Trump Rallies on Economy as Poll Numbers Tank

0:00There's only one Ozempic. Hello, I'm Ozempic. And I'm other GLP-1s, kind of like him. Ozempic, you redid your jingle? Ah, thanks for noticing. Catchy, right? No. Okay, then. Well, ask your doctor about which FDA-approved uses of me, the Ozempic pen, may be right for you. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit Ozempic.com to view the medication guide and learn more about Ozempic. Semaglutide Injection, 2mg. Only Novo Nordisk makes FDA-approved Ozempic. There's only one Ozempic. I told you it was catchy. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

0:36Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. Americans are turning towards the holidays, spending money on Christmas shopping, travel. And the top story in politics is how affordability, high prices and economic pain are shaping voters priorities, including powering that Democratic sweep in last month's elections. President Trump noticed he's responding tonight, speaking in Pennsylvania on a tour that has been touted as his sort of response to voters concerns.

1:17We have a view from Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. Von Hilliard will be reporting for us there shortly. You're looking at part of that tour. Trump's planned speech is also an implicit follow-up to that unusual meeting he had with the Democratic Socialist and Mayor-elect of New York, Zoran Mamdani. There, the president seemed to recognize, almost in real time, that this progressive has some kind of appeal. Trump even talked up some of Mamdani's New York plans, which confounded and upset his own MAGA base. But that may have been the instinct of a president who realizes he is unpopular right now, even as he attacks the polls that show it.

1:58He's watched economic anxiety supercharge what was a slow, budding, but now clearly wider revolt against what has been a rocky first year of this term, to say the least. From inflation to Epstein, the president has seen his policies and plans rebuked, not just on the left or the broad, angry middle, the No Kings protest, concerned about what this administration is doing to the government and the fiber of the country as we know it, but also to many people on the right who pay the same prices as everybody else. I have more on that in a moment. But remember, the president who began this same year fresh off what was clearly a comeback election and pushed those shockwave reforms with his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who strong-armed concessions from businesses and law firms, if you put aside morality, ethics, and even the Constitution just for a minute, politically, in those first few months, he looked like he had some momentum.

2:55But he soon found Musk was gone. Many of those cuts failed. Some companies even stopped surrendering. Disney standing up for Jimmy Kimmel under public pressure seemed like one shifting inflection point. So, tonight Trump takes the stage on defense. high prices, flailing economic policy. And he's moving billions in taxpayer dollars to farmers to make up for his own costly tariffs, which still grind on, driving up prices for Americans across all kinds of products. And people have noticed. Look at how many people say prices are now worse than ever, worse than they remember ever in their lives. And you say, okay, Ari, 46%, I don't know.

3:39Is that just people who don't like Trump? Nope. About a third of Trump voters, 37%, say the cost of living is worse than ever. You cannot spin people out of their experience paying high prices every day. Trump saw high prices were a huge political issue last time around. He ran on them against Harris. We all remember that, only to find that facing his own accountability now for these high prices is harder. Funny how that works. And he's been zigzagging on what he means, says, or claims about what we're all living through in the polling I just showed you, the affordability crisis. One of my top priorities will be to quickly defeat inflation and make America affordable again.

4:29There's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. They just say the word. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. We're also making incredible strides to make America affordable again. That's a new word that they're using. Affordability, the word affordability. I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess. A mess. And, you know, you can't fix a mess in the real world by just lying about it. So I want to talk about messengers for a moment. Take a look at this. Everybody walks down aisles like this. People are living these prices.

5:11People have to make trade-offs as they pay those high prices, which could be above budget or put you into debt for feeding your family. And then you go into the holidays. People see the economic and political news on TV and online. Wherever they get their news, you know about the inflation crisis. And yet, while we're told don't shoot the messenger, Trump has been trying to do everything he can to distort coverage, often just accurate coverage of these facts and his administration's problems, what he calls the mess. Apparently he knows there's a problem, it's a mess, he just says he inherited it.

