Biden accuses Trump of prioritizing Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg over Americans
Former President Joe Biden criticized President Trump for shutting down the government and refusing to pay SNAP benefits to vulnerable Americans.
- President Trump’s speech reflected former President Biden’s strategy of emphasizing positive economic indicators while blaming his predecessor for ongoing problems.
- Despite election promises, inflation remains above pre-pandemic levels and the unemployment rate has risen to 4.6%.
- Polls show that a majority of Americans, including Republicans, don’t think President Trump is paying enough attention to rising prices.
Americans may be experiencing a bit of déjà vu as President Donald Trump tries to cheer up the nation amid growing concerns about affordability.
In a 20-minute speech at the White House, Trump vigorously defended his returning administration’s economic record, a year after promising voters there would be better days ahead in the 2024 presidential election.
Just as the Biden-Harris administration did in the months leading up to last year’s campaign, Mr. Trump cited positive indicators such as rising wages and argued that the economy was doing better than Americans believed pollsters believed. But while President Trump took credit for the conditions he inherited from Biden, he also sought to blame his predecessor for the persistence of less positive conditions, including inflation rates above pre-pandemic levels.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I’m fixing it,” he said in a speech on Dec. 17.
Political observers say the administration and its allies are trying to reset the narrative for the 2026 midterm elections by filling the public’s ears with their achievements. For example, less than 12 hours after the president’s remarks, the White House touted that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts had been made permanent and that inflation had fallen slightly to 2.7% in November after rising to 3% in September.
“President Trump was reelected in a big way a year ago because, unlike Democrats, he understood and acknowledged Joe Biden’s economic disaster,” White House Press Secretary Khush Desai told USA TODAY in a statement.
“Turning the page on Biden’s inflation and affordability crisis was a top priority for the president that day. Much work remains, but (Thursday’s) better-than-expected inflation report is the latest evidence that the administration’s strong economic policies continue to deliver results for ordinary Americans.”
But in many ways, Trump’s address to the nation mirrored what went wrong for Biden more than two years ago, when Democrats and their allies insisted on gauging the health of the economy by comparing its massive successes with the coronavirus recession and soaring unemployment rates that marked the end of the Trump administration’s first term.
Strategists say it will ultimately erode voters’ trust in Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign.
Whit Ayers, a veteran Republican pollster, said the similarities between the two are clear, adding that the president often gets the public wrong.
“Biden is trying to do the same thing and it’s not working. Trump is trying to do the same thing and it’s not working,” he said.
Mr. Trump pointed to some of the very same bright spots that Mr. Biden had presented in previous speeches, such as low unemployment, while casting economic problems as an inherited problem that Democrats are responsible for, in much the same way that Ms. Harris claimed in the September 2024 presidential debate that “Trump left us with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.”
Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to end inflation, but he has not done so, putting him in a particular predicament ahead of the 2026 congressional elections. And the unemployment rate, which was 4% when Trump took office, has now risen to 4.6%, a development that Trump ignored in his speech.
“We’re seeing recession-level job losses, and he’s trying to tell the people that a (expletive) sandwich is a five-star meal, and they know they’re not being respected when they do that,” Andrew Bates, a senior White House official in the Biden administration, told USA TODAY.
‘Shock Therapy: President Trump is nervous ahead of 2026 midterm elections,’ strategists say
For decades, presidents have tried to take credit for the economic boom while dodging criticism for the economic downturn.
But throughout last year’s campaign, a major part of President Trump’s appeal to voters to keep him in the Oval Office again was to pull the country out of the economic hole.
“From day one, we will lower the prices of all goods by ending inflation and making America affordable again,” he said at a rally in Montana in August 2024.
Many voters told pollsters they didn’t think Mr. Trump was focused enough on that goal. In a December Fox News poll, when asked what issue President Trump “should be paying more attention to right now,” 42% of respondents cited high prices, including 40% of Republicans and 47% of white men with college degrees.
John Feehely, a former chief of staff and Republican strategist, said that when he talks to conservative lawmakers, he sees a noticeable degree of unrest among rank-and-file members, who hold slim majorities in both chambers.
He said Republican candidates are “struggling in several different races” this year, including in blue states like New Jersey and Virginia, where Democratic candidates have focused on cost-of-living issues. However, Republicans underperformed in this month’s special election in Tennessee, with Republican candidates winning 9% of the House districts that Trump won 22% last year.
“President Trump is about to undergo a bit of shock therapy, but the speed and tone of his speech shows that there is a fast timeline for what will happen if Republicans don’t quickly change these perceptions,” Feeley said.
“If they’re not nervous, they should be,” he added.
Trump has also been noticeably more irritated as a messenger in more friendly settings, such as during a campaign-style rally in rural Pennsylvania this month, where he lashed out at how “stupid people” don’t understand the victories he has won since returning to office.
Ayers, a longtime Republican pollster, said presidents often mistakenly criticize the public’s perception of the economy, including during the 1992 campaign when then-President George H.W.
“President Bush was very frustrated that the American people were not feeling the same way that his macroeconomic data was showing,” Ayers said. “He kept telling the American people that things were better than they thought, but in the fall Bill Clinton defeated him with the mantra, ‘It’s the economy, you idiot.’ So the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Economic indicators are a mixed bag for confident Democrats
Trump supporters say his administration deserves more credit for driving inflation to its lowest level since 2021.
But critics have highlighted weaknesses, with employers adding just 64,000 jobs in November, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The poor performance follows an estimated loss of 105,000 jobs in October, resulting in an unemployment rate of 4.6%, which critics say is the highest unemployment rate since September 2021.
And despite President Trump’s promise to cut energy costs in half in his first year in office, electricity prices are up 6.9% from a year ago, natural gas prices are up 9.1%, and fuel oil prices are up 11.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Bates, a former Biden aide, acknowledged that convincing voters that things are better than they seem is similar to the challenge faced by the previous administration.
But one other key difference is how President Trump treats his supporters, Bates said.
“What really separates these two is when we emphasize financial success, when we defend it by saying, ‘I know you’re hurting, but I also know we have a lot of work to do. I’m fighting for you and families like yours every day,'” he said.
“If you look at Mr. Trump, he is angry that his supporters understand that they are increasing their paychecks every day.”
According to a December NPR/Marist poll, only 36% of Americans approve of President Trump’s management of the economy, with approval ratings plummeting.
A former ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), was furious at the administration’s tone. In a recent interview with “60 Minutes,” she said it was “insulting” for President Trump to give himself an “A++++” on the economy.
“The lack of affordability and the inability of Americans to pay for their living expenses is not a Democratic fabrication,” Greene said in a Dec. 12 interview with PBS NewsHour.
There is broad agreement among Democrats that the administration’s failure to cut costs is something voters should keep in mind, and that Trump’s speech reeks of political desperation.
But those on the activist left argue that populist-leaning candidates running in next year’s Democratic primaries should focus less on the president’s failings and more on what they will do to protect working-class Americans from corporate interests.
“I don’t care what party you belong to. You can’t lie about the reality of the American people,” Osama Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, an influential progressive PAC, told USA TODAY.
“This was a failure of Democratic leadership in the previous administration, and it’s no surprise that the Trump administration, which does not include among its policies policies that actually fight for working-class communities, is also flat-out lying to the American people.”
Contributor: Joey Garrison, Daniel de Visse
