Trump now says bringing down grocery prices, as he promised, will be ‘very hard’
Jim Vondruska/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump campaigned relentlessly on grocery prices in the 2024 race, vowing to bring down costs quickly for American families if given four more years in the White House.
But in an interview with Time in conjunction with being named the magazine’s “Person of the Year,” Trump now says doing that will be a “very hard” task.
Trump was asked if his presidency would be considered a “failure” if he didn’t deliver on his promise to slash Americans’ food bills.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up,” referring to the Biden-Harris administration. “I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” Trump said.
The president-elect then added he believed lower prices were possible through boosting energy production and solving supply chain issues.
“But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken. It’s broken,” Trump said.
Just last week, Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he won the election because of immigration and the economy.
“I won on the border, and I won on groceries,” he told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “Very simple word, groceries. Like almost — you know, who uses the word? I started using the word — the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. We’re going to bring those prices way down.”
Exit polls showed deep discontent with the economy was a big factor in driving voters to Trump.
Inflation spiked to more than 9% during the Biden-Harris administration, a 40-year high. Negative views on the economy plagued President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, with the share of people saying they’ve gotten worse off under the current administration surpassing even Great Recession levels, according to exit poll analysis.
Inflation has since cooled to 2.7% as of November. The latest CPI report found some food items like rice, flour and bacon fell over the past year. But the cost of eggs skyrocketed because of an avian flu outbreak.
Trump said he will bring down prices through increasing American energy production, though domestic oil production under the Biden administration’s reached record levels, as well as through tariffs.
The latter proposal has sparked alarm from many economists, who warn consumers will ultimately be saddled with the effects of slapping taxes on imported goods.
Trump so far proposed high tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada. Mexico and Canada account for the United States’ first and third largest suppliers of agricultural products, according to the Departure of Agriculture.
Asked by NBC’s Welker if he could guarantee Americans won’t pay more because of tariffs, Trump demurred.
“I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow,” he said before going on to claim that before the coronavirus pandemic he had the “greatest economy in the history of our country.”
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump has shown no qualms about making or sticking by picks for his Cabinet no matter the baggage they carry — even some accused of sexual assault.
It’s a far cry from the days when much smaller-scale scandals, such as marijuana use or hiring an undocumented worker as a nanny, sunk candidates put forward by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, experts said.
“We’re in untested waters,” Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told ABC News.
Hanson and other experts said the public has become less concerned about some indiscretions, such as minor and one-time drug and alcohol arrests. Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Douglas Ginsburg admitting to smoking pot when he was younger would never have gotten much negative blowback today, Hanson said.
Two of Bill Clinton’s picks for attorney general — Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood — both withdrew amid questions over their hiring immigrants in the country illegally as babysitters. Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle — Clinton’s choice for health and human services secretary — had to bow out after it was revealed he didn’t pay taxes for the use of a car and driver.
“It’s true that people’s standards have shifted, but the question is, when does it really cross a line?” Hanson said.
Trump’s picks bring the debate to a new level, he argued.
Trump himself campaigned in the shadow of his hush money felony criminal conviction and after a Manhattan civil jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations in both cases.
Matt Gaetz was already a controversial figure before his nomination while under a House Ethics Committee investigation for alleged sexual abuse and illicit drug use.
The former Florida congressman has denied all the allegations and the investigations by the Justice Department ended with no charges being brought and the House Ethics Committee ended when Gaetz resigned from his seat.
Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who alleged he had sexually assaulted her in 2017, an accusation he denied and for which he was not charged.
The New York Times published an email Friday that Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, sent him in 2018 in the context of his divorce from his second wife, saying he had routinely mistreated women for years.
“I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote in the message, according to the Times.
She said she later apologized and told the paper that she sent the e-mail in anger, adding “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.”
The New Yorker reported Hegseth was allegedly forced to step down from two non-profits veterans’ groups that he ran due to “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.” The magazine cited “a trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues.”
ABC News has not independently confirmed The New Yorker or The New York Times reporting.
Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Hegseth, called the New Yorker piece, “outlandish claims laundered …by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate,” in a response to the magazine.
Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told CNN on Tuesday that the allegations in The New Yorker about Hegseth are “innuendo and gossip,” and said the Trump transition has no concerns about his pick to lead the Department of Defense.
Hegseth has said the sex assault allegation from 2017 was “fully investigated” and that he was “completely cleared” although a police report did not say that. He has avoided talking about the allegations while he met with Republican lawmakers over the last couple of weeks to garner support.
Hanson notes Trump named Gaetz and Hegseth after a majority of voters sent him back to the White House despite his own criminal indictments, including attempting to overturn the 2020 election. The sentencing for Trump’s New York conviction has been postponed indefinitely while the federal cases have been dismissed.