5:50And he has done a lot more than just shoot the messenger. I just want to remind you tonight as this all comes together and he gives this big address, He's tried to sue the messenger, and he got some strong-arm settlements from media companies. He tried to cancel the messenger, the failed bid to get Jimmy Kimmel fired. He tries to bully the messenger, lashing out at reporters with insults and attacks that would have seemed completely like another place, time, or country in any other era, something he has normalized, including a raft of sexist, misogynistic attacks on reporters, their journalists, who happen to be women.

6:27But tonight I want to tell you, you have to add, going beyond the old talk about shooting the messenger, add the big government anti-conservative MAGA playbook right now. Buy the messenger. Let me explain what I mean. Remember, the government is barred from abusing powers like regulation or taxes to control free speech. You can imagine a tin pot wannabe autocrat trying to say, oh, well, if we have the tax audit power, let's just audit the media we don't like and let's go at them. And that's something Nixon once tried, but the First Amendment and our laws ban that. And yet in a related type of abuse, Trump now wants one of his billionaire allies to get control of CNN.

7:14And I'm speaking about them as a group of journalists who do good work. They happen to be a competitor right now. It may not be a secret to you that you have this channel on and other channels are available. But I want to speak about them as our peers, journalists who need to operate in a capitalist economy that is fair and not abused by an autocrat. And that applies, of course, to other media as well. Because right now, Trump is trying to help an ally get control of CNN over other corporate bidders. This is what Republicans once criticized as picking winners and losers in the market. We don't do that in America.

7:55It has business and media leaders aghast. Some still in this Trump bully environment are afraid to say so in public. Others have indicated it, but nobody thinks this is fair. And I'm talking about this story, Trump eyeing interference in the epic battle that's shaping up for what is called here by The Economist, the future of entertainment. they're referring to that huge deal we've been reporting on where Netflix is now trying to buy Warner Brothers for many many billions of dollars but now a MAGA billionaire ally in the Ellison family wants to get Warner in what they call a hostile bid that would potentially also determine the ownership of CNN and while Trump has interfered in other ways and obviously is worried about comics like Kimmel he apparently cares a lot about CNN and news we've we've all seen that I don't think you need a lot of examples to prove that.

8:46We're talking about control of major parts of the information ecosystem. Warner Brothers, of course, huge across movies and television. What they make matters. What they don't make, because politicians pressure them or request it, also matters. And Trump, of course, has also pressed tech companies to change their policies to favor him, ending fact-checking at Meta and other places. This hostile bid involves David Ellison, backed by his father, Larry Ellison. Larry Ellison, along with Elon Musk, is one of the richest people in the whole world. You can see all the different media that's consolidating here, along with the billionaire Bezos.

9:22The Ellisons already got control of CBS, which led to changes at their news division in 60 Minutes. Some journalists objected and resigned over it. And while I told you the First Amendment requires respect for free speech and press, instead of the required independence, Trump apparently wants to be kept regularly appraised of how the DOJ could probe this Netflix deal I'm telling you about, that according to reporting in the journal. Pam Bondi, who runs the DOJ, has done basically everything Trump wants, including reversing herself on the Epstein issue, installing prosecutors so illegally that two, not one, but two, have now been fired by federal judges, an indignity we have not actually seen in the modern era of the DOJ.

10:06So with her in charge and Trump wanting to interfere, Trump could try to push her to misuse DOJ oversight of this merger to stop it. To put it simply, he could try to get Bondi to stop what is currently happening in the free market and the deal going to Netflix to help get it over to these MAGA allies, the Ellicons. They want to buy Warner instead of Netflix, and they want some parts of the deal that Netflix isn't even currently pursuing. which brings us back, as I mentioned, to CNN. David Ellison, quote, offered assurances to Trump officials that if he bought Warner, he'd make sweeping changes to CNN, the journal reports.

