Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said President Donald Trump does not communicate the economic pain of everyday Americans well.
Partial transcript as follows:
BACON: But I think with the- he started out this whole war with, “This is going to be an easy fight. We’re going to be done here. It’s going to take a month, two months. Okay, we’re going to get a deal tomorrow.” And I think that that- those false expectations hurt him, and it’s hurt the- the favorability of what we’re trying to do here.
ED O’KEEFE: But do you get a sense he feels the pain of Americans, the economic pain?
BACON: He doesn’t communicate it well. As you mentioned, he makes light of the affordability question, and we do have an affordability problem. And I think, you know, I think a better way for him to frame it, we had 9% inflation under Joe Biden. Of course, it went down towards the end of his presidency, but the Americans have never recovered from that. And once again, inflation is slightly higher than wages.
ED O’KEEFE: Yeah.
REP. BACON: So, I think most Americans are feeling the pain at the grocery store and the gas. So, I think it’s better just to acknowledge, hey, this is a problem, and we got- we got to work towards getting wages climbing faster than inflation. But one of the ways we could do that is to change his tariff policy. Tariffs have hurt inflation. It’s not only just the war with Iran and gas; tariffs have also had a- an impact here. And I would encourage the president to review the tariff policy. Global tariffs, it ends up being a tax on consumers, and we’re paying more because of it.
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