WASHINGTON — In the final days before an election that will decide control of Congress, President Trump’s closing argument — buoyant, digressive and characteristically off-script — is at times running headlong into the economic anxieties of the voters Republicans most need. With a war in Iran driving up gas prices for Americans, Trump is boasting to supporters that the conflict is making the country rich. At a rally in Georgia, he said his aides had urged him not to brag about the billions of dollars the United States was earning on oil from the war, since Americans are “paying a little higher” in costs because of it.
Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time. And those pump prices are going to come down.” The moment underscores the gamble at the core of Trump’s final pitch to voters. With polls showing an overwhelming majority of Americans unhappy with the economy, the president is offering a portrait of national prosperity that many voters do not recognize, and pairing it with jokes and digressions that can seem to make light of their struggles.
Tuesday’s results will be the clearest test yet of whether that message still moves his base, or whether the president has become a liability for a party at risk of losing Congress in part because of his sinking popularity. Signs of GOP anxiety are reflected in where Trump is spending his final days campaigning. Rather than courting swing voters in battleground states, he is leading rallies in Mississippi, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina and Kansas — states that have long been Republican strongholds but where the party now worries its voters may stay home.
Still, the president is insisting to voters that the country is succeeding, and he is making the election a referendum on his agenda. The next day, during a stop in Texas, he joked that the $5,000 he has promised Americans if Republicans win would not be enough for his supporters to eat a meal at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Fla. The problem is that for $5,000 the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert,” Trump said, laughing.
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Trump boasting that the country was making money out of the Iran war was a “fitting” slogan for Trump’s White House. Trump’s personal oil and gas holdings are now estimated to be worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million, up from $12.6 million to $46 million at the end of last year, according to a report released this week by congressional Democrats. Joe Gruters, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, rejected the idea that the president has dismissed voters’ financial pain.
Asked to sum up Trump’s closing message, Gruters framed it as a choice between “common sense vs. crazy.” When pressed on the economy, Gruters pointed to Trump’s push to limit federal taxes on tips and overtime pay, to create investment accounts for children and to bring back manufacturing jobs. During a rally in Ohio, while praising Sen. Jon Husted, Trump detoured into remarks about the Republican senator’s backside as well as rapper Nicki Minaj’s.
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