10:46Now, Ellison recently did say he's talked to Trump, but that he won't speak for him on the CNN issues. So we haven't heard his whole side of it, but Trump apparently admits to people around him that he wants new ownership of CNN and changes to their programming. So now you see how we got here. If a politician doesn't like the messengers at CNN, he can try to get his allies to buy the messenger. New ownership, as they put it in that article. And then start changing programming. So what we're seeing shape up and now really leak out in public is Kimmel round two. But with way bigger stakes. And instead of Disney being pushed by the people, by you or some people, because at first they had the indefinite suspension and then they came back.

11:32but instead of Disney ultimately being pushed by the public to back Kimmel, here, if this goes down, the new buyers might be ready to give Trump what he wants, those programming changes. The First Amendment bars this kind of plot. Netflix is currently in the lead to get this deal if the Trump administration does not intervene by getting Attorney General Bondi to basically use the DOJ to try to block it. Now, the First Amendment protects the Ellisons too. They may buy and run media how they see fit. An honest First Amendment advocate defends their speech in media or MAGA media or Fox News right along with everyone else's free speech.

12:13But the problem does come in if the federal government, Trump, abuses power to interfere in this free market, trying to distort what you see, what you hear, to help his own government. And that's at the cost of free speech and perhaps the truth itself. So here we are. This is one time where the free market and free speech are on the same side, while a politician tries to interfere with both, to shape coverage of his record and his economic problems, what he calls his mess, rather than, you know, maybe trying to fix the actual mess instead of buying the messenger. I got Mya Wiley here. We're back in 90 seconds.

13:25Only Novo Nordisk makes FDA-approved Ozempic. Now here's that jingle again. There's only one Ozempic. Hi, it's Sierra Miller. I can't wait for you to check out my new collection of shoes and accessories at Designer Shoe Warehouse. If you love shoes as much as I do, then trust me, I got you. From cute sneak arenas to the perfect flip-flops to stunning heels, these shoes are all style, no drama. It's a girl's girl summer, and DSW has just the shoes. Shop the Sierra Miller Collection right now at your DSW store or DSW.com.

14:24or with promo code SXM. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimpliSafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at$49.99 a month. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. Tennessee 2012.

14:38President Trump says he inherited a mess. That is one of his arguments today, and he is going to build on that in what we are just keeping an eye on, making sure you know what's going on all over the country. You're looking at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, where the president is giving this address and talking about his economic agenda As we've been reporting, it's a bit of a rejoinder to some of the headwinds he's faced, both in polling, where even Trump voters say this is the worst set of prices and cost of living in their lives that they remember. And obviously in the Democratic sweep, which involved economic issues just last month.

15:10So now you've seen what's going on out there. As promised, I'm bringing in our special guest, Maya Wiley, as CEO, president of Leadership Conference on Civil Human Rights and a politician at times. She ran for mayor in New York, which I mentioned because it's a big, expensive city where affordability was back on the ballot just last month. And speaking of the economy, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Jared Bernstein, one of the warmest economic nerds we know. That says something, Jared, because some of them are a little data driven. Low bar, my friend, low bar. Yes. You light up the scene when you're surrounded by economists.

15:49I can say that because I've known you a long time. I'll start with I'll start with you, because as I've been reporting, Trump says it's a mess, but it's someone else's fault. But he's he's not even really claiming it's not a mess anymore. The voters think the prices are a mess. And at the same time, when you talk about inequality, it is inequality powering a billionaire buying spree, which could subvert the free market, something I know you say is better off free than than in some Soviet, you know, kneecap position to distort the coverage of the messy economy. Do I have that right? And what do you see here?

16:27You have it exactly right. But you also have something else right. Earlier, you said I wrote this down. You can't spin people out of being stressed. by affordability issues. And so, you know, this issue, it's really kryptonite to the president. It's one of the reasons he's out there tonight, because he can do a very good job of getting his followers to follow him into a phony reality in lots of different issues. But they know which way is up when it comes to prices. And so I find this to be a very challenging issue for him. And so do his advisors who are, again, sending him out to try to address it.

