Trump, calling affordability a scam is doubly strange because it’s the very issue that helped propel him back to the White House.”

“Candidate Trump,” CNN added, “used remarkably similar language to what President Trump now dismisses as a hoax.”

For example, at an August North Carolina rally, Trump vowed, “We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues.”

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“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” Trump said in a late September rally in Pennsylvania.

A new Politico poll released on Thursday shows that many Americans blame President Trump for the affordability crisis they are experiencing on a daily basis.

“Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters,” Politico noted. “Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.”

While candidate Trump vowed to end inflation “on day one,” the White House now promises that President Trump will “continue to focus on delivering on his Day One priority of ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis.”

On President Joe Biden’s last day in office, inflation was officially at 2.9%. For the month of January, it came in at 3%. Through September, the last month of the official Labor Department reports, inflation stood at 3%.

Kevin Hassett is the Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, a senior advisor to the President on economic issues, and rumored to be a top Trump pick to run the Federal Reserve.

On Friday, he spoke with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who decried Democrats’ ability to “rally around” the affordability crisis.

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“I just think, all of a sudden, the Democrats have found a way to get affordability to stick to their brand,” Bartiromo lamented. “And, Kevin, President Trump came into office with this priority of getting inflation down.”

“How is it possible that the Democrats have been able to rally around this word, ‘affordability,’ and make people think that that’s what they’re focused on and not what the Republicans are focused on, going into an election year?” she asked.

“You know,” Hassett replied, “it’s just what happens sometimes when, you know, one political party has a lot of the media echoing what they’re saying.”

Promising that “there’s lots and lots of things that we could do to reduce the problem of affordability,” Hassett declared that “the affordability problem is 100% created by the Biden administration, with their runaway regulation and their runaway inflation.”

He then touted Trump’s “track record” on the issue, referencing a topic from the first Trump administration.

“The thing I want to remind you is that the President has a proven track record on affordability in healthcare, and it’s this,” he insisted. “If you go back and look at our first term, when we came in and we started to negotiate with the drug companies and make sure that the FDA was approving generic drugs, we had two years in a row where the consumer price index for drugs went negative.”

“We had declining drug prices,” Hassett said. “The only two years that that happened, going all the way back to World War II, we did it then. We’ll do it again.”

BARTIROMO: How is it possible that the Democrats have been able to rally around ‘affordability’ and make people think that’s what they’re focused on and not what Republicans are focused on?

HASSETT: It’s just what happens sometimes when one political party has the media echoing… pic.twitter.com/eJGm5BVgPo

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 5, 2025

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Image via Reuters

The White House reportedly will be submitting plans for President Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom to a federal planning commission later this month, after the East Wing of the White House has already been demolished and as the president replaces the project’s top architect.

“The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the White House itself, at nearly double the size, and President Donald Trump has said it will accommodate 999 people,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Critics blasted the latest news.

“Let me get this straight,” wrote U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in response to the news. “Trump has a plan for a new ballroom, but barely has a concept of a plan to lower the cost of health care?”

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“Millions are losing health care, but hey, a ballroom! Unbelievable,” declared U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA).

“It seems like the Trump White House is working harder on constructing a new White House Ballroom than averting huge spikes in monthly premiums for 20 million Americans next year,” observed Brendan Duke of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Those sentiments align with a new study from Navigator Research about how some Americans in six Senate battleground states feel about President Donald Trump’s focus.

“The wealthy are seen as benefitting from a rigged system,” Navigator reported on its findings, “and politicians are seen as not getting it. Many view President Trump as particularly out of touch, with his ballroom project as key evidence.”

“Trump is seen as out of touch with working class people, with several citing his ballroom project as a proofpoint,” Navigator added.

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The study noted that focus group participants “are struggling mightily to afford the basics – like dog food or energy bills – and see no real sign of the situation improving.”

Navigator also cited comments from focus group participants who shared a variety of concerns, including about the cost of living — and the president’s ballroom.

“I see the president building a ballroom when there’s people that can’t feed their families,” said a Michigan woman, described as a “weak Democrat.”

A woman in New Hampshire, also a weak Democrat, shared, “I blame Trump. He’s greedy, he wants to make money for him and his rich friends. They are throwing Americans aside, cutting, SNAP,” she said of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Everything’s gone to the wayside so that the rich can get richer.”

“I’m scared,” said a New Hampshire woman, an independent. “I’m scared. I’m scared of us losing our healthcare, of him not getting the care that he needs, and me not being able to provide for my family, even though I went to school and got a career to do so.”

A New Hampshire woman described as a weak Democrat said, “I think the economy’s going to tank because when we all lose healthcare starting in January, or most of us like me, I’m going to lose it in January, what is that going to do to the economy? People can’t afford to buy anything now. It’s going to just kill it.”

“How about a ballroom?” asked a Maine woman who was described as an independent. “A billion dollars. How much was it? $5 billion, $3 billion or something? Do we really need a ballroom, ladies? Are we going to go to a f – – dance?…They’re all out for themselves. ‘Let’s do the ballroom. Let’s do stuff that don’t need to be done and screw the American people.’”

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Image via Reuters

This is “the golden age of America, because we are doing better than we’ve ever done as a country,” President Donald Trump declared last month, standing before a backdrop emblazoned with “The Golden Age,” as he promoted a central theme of his administration.

On the White House’s social media page on X it declares, “The Golden Age of America Begins Right Now.”

“The Golden Age of American business has arrived,” the White House also said in October.

“This is indeed the Golden Age of America,” President Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in September.

But the economic numbers paint a more complicated picture.

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Inflation is persistent, most recently at 3%, and has generally trended upward every month since April when Trump announced his tariff program. This, despite the president promising there is “virtually no inflation,” and having campaigned on ending inflation “on day one.”

Consumer sentiment has fallen to a near record low, Bloomberg News reported last month, noting that views of personal finances are “the dimmest since 2009, and consumers remain frustrated about high prices and weakening incomes.”

“Consumers are anxious about the high cost of living and job security, with the probability of personal job loss climbing to the highest since July 2020,” Bloomberg added.

On Thursday, those fears were supported by a new report from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that found layoffs this year have topped 1.1 million — the highest since, coincidentally, 2020, when Trump was also president.

“It’s only the sixth time since 1993 that announced job cuts through the month of November have surpassed 1.1 million,” NBC News reported on Thursday.

U.S.-based employers announced 71,321 job cuts just in November, Challenger reported. NBC noted it is “the highest total for the month of November since 2022.”

“Tariffs,” CNBC added, “were cited as the driver of more than 2,000 cuts in November and nearly 8,000 year to date.”

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Some experts are now talking about “stagflation.”

“We’re seeing the early stages of what economists call ‘stagflation’ —  the ‘flation’ part is inflation, and you’ve all felt that at the grocery store,” economist Justin Wolfers explained last month. “The ‘stag’ part is stagnation, which is, we’ve got rising unemployment and slower economic growth than we otherwise would have.”

And in October, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said 22 U.S. states are already in a recession, Moneywise reported.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans this month are seeing their health care premiums for next year jump sharply — with some plans reported to be doubling or even tripling. And President Trump last month predicted that tariff payments will soon “skyrocket.”

“Foreclosures are surging,” CBS News reported last month, “as U.S. homeowners grapple with rising costs.” So are auto repossessions.

ABC News in November reported that “Americans’ household debt levels – including mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans – are now at a new record high.”

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