That, along with the Republicans taking control of Congress, Hanson said, might have motivated Trump to push forward with his controversial picks.
“It does raise the question if we are holding people to different standards than we used to,” he said. “There has been this notion to shrug it all off, thinking, ‘Everyone is corrupt. At least he’s open about it.'”
Edward Queen, a faculty member at Emory University Center for Ethics, said this thinking has been linked to what he said is growing distrust in the American political system.
“One of the consequences of the decline of trust is that everyone has done ‘it’ therefore ‘it’ doesn’t matter. And that’s disturbing,” he told ABC News.
At the same time, Hanson said, history shows the public traditionally has been against corruption, cronyism and other questionable behavior by public officials.
“There are voters in the middle who voted for Trump that would be unhappy for a vote for these troubling nominees,” Hanson said. “That will come back to hurt Republicans who may have ridden on his momentum.”
Jeff Spinner-Halev, the Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics at the University of North Carolina, however, told ABC News that the general public has not kept up with the ins and outs of the confirmation process on Capitol Hill, and the outcry may not be that loud.
“It will have limited influence,” he said of the public reaction. “What will matter if a few senators are concerned about the controversies or competency of the candidate verses how much they care about the wrath of President Trump.”
The Senate must confirm each Cabinet choice, and while the GOP will have the majority, some Senate Republicans who back Trump also question whether his picks’ ethical issues make them impossible to approve, according to Hanson.
“Putting my shoes in a senator’s for a moment, they don’t want to walk the plank for a vote,” Hanson added. “If they feel that a nominee is too unpopular, they don’t want to stick their hand in the air and say ‘yes’ — but if they do, he said, they would need to weigh the consequences of looking the other way.”
He sees the fact that some GOP senators signaled Gaetz wasn’t acceptable as proof some standards still exist. For example, Gaetz withdrew his name from the nomination eight days after Trump announced it due to the increased scrutiny and more details about his scandals came to light.
Gaetz said in a social media post that his nomination process would have been “a distraction.”
“No one was really looking to defend this guy, and the message got sent to the president-elect’s team that this isn’t going to work,” Hanson said.
“I do think it is a positive sign because, at some point, lines were crossed. Some candidates are just a bridge too far, and it may be the case with some of the other appointees,” he added.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s choice for White House communications director and campaign spokesman, reiterated his claim that “voters gave President Trump a mandate to choose Cabinet nominees that reflect the will of the American people and he will continue to do so.”
“President Trump appreciates the advice and consent of Senators on Capitol Hill, but ultimately this is his administration,” he said in a statement after Gaetz withdrew.
Hanson predicted there will continue to be increased scrutiny of Trump’s Cabinet picks as Senate confirmation hearings get closer, but he warned that the opposition might have limits.
“It depends on how much fight will come from Democrats and interest groups that engage with politics. It will be interesting to see what happens because there is plenty of opportunity here for Democrats in the Senate to make a lot of noise,” he said.
“We will also be in a situation where there may be only enough clout and power to fight only the most controversial of nominees and let others pass,” he said.
Spinner-Halev said that Republican senators, in particular, may not want to cross Trump too many times and may just limit their opposition to his picks with the most baggage.
“One of the worries the Republicans will have is if a person [who is nominated] is incompetent,” he said. “The danger for the Trump administration and Republicans general is if these people are incompetent and mess up and then the public notices. This is what happened with George W. Bush and [Hurricane] Katrina where he said [FEMA Director Michael Brown] was doing a ‘heck of a job.’ That hurt him badly.”
Queen said there is a possibility that some Republican senators may put ethics before partisanship when all is said and done.
“It’s not unreasonable to assume that there are a number of senators who realize there will be consequences of their choices and their decisions that it will be bad for the country as a whole,” he said.
In the long term, Hanson said it is unclear if Trump’s selections will usher in a new norm of presidential picks who buck ethics and experience standards.
He noted that American history has shown several cycles of reform brought on by demand of a public frustrated with dysfunction and improper behavior, such as in the aftermath of the Nixon administration in the 1970s.
“Now that they see what is happening, they may be reminded what the Trump presidency was like the first time around,” he said of Americans who supported him. “There may be a bunch of people who say this is not what I voted for, and that could affect things tremendously.”
Spinner-Halev said the future will depend on how informed the public is over the next four years.
“There is a lot that happens in Washington that’s not in the public eye, and I think it’s important that the public keeps an eye on the bureaucratic ongoings,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — A day after the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied an effort to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two investigations into Donald Trump, the president-elect’s former co-defendants are trying to keep U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing the report to members of Congress.
Attorneys for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira on Friday asked U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon, who earlier this week temporarily blocked the report’s release while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit, to extend her three-day restraining order prohibiting the report’s release so she can hold a hearing about Garland’s proposed plan to release the portion of the report covering Smith’s classified documents investigation to the ranking members and chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
If successful, the move could result in a further delay of the report’s release, potentially past Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.
