The Dictatorship
Trump veers off-message in economic speech, calls affordability a ‘hoax’
President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night visit to the swing state of Pennsylvania was billed by administration officials as part of an ongoing, broader effort to reshape perceptions of an economy that many Americans say is failing to meet their needs.
But what viewers actually got was a meandering speech in which the president doubled down on his prior assessment of affordability as a partisan “hoax” before blasting former President Joe Biden as “a sleepy son of a b—-,” praising White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s “beautiful face and those lips that don’t stop” talking, and railing against Somali immigrants in Minnesota — among other issues unrelated to the economy.
It took 15 minutes into his speech before Trump first uttered the word “affordable” — and it wasn’t long before he began railing against the concept entirely.
“They have a new word, you know?” Trump said of Democrats. “They always have a hoax. The new word is ‘affordability.’ So they look at the camera and they say, ‘This election is all about affordability.’”
Later, Trump contradicted those comments.
“I can’t say ‘affordability hoax,’ because I agree the prices were too high, so I can’t go to ‘hoax’ because they’ll misconstrue that,” he said.
Beneath a banner touting “LOWER PRICES, BIGGER PAYCHECKS,” Trump sought to paint an optimistic picture of economic conditions and blame Democrats for everyday Americans’ struggles.
“They gave you high prices,” Trump said. “They gave you the highest inflation in history, and we’re bringing those prices down rapidly — lower prices, bigger paychecks.”
Between mocking Biden’s alleged cognitive decline and railing against the Democratic-led impeachments he faced in his first term, Trump touted a drop in the prices of eggs and Thanksgiving turkeys. He brought onstage local workers whom he said benefitted from his policiesincluding eliminating taxes on tips and overtime work. And he made several dubious claims — about newly-created jobs going entirely to American citizens and wage growth for factory workers and miners — that do not appear to be supported by publicly available evidence.
Trump’s comments came the same day that, in an interview with Blue Light News’s Dasha Burns, the president graded the economy under his leadership “an A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” and insisted that “prices are coming down.”
But the reality is more complex, and the White House has scrambled to soften some of the harsher consequences of the administration’s economic policies. Last month, the White House rolled back tariffs on dozens of food products in an effort to reduce rising prices for consumers. And on Monday, the administration rolled out a $12 billion aid package for farmers who have been hit by Trump’s trade war.
“We gave the farmers a little help, $12 billion, and they are so happy, and all they want is a level playing field,” Trump said Tuesday night. “And now it’s happening, and the tariffs are making them rich.”
Other measures cannot be so easily undone. The Trump-backed “Big Beautiful Bill” enacted historic cuts to both Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which many low-income Americans rely on to afford health care and groceries. More than 20 million low- and middle-income Americans are about to be walloped with skyrocketing health care premiums if Congress does not extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies by the end of the year.
Nonetheless, Trump claimed during his speech that the ACA itself — which he called a “scam” — is behind the rising costs of premiums.
Polls show American consumers are feeling the squeeze, and many — including a substantial number of Trump supporters — hold the president responsible for rising prices. A new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll out Tuesday shows that affordability and inflation remain top concerns for voters, and that a majority of voters think Trump’s tariffs are hurting the economy.
A Politico poll released last week found that almost half of respondents — including 37 percent of Trump voters — say the cost of living is the worst they ever remember. And a Fox News poll released in November found about twice as many voters blame Trump for the economy than blame former Biden.
Democrats seized on these findings while slamming Trump’s attempted messaging pivot.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz,”https://x.com/Tim_Walz/status/1998509867439673543?s=20″>wrote on X: “Go buy groceries and tell me the economy is A+.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told Politico’s Playbook newsletter on Tuesday afternoon that Trump’s five-A-pluses assessment of the economy “does not reflect the reality on the ground here in a community where many Pennsylvanians voted for him in the last election.”
“The record is clear: his policies have hurt the very communities that propelled him to the White House,” Shapiro said, hours ahead of Trump’s visit to the commonwealth. “Trump’s tariffs and economic policies have raised prices at the grocery store, shuttered markets for our farmers, hurt our manufacturers, and dramatically increased the cost of living for Pennsylvanians.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW.
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices and stock markets worldwide swung through a shaky Monday with uncertainty about what will happen with the Iran was.
The S&P 500 swiveled between gains and losses before finishing with a dip of 0.1%, its second loss since setting an all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 159 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5% after both indexes likewise yo-yoed.
Stock prices moved in the opposite direction of oil prices, which have been twitchy because of uncertainty about how long the Iran war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and prevent oil tankers from delivering crude. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, went from a high of $112 overnight to below $107 in the morning before turning back higher.
Trader Michael Milano, center, works with colleagues on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Michael Milano, center, works with colleagues on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
After settling at $112.10 per barrel, Brent’s price then fell back below $109 after President Donald Trump said late in the day that he would hold off on a military attack on Iran planned for Tuesday, at the request of allies in the region. That kept alive hopes that a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz may still be possible.
The moves for oil prices have helped make the world’s bond markets the center of the action recently. Climbing yields there have cranked up the pressure on economies and stock markets worldwide.
Higher yields make it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow, which U.S. homebuyers know because of higher mortgage rates. Higher interest rates could also make it more difficult for companies to borrow to build data centers for artificial-intelligence technology, which has been driving much of the U.S. economy’s growth.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury got as high as 4.63% before falling back to 4.59%, where it was late Friday. The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond rallied toward its highest level since the late 1990s.
