Trump faces ECONOMIC warning signs ahead of midterms

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You want this? You got to give us this. Madison, great to have you. You set us up because North Carolina is also President Trump's next stop in his midterm whistle stop campaign blitz. He heads to Greenville tonight and new data show early voting in the Tar Heel state is already running well ahead of the last midterms. More than 733,000 ballots have now been cast. That is more than 200,000 ahead of where we were back in 2022 at the same point. From there, the president moves on to more key states in the final stretch and the clock is ticking. We are now at just 13 days and 14 hours until the polls open on election day. So joining us now to break down the final sprint, Democratic strategist, Carly Cooperman and Fox News contributor, Joe Concha. Joe, I'll start with you. Okay. President Trump's approval rating. We know it's been going down and down, but it's fallen to 33% in the ABC Washington Post survey. Reuters has him even lower at 31% and just 21% approve of his handling of the cost of living, 23% on inflation, 28% on the economy. How can President Trump reposition [00:01:09] Speaker 2: his economic brand to help the GOP candidates? Those are not numbers you want going into a midterm. I probably just made the most obvious statement on this show's history. [00:01:18] Speaker 1: Captain Obvious. [00:01:20] Speaker 2: Real clear politics. I always like to look at the average of polls. He's at about 39%, which still anything in the 30s is not good. But the last two polls show definitely a downward trend. I think in the end, Trump has complained that he hasn't had good enough public relations when telling all the good things about the economy. And the bad things obviously are that gas today is $4.28 per gallon. That's higher than it was under Biden, for example. Anything above $4 is a reminder in every street corner of a tax on everybody. So that's certainly not good. But the GDP, when you look at what he took office compared to now is up an average of 3.2%. The S&P is up 30% since inauguration day, which considering the tariff war that was supposed to bring down the stock market, that's a good story to tell. Retail sales, consumer spending, all robust as well. Inflation, yes, 3.7%, but compared to above 9% during the Biden administration, particularly around those midterms, that's obviously a number you would prefer under four than nine. All that said, voters are not giving him credit because Trump said he would bring down the cost of living upon entering office. And obviously that hasn't happened. And just like James Carville said 34 years ago, it's the economy, stupid. [00:02:26] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it is. But Carly, Democrats do have a 14-point advantage when it comes to inflation and cost of living. That's in the Washington Post poll. But then you listen to some of the Democratic Party's candidates, and all they're talking about is free, free, free. They're talking about, for example, in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, who's the Senate candidate running on Medicare for all, 100% free child care. Texas, the Senate candidate James Tallarico says universal child care, canceling medical debt, down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. This list goes on and on. So that's not realistic. Free is not realistic unless you talk about how you get the revenue. I am staring at the debt clock right now. As we count, the U.S. federal budget deficit is $1.9 trillion. What is the Democrats' plan to raise revenue? Because it sure looks like they can't do it unless they hit everybody with a tax increase. [00:03:20] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think the first point is that we're in a position right now where the economic situation is favoring Democrats to have big wins because Trump was elected to help make life more affordable, and that is not what voters are seeing. We just ran through a number of metrics metrics that are really problematic right now. But at the end of the day, when voters see that their gases, gas prices are more expensive, their groceries are more expensive, that's the first sign. Their life is too expensive right now. So you've got Democrats who still are unfavorable. Voters are unfavorable to them right now as well. And they understand that while, you know, taking a stand against President Trump is the first problem, they also need to come through and put forward policies. And I think some of what you're referencing is speaking to the fact that there's deep, deep, deep, deep discontent with how expensive life is right now. But that being said, I think the Democrats understand that they're reaching to voters in terms of their concerns about affordability. But there also has to be practical solutions. And I think it's going to start by trying to repeal some of the things that Trump has undone by getting rid of the tariffs, ending the Iran war so that gas prices can go down, restoring some of the cuts made to health care because health care costs have gone up to. So it's a mix. But you are certainly citing some of the more extreme policies [00:04:37] Speaker 1: with El Saeed as well. Joe, gasoline is obviously a huge issue for people. President Trump struck this deal with Russia to have Russia export diesel. I believe diesel futures came down about 6.5 percent from the recent record, but they are still incredibly high. Yeah. National average of gasoline prices also much higher than a year ago. And here you have diesel, $6.31. That trickles through everything. And who does that affect most? Farmers. Why does President Trump take the angle of mocking the word affordability? You know, he calls it a made-up word. Right. Does that help? Does his research show that that helps to make fun of the word affordability? [00:05:22] Speaker 2: It's not exactly articulate. It's inelegant. His point and the context that you hear from his allies are the fact that, well, if you want to hand the keys to Democrats when they controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency in 2021 and 2022, and we talked about inflation being above 9 percent, and during that time, wages were down. If you want to give the keys back to that party, they've shown that they don't know how to bring down affordability either. So I think, I'm not trying to interpret exactly what he said. I'm going based on what his allies have said. But to mock it is the same thing, the same mistake that Joe Biden made during his presidency, where he said, well, people just don't understand how good they have it. That's not what people want to hear [00:05:56] Speaker 1: at this point. It isn't. It is not, definitely. But, Carly, we know now that so much money is being spent on individual races. I want to bring it to Texas because this is the one that's most talked about. Elon Musk has poured something like personal money of $158 million into propping up Senate GOP's leading super PAC, and then he sent a huge amount to the PAC that is helping Ken Paxton. James Tallarico's response, Texas is not for sale. Is this, money talks, it really does. You get, you just flood the zone with a lot of advertisements and people start believing it. I mean, what are, [00:06:31] Speaker 3: what are Tallarico's odds here? Yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why the Republican cash advantage in a lot of these states that are pivotal to who's going to win the Senate, they're being flooded right now, and Republicans have a cash advantage across the board, and that is certainly helping them. Look, Tallarico, if I came on here two months ago, I would not have thought that he had the chance that he has right now. I mean, he has a lead in some polls, he has sustained his momentum. Um, he has, uh, he is able to connect to voters in a way that is real. And if he, or it's to be successful, I mean, we know it will be a very good night for Democrats. [00:07:08] Speaker 1: And before, and before we go, uh, money doesn't always work, as we saw with Kamala Harris, who spent [00:07:13] Speaker 2: a lot of money. $1.5 billion and was in debt after the campaign. Absolutely. In debt. That failed [00:07:19] Speaker 1: miserably. It did not work. Donald Trump won that. So in the end, this comes down to what the American [00:07:25] Speaker 2: people are really hearing and what they want to hear. Sure. And Michael Bloomberg may have leveled the playing field a little bit today. I've just announced New York Times, $80 million he's donating to the Democrat Party. That's not 150 from, from Musk. But in the end, I think social media is such an equalizer where you don't need the ads on TV so much because people just aren't paying attention to that as much as they may be attention to their ex feed or even TikTok.