Donald Trump stood in front of a crowd in suburban Atlanta on Wednesday and told them, with a straight face, that 'affordability' is just a word Democratic consultants made up to bother him. He then spent the next stretch of his speech explaining why prices are high, why that's someone else's fault, and why a $1,000 baby investment account is going to fix the whole thing. No notes.
The Word He Cannot Say
According to The Guardian, Trump described 'affordability' at the Marietta rally as a term cooked up by Democratic political consultants specifically to attack his presidency. The crowd at Wheeler High School, apparently, was expected to nod along with this.
The problem is that prices are, in fact, high. Gasoline has climbed back above $4 a gallon, according to AAA tracking, after oil prices spiked when hostilities with Iran reignited and the Strait of Hormuz became contested again. Core inflation is flat for the first time in five years, which is technically good news, but try telling that to someone filling their tank this week.
Trump's answer to all of this was essentially: it's Biden's fault, it's coming down, and also please stop using that word. 'If you're paying a little bit more, a lot of it's come down now,' he told the crowd, which is the kind of sentence that sounds reassuring until you actually parse it.
33% Approval and Counting
Here is the number that explains why Trump was in Georgia in the first place. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll puts his economic approval rating at 33%. Not 33% among Democrats. Not 33% among people who hate him. Thirty-three percent overall.
With midterms approaching and Republicans needing to hold Congress, that number is the kind of thing that sends a president to swing states with visual aids and a new product to launch. Georgia has high-profile races for both governor and Senate, and The Guardian reports that polling currently shows Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff leading his Republican challenger, Congressman Mike Collins, in one of the most watched Senate races of the cycle.
Collins himself was not at the rally. He was in Washington, where his vote was apparently needed to pass a budget bill to fund the Iran war and other White House priorities. So the Republican Senate candidate skipped the presidential rally in his own state because there was a war to fund. This is fine.
The Trump Account: $1,000 for Every Baby, $17 Billion for the Tab
The official reason for the Georgia trip was to promote 'Trump accounts,' which are tax-free investment funds seeded with $1,000 from the federal government for every child born in the US through 2028. Parents, friends, and employers can add up to $5,000 a year. Kids get control at 18 and can use the money for college, a home, or a business.
The Guardian reports the total cost of the $1,000 federal contributions runs to $17 billion through 2028, per the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was there to call the whole thing the 'triumph of capitalism over socialism,' which is one way to describe a federal government program that cuts checks to newborns.
Georgia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson pledged to match the federal $1,000 with state money if elected, and said he'd personally cover it himself if the legislature refused. Jackson is worth more than $3 billion, The Guardian notes, so the math is not really the stressful part of that promise for him.
The Debt Guy Who Hates Debt
Trump told the Marietta crowd that 'for decades, Washington politicians gave our children absolutely nothing but debt,' framing the Trump accounts as a corrective to years of fiscal recklessness. This is a remarkable thing for this particular president to say.
The Guardian points out that Trump added roughly $8 trillion to the national debt during his first term, more than any other president on an inflation-adjusted basis, and nearly matching the total accumulated during Barack Obama's two full terms. Spending in the second term is on pace with the first, with an additional $3 trillion accrued so far. The $17 billion for baby investment accounts will be added on top of that.
He also repeated his claim that his policies have attracted $19.2 trillion in investment pledges to the US economy. Economists at the libertarian Cato Institute, not exactly a hotbed of left-wing skepticism, consider that figure inflated by investment promises that exist largely on paper.
Iran, Dover, and Pee-wee Herman
Trump mentioned he had come directly from Dover Air Force Base, where he attended the dignified transfer ceremony for US service members killed in the conflict with Iran. The family of 1st Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, flew with him on Air Force One and attended the Marietta event.
Then Trump compared Senator Jon Ossoff to Pee-wee Herman. That transition happened within the same speech. In the same hour. The man contains multitudes, none of them particularly subtle.
The Iran war connection to gas prices is the part of this story that gets lost in the noise. Inflation had actually ticked down 0.4% last month, driven by a nearly 10% drop in gasoline and oil prices after a short-lived truce with Iran. Then hostilities resumed. Prices climbed back. The war is not just a foreign policy crisis. It is an inflation event, and it is happening in real time while the president holds rallies about how great the economy is doing.
The Dingo Take
Let's sit with the central absurdity here for a second. The President of the United States traveled to a swing state to argue that 'affordability' is not a real concern, it's a branding exercise by his enemies. Meanwhile gas is over $4 a gallon because the war he is prosecuting with Iran has disrupted global oil markets, his economic approval sits at 33%, and he added $8 trillion to the debt the last time he had this job. The word 'affordability' did not invent itself as an attack. People are using it because things cost money.
The Trump accounts are a genuinely interesting policy idea buried inside a avalanche of contradictions. A federal program that writes $1,000 checks to every American newborn is not something you'd expect from the party that has spent forty years arguing that government assistance creates dependency. Scott Bessent called it the triumph of capitalism, which is one way to describe socialism for infants. The bipartisan weirdness of it would be worth a real debate if anyone in that room were capable of having one.
What actually happened in Marietta on Wednesday was a president with collapsing economic approval numbers trying to change the subject with a new product launch, while a dead soldier's family sat in the front row, while gas prices climbed because of an active war, while the Republican Senate candidate was absent because he had to vote to fund that same war. And Trump called the other guys the problem with American politics. Sure. Absolutely. Makes total sense.
