A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump travels to Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, today to talk about his administration's efforts to address a top concern for voters - affordability.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
At the White House on Monday, he gave a preview.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You can call it affordability or anything you want, but the Democrats caused the affordability problem, and we're the ones that are fixing it. So it's a very simple statement, and they caused it. We're fixing it.
FADEL: This claim after he previously called affordability a, quote, "hoax." In a few moments, we'll unpack the administration's messaging with a Republican strategist. First, let's take a look at Trump's trip, as recent polls show voters blame the president's policies for high prices.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now. Tam, this sort of travel, going out and selling your policies, that's what presidents typically do, except not this year so far.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Yeah. In his second term, President Trump has done very little domestic travel aimed at pitching his policies to the American people. In fact, he's done way more travel to sporting events than going out in the country and making his case. A senior White House official I spoke with, who was not authorized to speak publicly, readily acknowledged that this sort of messaging travel has been lacking and said the president would be ramping it up late this year and into next year, starting with today's trip to Pennsylvania, which is to a competitive congressional district.
MARTÍNEZ: I'd rather go to sporting events, too, but that's just me. So what's this first stop message going to be?
KEITH: Well, the senior White House official I spoke to said that the president will be balancing talking about what they see as real economic good news with an acknowledgment that there's more work to do. And just ask President Biden about the perils of telling people that, well, actually, the economy is fine when their cost of living is way up. Getting the tone right on the economy is something presidents have often struggled with. Trump himself has been a bit off message. Take this from a Cabinet meeting last week.
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TRUMP: The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. They say afford - I watched the other day where some very low-IQ congresswoman talked about affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea. Their prices were much higher.
KEITH: And inflation did get alarmingly high under Biden, but then it slowed down. The most recent inflation numbers show that the rate in September was the same as it was during Biden's last month in office.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Then will Trump's messaging be paired with any new policies that could actually bring prices down?
KEITH: It's a good question, and I'd say that you can never be certain what Trump will say until he says it. But in recent weeks, we've seen a lot of officials all the way up to the vice president asking for patience, saying it will take time for the president's policies to hit the economy. White House economist Kevin Hassett was on CNBC yesterday and said, people with income from tips and overtime should get tax refunds next year.
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KEVIN HASSETT: That kind of stuff is going to make it so that people are going to look at their wallets and say, oh, boy, this guy's really making me better off. And in the end, that's more important than any poll.
KEITH: But the polls are a problem. Trying to turn that around before the midterms is part of what Trump's doing out on the road today. And yesterday, the president announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers who have been hurt by his tariffs. The administration is casting this as bridge money until the president's trade deals pay off. But it's also an acknowledgment that there are real economic pain points.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Tamara Keith. Thanks a lot.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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