A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Voters say affordability is a top concern, so it makes sense that the economy is expected to be one of the main issues in this year's midterm elections.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump has started traveling around the country, giving speeches about the economy. He was at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday, although he did not exactly stay on topic.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And now, after less than 12 months in office, this is the easiest speech to make. I have great people, and all I'm doing is spewing off what the hell we've done. Even Venezuela wasn't too bad, was it, huh?
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here to break it all down. Tam, the president is kind of proud of what he calls the weave. Is that what we just heard here?
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Yes. Yes, it is. He was really all over the place in this speech, changing topics midsentence and boasting about being off the teleprompter 80% of the time. This speech included insults from more than half a dozen politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike. And then there was his impression of his predecessor.
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TRUMP: Remember the speeches Joe would make? First of all, they'd last a matter of seconds, you know? (Impersonating Joe Biden) Thank you very much.
You ever notice Joe would always cough before a speech? State of the Union he gets, (impersonating Joe Biden coughing).
KEITH: And picture the president making contorted facial expressions to go along with the sound effects.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So beyond the impersonations, what did the president actually say about the economy?
KEITH: First off, he said, it is great. He boasted that grocery prices are, quote, "starting to go rapidly down." That was on the same day that the government announced that in December, grocery prices had their biggest spike since 2022. He went into some detail about his view that when gas prices come down, other prices will come down as well.
Of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, he said, that jerk will be gone soon, and then he teased new proposals.
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TRUMP: In the coming weeks, I will be laying out even more plans to help bring back affordability. And again, remember, that's a fake word by Democrats. Prices were too high. They caused the high price.
KEITH: And these regular riffs about affordability being a con job or a fake word really risk undercutting his message and are also out of line with the pain that people say they're feeling.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Trump mentioned laying out even more plans. Any idea what those plans are?
KEITH: He said he's going to outline a proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week to bring down home prices by getting private equity companies out of the U.S. housing market. And Trump has started talking about a plan to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year. Thus far, he is just talking about asking the companies to voluntarily make that change. And, yes, these absolutely sound like ideas you've heard before from Democrats, not Republicans. Trump even called Senator Elizabeth Warren this week to talk ideas, but the response from Republicans on the Hill has been pretty tepid so far.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, one other thing happened at the Ford truck plant that Trump toured before the speech, and it involved the president giving the middle finger.
KEITH: Yeah. TMZ posted a video of the incident. Someone shouted what sounded like pedophile protector, presumably about the Epstein files. In response, Trump appeared to mouth an expletive, then gave the middle finger to the person who was shouting. In a statement, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, quote, "a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response."
MARTÍNEZ: OK. NPR's Tamara Keith. Thanks a lot.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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