“Once the Report is disclosed to Congress, this Court will effectively lose its ability to control the flow of information related to privileged and confidential matters in a criminal proceeding,” wrote attorneys for Nauta, a longtime Trump aide, and De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago employee. That makes delaying the issuance of the Final Report until this matter is resolved essential, as there will be no way to put the proverbial cat back into the bag after the Final Report is shared with Congress, and no way to control congressional speech regarding the pending criminal case.”
It’s unclear if Judge Cannon has the jurisdiction to extend her restraining order after the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling left Cannon’s temporary order the only impediment stopping the report’s release. The Justice Department earlier Friday notified Judge Cannon of their intent to appeal her injunction in an effort to nullify the three-day restriction. Garland has stated his intent to make Volume Two of the report, pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case, available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as he is permitted to do so, and to make Volume One of the report, regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, available to the public.
Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira have asked Cannon, who last year dismissed the classified documents case, to hold a hearing about whether Garland should be blocked from releasing the report while the government is still appealing the dismissal of the case against Nauta and De Oliveira.
“”This Court presides over the criminal matter and is best suited to resolve the questions presented by Defendants’ request for injunctive relief,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira also pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Friday’s filing comes amid escalating tensions between Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice. On Thursday, Trump’s co-defendants suggested that the DOJ violated Cannon’s order by submitting a letter to Congress about Smith completing his investigation. Smith, in turn, filed a notice claiming the defense assertion is unfounded.
“There is nothing about the government’s email to counsel for President-elect Trump, the government’s submission to the Eleventh Circuit, nor the Attorney General’s letter to Congress that violates this Court’s Order,” Smith wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — Election eve has arrived with the race for the White House still very tight — with the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday showing Kamala Harris slightly ahead nationally but Donald Trump ahead in some key swing states — and the two candidates deadlocked in Pennsylvania.
Harris is spending her last full day campaigning in battleground Pennsylvania while Trump is hitting the trail in North Carolina and Pennsylvania before ending the day in Michigan.
Musk’s attorney says winners of America PAC giveaway not chosen by chance
At an ongoing hearing in Philadelphia over Elon Musk and his super PAC’s $1 million voter sweepstakes, a defense attorney said the giveaway is a way to recruit spokespeople for America PAC, while the Philadelphia district attorney testified it is a “scam.”
According to defense attorney Chris Gober, the recipients of the million-dollar checks sign contracts after being selected from a pool of people who signed the petition to serve as a spokesperson for the PAC. Tomorrow’s winner has already been decided to be a registered voter from Michigan.
“They were not chosen by chance,” Gober said during the hearing in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.
Minutes later, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s team played a video in court where Musk vowed the money would be awarded “randomly.”
“So I have a surprise for you, which is that we are going to be awarding a million dollars randomly to people who have signed the petition every day from now until the election,” Musk told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Oct. 19.
Testifying from the witness stand, Krasner slammed the giveaway as a “scam” and “grift” intended to “flood money into American elections.”
“That ain’t a contract and that’s not employment,” an animated Krasner, the first witness in the hearing, said. “There are certain words that stick out — awarding. Doesn’t sound like a spokesperson contract.”
“It is unquestionably supposed to be random selection despite what I think is a very disingenuous version of it that I think I heard today,” Krasner said.
Krasner testified that the America PAC has effectively scammed Philadelphia residents out of their personal information — which they entered to sign the petition to enter into the giveaway — while the giveaway never actually offered them a random chance of winning the million-dollar prize.
“They were scammed for their information,” said Krasner, who is asking a judge to immediately stop the giveaway.
-ABC News’ Peter Charalambous
Former Rep. Liz Cheney responds to Trump’s violent rhetoric about her, compares him to an autocrat
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney responded to former President Donald Trump’s attacks on her in an interview with ABC’s “The View” on Monday, including a remark he made suggesting she should “have guns trained on her face.”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Cheney said. “He knows it’s a threat with the intent to intimidate. Obviously, the intimidation won’t work.”
Cheney emphasized Trump’s history of violent rhetoric, including how he responded to the violence on Jan. 6.
“For over three hours, he watched police officers be brutally beaten. He was told the vice president had been evacuated, he said, ‘So what?'” Cheney said. “People were rushing in, pleading with him, ‘Tell the mob to leave,’ and he wouldn’t.”
“That level of depravity, he knows he has no defense to that, and he knows that the American people will not entrust again with power anyone who would do something that cruel,” she continued. “And so because he can’t respond to that, he tries to change the subject, he tries to threaten. It’s what autocrats do to try to get their political adversaries to be silent.”
Vance: ‘Tomorrow is our last chance’
JD Vance addressed voters in Wisconsin during a rally in La Crosse on Monday.