17:00The problem is that not Not only did he not inherit a mess, he inherited an economy that was improving. And he's made the affordability problem a lot worse, not just with tariffs, but also by allowing those health care premiums to expire. Well, let's let me get to tariffs and we'll get to health care if you want. But I don't know your your nightlife, Jared. Have you ever been to the you know, if you go to a good dive bar, sometimes they have a deal where you get the beer and then you get a shot with the beer. You ever had you ever seen that? No, but I've heard of it. You've heard of it. This is like the Trump version is the opposite.

17:39You get a tariff you don't want that raises the cost. And then you get a bailout for the tariff that apparently the taxpayers are going to have to keep funding for as long as we have the tariffs. I mean, they didn't cancel it. And so here's none other than Britt Hume telling, I talked about the information ecosystem out there, Britt Hume telling Fox viewers about this. No doubt the tariffs are a factor in this, Brett. There's no getting around that. And it's put the president now in a position where he's got to try to help the farmers. They're calling it a bridge, but it's not a bridge loan. This is a subsidy.

18:14The president, who was otherwise mostly conservative on economic policies, engaging in a government program to try to bail out farmers who are hurt by his other program, that, of course, being the tariffs. Jared? Well, those farmers were really hurt. I mean, our soybean farmers, and they're still trying to recover from the damage that he's caused. And so it makes it very, very difficult for him to maintain this fantasy that the tariffs help everybody and that they don't raise costs when he's now consistently taking off tariffs to try to help lower costs. So that kind of—

19:19bathroom or whatever than where he is tonight. He and his team actually have very few solutions to this problem. Democrats have rolled up their sleeves and tried to figure out ways to help. But when it comes to actually helping with affordability, they really don't have much, especially if they're not willing to take down the tariffs. Stay with me. I'm going to turn to Maya and play a little bit of David Ellison, who, as I mentioned, part of the Larry Ellison family, and they have a lot of money. And they're not as famous to people as maybe Elon Musk, but they have Musk-level money. Here's what Mr.

19:56David Ellison was saying as he's both pitching the hostile bid, this would involve CNN and whatnot, and the Trump effect. Do you think the president embraces the idea of you being the owner of CNN, given his criticism, obviously, for that network in the past? By the way, we've had great conversations with the president about this, but I think what but I but I don't want to speak for him in any way, shape or form. Why speak for him when he can speak for you, which is essentially what we're talking about here, which is what is so disturbing about it. Right. Is and we've we already saw this with Brendan Carr.

20:34We've all talked about this multiple times, but Brendan Carr as his head of the Federal Communications Commission, which is the regulatory authority that would make these decisions. And Donald Trump essentially telling Carr what he wants him to do and not do, which includes the control of information. I think the point here is whether it's tariffs or who gets to buy what, what Donald Trump wants most is to be in control, is to make all the decisions, is to bully people into whatever it is he wants them to do. And whether it's using tariffs every time some country pisses him off or whether it is actually thinking about who gets to buy what and what deal goes through.

21:24When we take it all back to just the way people are living their lives, you can't have a destruction of the east wing of the White House and the building of an opulent. It doesn't matter what people think about it. It's the visual of it, the opulence of it, to be cozying up with wealthy people constantly and telling them that you want them to do what you want them to do. And then telling people who literally are trying to figure out whether to pay health care premiums so they can see a doctor when they're sick or buy food. Or buy food. That's what happens when you double the cost of health care premiums.

22:07Take away subsidies for just paying for the health insurance. So but putting all this together is Donald Trump cares mostly about Donald Trump and figuring out how he can use the power that the Supreme Court has said he can use supremely to do what benefits him in whatever way. And I mentioned you being a candidate because you're in New York. It's a big media market, expensive media market. if you and you came in second to as as i've mentioned a mayor who is no more um so voters can always think about huh did they want the guy who got indicted and worked with trump or would they want to do but you know buyer's remorse is a funny thing right um but if you had buddies who could buy up the main media in the entire place you were running i imagine as a candidate that could affect you a lot.

