Former Republican speechwriter Tim Miller and MS NOW host Nicole Wallace say the voting public has good reason to be angry at President Donald Trump for asking Americans to tighten their belts for the holidays.
While praising his tariffs, Trump recently suggested Americans surrender pencils from overseas and support domestic companies over foreign companies.
"You can give up certain products, you can give up pencils because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two,” Trump said.
But during her Thursday segment, Wallace pulled up a photo of Trump speaking with reporters in the White House.
“Consider this single photo — a mere slice of the Oval Office — one angle from a billet held in September. So, not 37 pencils, but according to our very unscientific count, there are 37 gold gilded items new to the Oval Office in this picture alone … not including the picture frames.”
“It's an in-your-face example of what more and more Americans seem to realize, and be frankly p—— off about,” said Wallace. “An out of touch, literally gold gilded president who outright refuses to recognize the economic reality for the vast majority of Americans, is putting 37 gold things on literally one wall while he's asking families to tighten their belts at the holidays to live without more than two pencils or two dolls in the name of an economic policy that everyone knows is making inflation worse.”
“He is giving us all of our material to criticize him with,” said Wallace, referencing comedians who are dunking on Trump in late-night monologues.
Miller pointed out that Trump and his supporters “feed on” being called “racist” or “cruel,” but the president’s weakness is apparently mockery.
“And right now he's being mocked on the issue that was core to his campaign, which was the economy,” said Miller. “He was elected based on him saying that he was going to fix what he had criticized about Joe Biden's economy, … particularly inflation. And now here he is. We're a year in. We're coming up on Christmas. And his message is, you know, ‘fewer pencils’ and, like, that's mockable. It's extremely mockable.”