President Donald Trump said the word “affordability” is a “Democrat scam,” adding that Democrats do not want to fix the economy.
In the recent 2025 elections, Democrats hammered affordability and notched several key wins across the country. Since then, the GOP has debated how to tackle what is being deemed an “affordability crisis” as Americans continue to have a negative outlook on the economy. (RELATED: Editor Daily Rundown: JD Vance Calls Out GOP’s Priorities Amid Affordability Crisis)
“The word affordability is a Democrat scam,” Trump said Tuesday.
Trump addressed the affordability issue and told reporters that his administration is lowering prices.
“When you talk about affordability, is going forward, are the American people, do you believe getting impatient with the reforms that you are making?” Fox News Business White House correspondent Edward Lawrence asked during a cabinet meeting.
“I think they are getting fake news from guys like you. Affordability is a hoax. It was started by Democrats, who caused the problems of pricing. And they did not end it,” Trump said, going on to recount how he was elected because affordability was a problem.
“So we are bringing prices down. Way down. Beef is coming down now. We have done certain magic. Beef is coming down. We inherited horrible prices. We inherited really the worst, again, the worst inflation in history. We inherited that. When I came in, that was what he had and we fixed inflation. And we fixed almost everything if you want to know the truth, including eight wars. We got one to go, including eight wars,” the president continued.
Trump then pointed to a Tuesday special election in Tennessee where the Democrat candidate has been running on “affordability” and fixing the economy.
“They have a race going on — a race going on in Tennessee. This [Democrat] woman goes, ‘affordability, affordability.’ They’re the ones that caused the problem. The prices were way high, we are bringing the prices down,” Trump said.
“They are like scam artists. I call them con-men and women. They come out and say affordability… We are going to get prices down. We have brought them down from prices they caused. The reason they had the highest inflation in the history of our country is because they have the highest prices. But we brought them down, and now we have normal inflation,” he concluded.
After Democrats won a series of high profile elections in November, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair told Politico the GOP would pivot to talk about affordability ahead of the midterms, like Democrats had done in the recent races.
“The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair told the outlet.
At the time, Trump also attributed the losses to the government shutdown and the fact that he was not on the ballot.
“Last night, it was not expected to be a victory, it was very Democrat areas. But I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I don’t think it was good — I’m not sure it was good for anybody,” he said the day after the election during a breakfast with Congressional Republicans. “But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot and we’re going to talk about that.”
“I think, if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor. Negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor,” Trump said, adding he was told that his absence on the ballot was also a factor.