22:57It could affect you a lot. I think the other interesting thing here to note is people are not dumb and they do not like attacks on their ability to make decisions for themselves. And when they see and feel power being abused in that kind of way, they don't like it. And they didn't like the idea of, oh, the government's going to cancel your comedy show. When government becomes abusive, people don't like it. And that's not a political party position. That is just not who we are as Americans. And it is something that we have seen repeatedly that costs politicians. And I think Donald Trump has to take that very seriously at some point.

23:43And Jared, I know you wanted to get on the health care. I will read the exchange from Trump in the new interview with Politico. He said the Democrats love to say affordability, but then they never talk about it. Now, if they said affordability, they are fact check talking about it. And then he's asked, will you tell Congress to extend the Obamacare subsidies, which, as you both, both of our guests here mentioned, go right to affordability because we're talking about something most people need to live. And will the government be supporting them in the safety net here or not? And his answer was, I don't know.

24:21I'll have to see. And Jared, you wanted to get in on that topic. Yeah, I mean, if you're considering affordability and you talk to people about it, they're going to say health care is one of their biggest constraints. Housing as well, child care, utilities. I mean, that's the list. And health care is a particular challenge because it's not something you can go without, especially if you have a sick family member or a child. And now we're talking about for over 20 million people, on average, doubling what they have to pay for health care. And as Maya said a minute ago, you might be able to do that.

24:59But, you know, the rent eats first, health care eats second. And if you've got nothing left, you've got a real problem. Now, his hypocrisy on affordability is just, you know, a continuing saga here because on alternate days, he realizes it's important. And, of course, the election caught the attention of him and his aides. That was very much an affordability election. But, again, where you ended your comments just now were quite important because when they actually pushed him and said, well, what are you going to do about it? He said, I don't know. Now, this is a man who's been president for five years if you tote them all up, and he still doesn't seem to know what to do on health care.

25:37That suggests a real serious foundational problem when it comes to dealing with affordability. Well, what he wants to do is send a check with his name on it so he can tell people that they should be thoughtful and thank him personally, not the government of the United States of America, which is another power grab effort. Right. And the personalizing of everything, which is what we are more accustomed to in failed states or non-democracies than this one. And yet against that backdrop, you have all this pushback and you have 37 percent of Trump voters saying whatever we thought in the past, we get it.

26:09We see it. He's not lowering prices. And that, again, brings us back to, I guess, where we started, why he's in Pennsylvania tonight. Jared and Maya, thanks to both of you. Democrats have a new plan to block a whole other power grab, whether Trump will get to put his face on this coin. Unusual, to say the least. New heat on Pete Hegseth. I have that story coming up. And a breakthrough in the Epstein files. We've got two different cases coming out that will force grand jury materials into the public, something that as recently as a few weeks ago we were told couldn't happen. I'm going to explain to you what these new cases say next.

26:49You know that thing where you get an amazing pair of shoes at a really great price and want to tell everyone about it? Yeah, so do we. Here at Designer Shoe Warehouse, we'll give you something to brag about. Like the latest styles from brands you love. Or the trends everyone's obsessing over. Or shoes that make you feel like, well, you. So go ahead, show off a little. Find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today. DSW, let us surprise you. In the U.S., there's a break-in every 26 seconds. But when intruders step near, SimpliSafe Home Security steps up.

27:26Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. Using AI alerts, U.S.-based live agents help deter break-ins. SimpliSafe, no long-term contracts. Save 50 % on your new system with professional monitoring at SimpliSafe.com slash SXM or with promo code SXM. Outdoor deterrence requires a SimpliSafe Active Guard outdoor protection plan starting at$49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. Tennessee 2012. How does America stay so beautiful at 250 years old? By getting its Beautyrest. This year, enjoy huge savings at the Beautyrest July 4th sales event. Save up to$1 ,000 on Beautyrest black mattresses and adjustable base sets featuring pocketed coil technology for our most advanced motion separation.