Republicans are worried that Donald Trump's focus on his "legacy" is distracting the president from dealing with the cost-of-living crisis.
A White House official has suggested the president needs to shift his focus from foreign policy to domestic issues. Speaking to MSNBC, the insider said, "I predicted this. The president needs to focus on domestic issues versus his foreign policy legacy." The comment comes following Democratic Party election wins in the New York mayoral race and governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
It's caused some worry for Republicans, with Vice President JD Vance suggesting the government will be "judged" on its economic successes as early as next year. Vance stated the party needs to "focus on the home front" and fix domestic issues like the cost-of-living crisis urgently.
He said, "We need to focus on the home front. The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day.
"We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond."
It's a focus which some believe Trump does not have for the country. Trump has seemingly set out to convince Americans that the economy is "better than they think it is," and it doesn't seem to be working. Affordability issues were tipped by Dr. Lindsay Owens, the executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, as an "existential" issue for Trump.
Dr. Owens said, "I don’t think Americans attitudes toward the economy, and toward Trump’s sophistication on the economy, will change until the facts on the ground change. It is his one strength that has now turned into a pretty considerable weakness, and we’re starting to see bumps in data that we haven’t seen in over 15 years."
It's a change reflected in comments made by Marjorie Taylor Greene, with the Georgia Republican saying electricity bills and grocery prices are higher than they were during Joe Biden's presidency.
She said, "I go to the grocery store myself. Grocery prices remain high. Energy prices are high. My electricity bills are higher here in Washington, D.C., at my apartment, and they’re also higher at my house in Rome, Georgia — higher than they were a year ago."
Despite ongoing economic issues, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government is "on a very good path to bringing prices down." He said, "Energy prices, gasoline prices are way down, and we are doing what we can every day."