“Tomorrow is our last chance,” Trump’s running mate said. “Tomorrow is the big day when we are going to vote in very big numbers in the state of Wisconsin. We’re going to vote for change. We’re going to vote for American prosperity.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is also campaigning in Wisconsin on Monday. Vance called it “tough work” to “convince the American people” that Harris can be president.
“I think that’s the toughest job in the United States of America,” Vance said, saying Harris is “more of the same” high grocery prices, unaffordable housing and “wide open border.”
Alabama GOP mobilizes 400 poll workers in Georgia and Alabama
The Alabama Republican Party announced on Monday it has launched its most comprehensive poll watcher deployment, with more than 400 poll watchers and election lawyers in Georgia and Alabama.
Over 200 Alabama poll watchers and dozens of election lawyers will be stationed in targeted districts across Alabama, which the party says is part of an effort to ensure a “secure and transparent election process.” The Alabama GOP added that the placement of election lawyers across the state “provides an extra layer of security and real-time responsiveness.”
The Alabama GOP is also deploying more than 200 poll watchers to Georgia, supporting the critical southern battleground state on behalf of former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
-ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson
Trump speaks at campaign rally in Raleigh
At a campaign rally Monday in Raleigh, former President Donald Trump urged his supporters to turn up to the polls on Election Day.
“If we get everybody out and vote, there’s not a thing they can do,” Trump told the crowd of North Carolinians, saying the state was “ours to lose.”
Trump smeared the Democratic Party as a “horrendously dangerous party that’s going to destroy our country.”
“We cannot let that happen,” he said. “So here’s my only purpose in even being here today: Get out and vote.”
Musk doesn’t show at hearing on Philly DA’s challenge to $1 million giveaways
Entering court without his client, Musk’s attorney, Chris Gober, criticized Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for wanting to “silence Elon Musk for supporting Donald Trump.”
“We don’t allow our rights to be trampled upon bipartisan agendas masquerading as legal arguments,” Gober said.
In a late filing this morning, Krasner’s attorney continued to push for Musk to attend the hearing in person because his testimony would demonstrate “he is the beating heart of America PAC’s unlawful lottery and deceptive/unfair practices scheme.”
“Musk cannot distract from his central role by saying that he wants to be busy out campaigning, rather than attending to his responsibilities to this Court,” attorney John Summers said in the filing.
Earlier this morning, America PAC announced that the newest winner of their daily $1 million giveaway is a registered voter from Phoenix. One day remains until the sweepstakes ends on Election Day.
-ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Chris Boccia
How Nebraska’s ‘blue dot’ could prove pivotal in the Electoral College
Amid an increasingly tight election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in several key swing states, Nebraska, and more specifically, its 2nd Congressional District, has taken on an outsize role in this year’s presidential election.
Because Nebraska currently awards three of its five Electoral College votes based on the results in each of its three congressional districts, the so-called “blue dot,” as the 2nd district has come to be known, could be critical to either campaign’s path to 270 electoral votes.
Early vote tops 78 million
As of 5:30 a.m. ET on Monday, more than 78 million Americans have voted early (a combination of absentee and early, in-person totals), according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
The total breaks down into 42,654,364 in-person early votes and 35,348,858 mail ballots returned.
The number of in-person early votes has surpassed 2020’s total number of in-person early votes. However, the overall number of early votes so far (including mail-in and absentee ballots) is still lower than 2020’s overall number.
-ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim
Jeffries says Republicans ‘will take a blow torch’ to social security
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Good Morning America on Monday that Democrats are “on the right side” of the presidential election’s most pressing issues.
“The extreme MAGA Republicans have clearly and unequivocally articulated what they will do to America moving forward,” Jeffries said.
“They will take a blow torch to social security, they will take a blow torch to Medicare, they will take a blow torch to the Affordable Care Act,” Jeffries said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, Jeffries said, is “closing with a positive vision” while former President Donald Trump and his Republican party are “trying to tear us apart.”
Jeffries will become House speaker if Democrats win back control of the chamber this week.
“The majority of current House Republicans voted not to certify the election in 2020,” Jeffries said. “My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don’t seem to be capable of unequivocally saying that they will certify the election and the verdict that is rendered by the American people.”
“As House Democrats, that’s what we will do,” Jeffries added.
“We believe in democracy even when we disagree with the outcome. That’s been part of what’s made America the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”
Candidates vie for every vote in key swing states
Highlighting how important Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes are to her campaign, Kamala Harris is spending her last full day on the trail with multiple events in the state.
Her search for voters includes a rally in Allentown and then she ends with an event in Philadelphia.
Donald Trump is trying to shore up support in battleground North Carolina – where Harris has made inroads – for a rally in Raleigh, before he, too, heads to Pennsylvania for events in Reading and Pittsburgh before ending his final day campaigning in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
