LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In a defensive and boastful address to the nation Wednesday night, President Trump insisted that the U.S. is poised for an economic boom and said that high prices are falling.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
He blamed his predecessor and immigrants for many of the country's problems. The speech comes as a majority of voters say they are not feeling the economic relief Trump promised in his campaign and touted in his speech. Recent polling shows Trump's rating on the economy is historically low and high prices remain a top concern.
FADEL: With us to talk this through is NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Hi, Deepa.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So what did the president say to try to counter how Americans are feeling about high costs?
SHIVARAM: Well, his message overall is essentially telling people to just hang on and wait. He says costs of goods like gas are going down, and he said the administration is, quote, "making progress" on lowering other costs, but "it's not done yet."
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You will see in your wallets and bank accounts in the new year, after years of record-setting falling incomes, our policies are boosting take-home pay at a historic pace.
SHIVARAM: In other words, the policies that he passed this year will have benefits next year, things like the big tax cut bill, which includes things like no taxes on tips or overtime. He also said families will see a larger tax refund next year. He also touted what he said was an $18 trillion investment in the U.S. from foreign countries. Though his own White House website puts that tally at a little more than half of that.
FADEL: I mean, the message to tell Americans, oh, you can't feel it but just have patience. The economy is pretty good. I mean, that's something that we heard from the Biden administration. That's what they tried to do, and that didn't really work, right?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. It's a familiar message - right? - telling people that they will feel it in their pocketbooks just later is a complicated place for Trump to be in heading into a midterms year. A recent poll from NPR-PBS News-Marist just said that 36% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy. That's a new low. So he's clearly trying to turn some of these feelings around. He did announce a few new things last night. One is an initiative of paying service members a check of $1,776. The other plan is to come next year on lowering the cost of housing. And I will say just one other major part of his speech was talking about immigration. That's long been an issue he falls back on when other things aren't going well. He tried to tie bad economic feelings to illegal immigration. He said migrants were the reason housing costs have gone up, but of course, housing prices fluctuate based on a number of factors and can't be pinned down to just blaming immigrants.
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TRUMP: The worst thing that the Biden administration did to our country is the invasion at the border. The last administration and their allies in Congress brought in millions and millions of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing, while your rent and housing costs skyrocketed.
SHIVARAM: So that message of attacking immigrants and Democrats, you know, that's something we've heard from Trump again and again, and it's possible that stays part of his economic messaging.
FADEL: I mean, on that note, why don't we take a step back here and talk about his overall address last night? It comes at a time the president is seeing lower approval ratings, a lot of criticism over Venezuela, his reaction to the killing of filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner, the issue of affordability. What was his big message to Americans?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, this sounded like a pretty typical Trump address in a lot of ways. It was a long list of everything he seems to think his accomplishments are, all of that tacked together, everything from claiming that he's ended eight wars this year to showing off tariff policy. He ended his remarks saying that the country is doing better than ever, which is a definite contrast to polling that shows that Americans are worried about the future and the direction of the country. His response to things when, you know, they aren't going in his favor is usually to dig his heels in deeper. So as all of these criticisms, like you mentioned, of his rhetoric in these recent weeks have ramped up and his approval numbers fall, he's trying to paint a different picture of the last 11 months, saying that they have just been stellar and that only he could bring about what he says is a strong nation.
FADEL: That's NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Thank you, Deepa.
SHIVARAM: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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