Facing criticism from Main Street voters about inflated grocery prices, President Donald Trump and his team are adopting an aggressive strategy of sympathizing with the economic pain Americans feel and explaining their plan to fix it.
“We are very aware of the pain,” Peter Navarro, the Trump economist and senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, told Washington Secrets.
After two weeks of somewhat confusing strategy on the issue that has led to plummeting approval ratings, the Trump White House has settled on a plan to offer understanding for what Americans are facing, how inflation under the former Biden administration hurt the economy, and what the administration is doing to cut prices.
The president this week complained that Republicans have been slow to pick up on that plan and aren’t talking up recent improvements in prices, such as gasoline.
Peter Navarro: “They want to blame Donald Trump for what is Biden legacy inflation” pic.twitter.com/9HN7H8YCpb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 13, 2025
But like when former President Ronald Reagan faced a similar wobbly economy, Trump and his team realize that they have to lead the discussion and are now planning trips around the country and deploying top aides to explain the rescue effort.
In the past few days, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Kevin Hassett, chairman of the National Economic Council, and Navarro have hit the airwaves to tell what they inherited from Biden and why some economic sectors have been slow to recover.
Trump, said Navarro, “is very focused on the issue.”
But, he said, “What he’s pissed off about is that nobody else is on our side of the fence, so we’re fixing that.”
Navarro said that continuing to lessen inflation is a top job. “We’re focused like a laser on addressing inflation issues and potential slow-growth issues. What we need to do is message that we are doing a great job and things are getting better. Yeah, that provides no comfort at all to people who are in pain. So what we have to do is explain exactly what we’re doing sector by sector, transportation, health care, food, shelter, remind people how we got there, which is to say that everything that Democrats do in terms of policy is inflationary,” said Navarro.
“And then,” he added, “give them some hope.”
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Navarro also said that the economic team plans to better explain why some economic sectors and even grocery items may remain high.
On the Fox Business show Mornings with Maria, he told host Maria Bartiromo, for example, that “lags” in production can delay price cuts. He gave an example of reducing the prices of eggs and chickens because they can be produced quickly while beef takes longer to get to market.