President Donald Trump is highly skilled at marketing and branding, but his freewheeling style doesn’t always lend itself well to message discipline.
That is going to pose a challenge ahead of the midterm elections as Trump tries to bolster public perceptions of the economy and reassure voters he and congressional Republicans are doing everything they can to improve it.
On Friday, the headlines were instead dominated by a since-removed video Trump posted depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as monkeys. The White House initially defended the posting, but then conceded it was a staffer’s error and took it down.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) promptly blasted the video as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” raising questions about what ranked second. Scott is the only black Republican senator and chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, tasked with defending the party’s upper chamber majority this year.
After the post was removed, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) mocked Trump for not writing his own social media posts, alluding to the autopen controversies under former President Joe Biden. Newsom is a likely candidate for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
On Thursday, Trump gave a long speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. It was at times funny and irreverent. It likely played well with most of the audience in the room. It also seemed barely tailored to an audience of religious conservatives and rehearsed a set of long-standing Trump grievances, complete with calling Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) a “moron.” The Trump-friendly social conservative Eric Metaxas wrote, and then deleted, a post incredulously asking if anyone had advised Trump that this was the National Prayer Breakfast and offering to help.
“Having been there advising and hearing others advise, I can tell you that yes, his team advises,” former senior legal adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign and outspoken Christian conservative Jenna Ellis wrote on X. “He does not listen.”
But Trump does speak, including about the issues of inflation and affordability that will dominate the midterm elections. Trump delivered a prime-time speech about the economy from the White House before Christmas in what was billed as a pivot toward an economic campaign. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other officials embarked on an affordability tour.
It isn’t breaking through. The two episodes mentioned earlier illustrate why. Trump’s speeches are all over the place and often intended to entertain the in-person audience (and himself) more than to drive a message, even if he does ultimately hit all the important points about prices and the cost of living. Trump’s asides generate more media attention than his defense of his economic record. His quarrels with Massie and interest in relitigating the 2020 election seem to animate him more, too.
Trump’s frenetic social media activity is also aimed more at titillating his hardcore online supporters (and, again, amusing himself) than persuading swing voters. The White House and its allies try to push out a narrative about progress on prices, highlighting things that have become less expensive since Trump returned to office. Gas prices are down. Rents are falling as deportations rise. It mostly gets lost in the shuffle.
Democratic lawmakers pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during his Capitol Hill testimony this week on what Trump means by the “affordability hoax,” implying the president doesn’t view high prices as a legitimate issue. Bessent attempted to clarify that Trump was calling the Democrats’ eagerness to blame his administration for inflation and their renewed interest in this topic once Biden left office a “hoax.”
When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he vowed to “focus like a laser beam” on the economy. His strategist, James Carville, coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.” Trump won in 2024 in part because of the economy, but his approach has always been different. He believes in flooding the zone, dominating headlines across the board rather than just on one or two issues.
Sometimes it works. Democrats were certainly on their heels this time last year as Trump issued a flurry of executive orders. But, like Trump’s oratorical flourishes and Truth Social posts, this strategy can make it difficult to drive a message or explain anything.
Trump isn’t alone. Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) won last year on affordability, but since taking office, all the focus has been on tax increases, a new Democratic-dominated congressional map, and a slew of liberal policy proposals being pushed by her allies in the state legislature.
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was also elected last year with a special emphasis on affordability. Since taking office, the headlines have mainly been about his controversial appointments, executive orders, and snow removal struggles.
Yet, Trump is the face of the Republican Party as it looks to maintain control of Congress in an election dominated by economic concerns. It’s a subject he’ll need to try to stay on through November.