President Donald Trump got a stern warning from members of his own party as he was lambasted for shrugging off an issue fast snowballing into a major crisis.
Trump’s refusal to admit Americans are hurting economically — in fact, calling affordability worries a “hoax” and claiming they’d been fixed — is going to clatter him, key Republicans warned as they returned from meeting with constituents.
“I think he knows different,” vice chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus Rep. Ralph Norman told Raw Story when asked if Trump really believes there’s no problem.
And, when confronted with concerns that the White House is ignoring the issue, he said, "Well, I think they're going to find out if they do. They shouldn't do that."
Norman spoke to Raw Story after weeks of meeting with constituents in his South Carolina district.
Near the top of concerns he heard about was the construction of massive data centers to fuel AI — another issue that Trump has publicly dismissed, claiming that the only communities opposing them choose to be "backwards and poor."
But towering above that was the cost of living issue.
Back in February, Trump announced that affordability was a problem of President Joe Biden’s administration, and that he was fixing it.
“They would say affordability, everybody would say, ‘Oh, Trump caused–,’ no, they cause the affordability problem,” he said. “And we’ve solved it. And we’re going still lower, but we’ve solved it.”
Half a year later, long-term interest rates are higher than they’ve been since President George W. Bush’s administration, a six-month war with Iran is sending prices rocketing and Trump’s economic approval rating has been at historic lows for several weeks.
Arkansas Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman echoed Norman.
"It always comes up,” he told Raw Story about the prominence of cost of living worries as he speaks to constituents.
“You know, people drive by gas stations every day and they see the price at the pump and they, you know, much like in the Biden administration, they feel it at the grocery store and everything they buy.
“So they are looking for relief.
"I don't think the affordability problem is all the way solved yet. I think that a lot of the policies we put in place had things heading in the right direction — until we saw the war in Iran, which affected oil, which affects everything."
And Lauren Boebert (R-CO), usually a staunch supporter of Trump’s policies, said ranchers in her district are mad at the president.
“I'm worried about my farmers and ranchers,” she said.
“Like, seriously, my ranchers are like, p—ed over this beef stuff, and, you know, I want to get a farm bill passed. I want to get WRDA passed. I want us to get authorizing bills. Like we're like, that's the stuff I'm worried about.”
She did, however, voice reluctance to blame Trump.
“Affordability. But you can't just throw out that word,” she told Raw Story.
“I mean, Democrats made things unaffordable under Joe Biden. I mean, inflation was sky high and they did nothing to solve it, and now all of a sudden they want to pretend like they have the answers.”
She added, “I think that there are steps that we're doing to work on it. I mean, the Venezuela oil deal — love it! There's some things we're doing amazingly, some things we certainly can do better on.”