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GOP Struggles to Message on Affordability as House Republicans Kill Affordability Bill

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Republicans are taking heat on two fronts as they struggle to win the affordability messaging battle while killing affordability legislation.

“Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists tell NBC News they worry that high prices and their party’s poor messaging on affordability could cost them in the midterms,” the news network reported over the weekend.

Politico reported on Monday that “Republicans are divided over how to address growing cost-of-living concerns over health care, housing, student debt and more.”

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

As President Donald Trump calls affordability a “hoax” and a “con job,” recent polls show his approval rating is underwater, and some say Republicans have not made the affordability crisis a central legislative focus.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune appeared to suggest affordability is an issue to tackle down the road.

“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Leader Thune said in an interview, Politico noted. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”

One of the things Senate Republicans did was join with Democrats to pass out of committee — unanimously, some Democrats noted — a bill to improve housing availability and affordability.

House Republicans killed the legislation, known as the ROAD to Housing Act.

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

“Just this weekend, congressional leaders released a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act without housing legislation sought by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and other key House Republicans objected.”

Senate Democrats expressed outrage.

“Leave it to House Republicans to fumble a comprehensive, bipartisan housing package that passed out of the Senate committee UNANIMOUSLY!” decried U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN).

“Unbelievable,” lamented U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). “House Republicans just killed our broadly bipartisan housing affordability bill, which would have been a great first step towards lowering skyrocketing rents & mortgages. Republicans are actively torpedoing progress towards lowering your rent.”

“Trump claims he wants to lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that UNANIMOUSLY passed the Senate to do just that,” noted U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “If Republicans keep blocking legislation to cut housing costs, Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress.”

The communications director for U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Singer, summed it up: “It’s not the message, it’s the policies.”

Economist and economics professor Justin Wolfers told CNN, “When we talk about affordability, so much of what’s going on with prices is in fact a direct result of public policy. We’ve seen tariffs that have raised costs. We’ve seen a big rise in deportations, which are making it difficult for farmers to bring in their crops. We’ve seen health insurance premiums rise as Congress has fiddled with Obamacare subsidies.”

READ MORE: ‘Chance Some of This Backfires’: GOP Grows Anxious Over Trump’s Redistricting Gambit

 

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Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report

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President Donald Trump last week reportedly blasted a group of dozens of U.S. Attorneys for what he viewed as a lack of urgency in pursuing his political adversaries.

The federal prosecutors had traveled to the White House for a photo shoot, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, but after Attorney General Pam Bondi introduced them to the president, “Trump criticized them as ineffective, saying the group was making it difficult for Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to do their jobs.”

The exchange between Trump and the U.S. Attorneys “came a day before federal prosecutors sent grand jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve on Friday, related to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony last summer about the central bank’s building-renovation project.”

READ MORE: Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was in attendance at the White House event, the Journal reported. The subpoenas reportedly were sought by prosecutors in her office.

One of Trump’s complaints to the U.S. Attorneys was that they were not acting fast enough and had yet to bring a case against U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), a top Trump adversary.

The DOJ reportedly has been examining whether Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud, which has become a common allegation against other Trump critics, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. That case was dismissed, and subsequent grand juries have refused to indict her.

“The president criticized some specific prosecutors by jurisdiction and said he felt betrayed,” the Journal added.

On Monday, Pirro appeared to be quickly backtracking in her office’s investigation of Powell. The Federal Reserve Chairman announced on Sunday that he was being investigated by the Trump Department of Justice, sending markets — and prominent Republicans — spinning.

The Daily Beast reported that Pirro’s investigation is “an inquiry that even Republican lawmakers have blasted as a revenge plot against one of the president’s adversaries that threatens the independence of America’s central bank.”

READ MORE: Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip

 

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Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High

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The price of food in grocery stores and restaurants surged to a three-year high last month, even as President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted he had “defeated” inflation during what he described as “the greatest first year in history” of any president.

“Grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down,” Trump told an audience in Detroit on Tuesday. CNN’s Daniel Dale noted Trump made the claim “on the same day new Consumer Price Index data shows December had the biggest one-month spike in grocery prices, 0.7%, in more than three years.”

Despite the president’s claims, Axios reported that the cost of food in grocery stores rose “roughly 2.4% in December compared to the prior year.”

READ MORE: Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip

“But that masks double-digit price increases for a slew of household staples over the past 12 months, including coffee (+20%), beef (+16%) and candy (+10%).”

Delivering his speech on affordability — which as recently as last month he declared a “hoax” — Trump said on Tuesday, “Under our administration, growth is exploding, productivity is soaring, investment is booming, incomes are rising, inflation is defeated, America is respected again, like never before.”

On tariffs, which experts say could increase prices for American families by nearly $5,000 annually and push nearly one million Americans into poverty, Trump pushed back.

“The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers,” he said, a claim not supported by experts.

The White House on Monday said that Trump has been “laser-focused on making America affordable” since taking office. Just one month ago, President Trump called affordability a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

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Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip

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As Republicans continue their exodus from the House, a CNN analyst reveals that Democrats hold an advantage in party identification over the GOP, Democrats identifying as liberal just hit a 50-year high, and Democrats — he predicts — will take back the House in the November midterm elections.

CNN analyst Harry Enten reported that “the self identified liberalness of this country is at a 50-year high.” And he noted that “more folks are identifying as liberal than at any point since the Gerald Ford administration.”

In 1976, 30 percent of Democrats said they were liberal, Enten said.

“Look at where we are today: 59 percent — 3 in 5 Democrats — say they are liberal.”

READ MORE: Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’

“This Democratic party is a liberal — it is a liberal party. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now identify as liberal,” he continued. “That is also a 50-year high.”

Enten noted that “that is not the only good news for liberals.”

“The party ID margin, Democrats versus Republicans. Now get this, in the latest reading according to Gallup last quarter, it is an eight-point advantage for Democrats.”

“That looks nothing like what we saw going into the 2022 midterms when Republicans had a five-point advantage, and of course, took back the House. This is even better than what we saw Democrats had back in 2017, in quarter four, when they had a six-point advantage, and, of course, Democrats easily took back the House then.”

READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

“Democrats are gonna take back the House,” he said.

Enten also pointed to the prediction markets, which now say there is a 77 percent chance of Democrats taking back the House in November.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

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