Yields worldwide have been climbing on fears about higher inflation caused by higher oil prices, which could push central banks not only to abandon the possibility of cutting interest rates but also consider hiking rates. Higher rates would slow inflation at the cost of hurting the economy and dragging on prices for stocks and other investments.
Several solid reports on the U.S. economy recently, along with worries about the U.S. government’s huge and growing debt problem, are also pushing upward on yields.
On Wall Street, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals dropped 9.8% to help lead the U.S. stock market lower after reporting discouraging data from a trial of a treatment for melanoma.
NextEra Energy fell 4.6% after agreeing to buy Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal to create the world’s largest regulated electric utility by market value. Dominion rallied 9.4%.
A drone strike targeted the United Arab Emirates’ sole nuclear power plant on Sunday, sparking a fire on its perimeter. There were no reports of injuries or radiological release, but it highlighted the risk of renewed war as the Iran ceasefire remains tenuous.
Delta Air Lines finished essentially flat after swinging up and down through the day because of oil prices. It got a boost early following news that Berkshire Hathaway bought more than $2.6 billion of the airline’s stock. Berkshire Hathaway built a reputation as a value investor able to buy stocks at low prices under its former leader, Warren Buffett.
Boston Scientific was another winner and climbed 6.2% after saying it would spend $2 billion of its previously announced $5 billion stock buyback program by the end of June. Such purchases send cash directly to investors and boost the company’s per-share earnings.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 5.45 points to 7,403.05. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 159.95 to 49,686.12, and the Nasdaq composite fell 134.41 to 26,090.73.
This upcoming week will offer little in terms of data on the U.S. economy, but a heavily anticipated report on Nvidia’s latest quarterly results will arrive Wednesday. The chip company has routinely blown past analysts’ expectations each quarter, while forecasting even bigger growth than Wall Street had thought. It will likely need to keep up such momentum to keep AI stocks driving the market to more records.
Target, Home Depot and Walmart will also report their latest quarterly results this week.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in much of Asia but reversed losses in Europe to finish higher. Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 1%, but Germany’s DAX returned 1.5% for two of the world’s bigger moves.
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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is considering ending its collection of corporations’ data on the racial and gender makeup of their employees, potentially undercutting a key federal tool to track employment discrimination.
The move also raises questions as to what data the administration expects to use to carry out its effort to prove anti-white discrimination is a systemic problem worthy of intervention.
According to the Washington Post:
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is considering no longer collecting demographic information including race, sex and national origin from major American companies, departing from a practice that began during the civil rights era of the 1960s and was critical to the agency’s efforts to root out workplace discrimination. The EEOC also wants to ax data reporting rules for apprenticeship programs, unions, state and local governments, and schools, as well as reporting requirements in other civil rights laws that protect workers, including those who are pregnant or have disabilities.
The Post’s report notes that race and gender employment data came under fire in Project 2025the far-right playbook Trump’s administration has been following to enact its agenda:
“Crudely categorizing employees by race or ethnicity fails to recognize the diversity of the American workforce and forces individuals into categories that do not fully reflect their racial and ethnic heritage,” wrote Project 2025 author Jonathan Berry, who is now solicitor for the Department of Labor.
The Trump administration’s gutting of federal agenciesits mass purges of employees that decimated diversity in the government and its assault on diversity in corporate America have pushed many people from marginalized groups, particularly Black womenout of the workforce.
Civil rights activist Noreen Farrell, whose work focuses on fair pay and workplace discrimination, told me last year that Trump’s changes at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and his push to end the agency’s jobs report risked making that problem worse.
“First they dismantled workplace protections. Then they gutted DEI programs. Now, as women abandon careers in record numbers, they want to stop counting,” Farrell said, adding, “This is what systematic discrimination looks like in 2025.”
So continues the Trump administration’s war on reputable government data. If the government can obscure or abandon data about who is working where, it will open the door to potential discrimination and hinder efforts to combat it.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he has postponed a planned U.S. military strike on Iran at the request of key Gulf allies who said negotiations with Tehran could produce a deal that “will be very acceptable” to the U.S. and other Middle Eastern countries.
Trump said in a lengthy Truth Social postthat he received requests from the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan “to hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow, in that serious negotiations are now taking place.”
“In their opinion, as Great Leaders and Allies, a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond. This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!” Trump said.
Trump said that, “based on [his] respect” of the three leaders, he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and the U.S. military to stand down from a strike against Iran scheduled for Tuesday.
The president said, however, that the U.S. military had been instructed to remain ready to launch “a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice” if negotiations fail to produce what he described as an acceptable agreement.
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have increasingly positioned themselves as intermediaries while also seeking to avoid a direct military confrontation between the United States and Iran that could threaten oil markets and shipping lanes across the Middle East.
Trump told reporters on Monday the U.S. has briefed Israel and other Middle Eastern partners on the delay and cautioned that it remains unclear whether it will lead to a final agreement.
“It’s a very positive development, but we’ll see whether or not it amounts to anything,” Trump said at a healthcare affordability event. “We’ve had periods of time where we had, we thought, pretty much getting close to making a deal, and didn’t work out, but this is a little bit different now.”
The announcement comes amid escalating tensions between the U.S and Iran following months of military threats, regional instability and disputes over Iran’s nuclear program. Trump had warnedSunday that “the clock is ticking” for Iran to accept a deal as Iran has yet to accept the latest peace proposal.
As diplomatic efforts continue, the president has repeatedly threatened military action against Iran in recent weeks before ultimately delaying or pulling back strikes.
The latest postponement follows earlier pauses tied to ceasefire negotiations and talks through regional allies.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
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