Up First from NPR
Trump's Defends Affordability, SCOTUS & Presidential Power, Indiana Redistricting
09 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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President Trump is headed to Pennsylvania to make his case on an issue that's hurting Republicans at the polls. The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. Voters blame his policies for high prices, so what's the White House doing about it? I'm E. Martinez, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority signaled a readiness to scrap a 90-year precedent that insulated independent agencies from White House pressure. A ruling could let President Trump fire regulators for any reason. And in Indiana, Republicans are racing to pass a new congressional map, one that could wipe out the last two Democratic seats in the state. Stay with us.
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Chapter 2: What is President Trump's stance on affordability in Pennsylvania?
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President Trump travels to Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania today to talk about his administration's efforts to address a top concern for voters, affordability.
Chapter 3: How are voters reacting to Trump's policies on prices?
At the White House on Monday, he gave a preview.
You can call it affordability or it anything you want.
But the Democrats caused the affordability problem, and we're the ones that are fixing it. So it's a very simple statement.
They caused it. We're fixing it.
This claim after he previously called affordability a, quote, hoax. The problem for Trump and Republicans is that recent polls show voters blame the president's policies for high prices. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now. Tamara, this sort of travel, going out and selling your policies, that's what presidents typically do, except not this year so far.
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Chapter 4: What changes could the Supreme Court make regarding presidential power?
Yeah. In his second term, President Trump has done very little domestic travel aimed at pitching his policies to the American people. In fact, he's done way more travel to sporting events than going out in the country and making his case. A senior White House official I spoke with who was not authorized to speak publicly readily acknowledged that this sort of messaging travel has been lacking.
and said the president would be ramping it up late this year and into next year, starting with today's trip to Pennsylvania, which is to a competitive congressional district.
I'd rather go to sporting events, too, but that's just me. So what's this first stop message going to be?
Well, the senior White House official I spoke to said that the president will be balancing talking about what they see as real economic good news with an acknowledgment that there's more work to do. And just ask President Biden about the perils of telling people that, well, actually, the economy is fine when their cost of living is way up.
Getting the tone right on the economy is something presidents have often struggled with. Trump himself has been a bit off message. Take this from a cabinet meeting last week.
The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.
I watched the other day where some very low IQ congresswoman said, talked about affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea.
Their prices were much higher.
And inflation did get alarmingly high under Biden, but then it slowed down. The most recent inflation numbers show that the rate in September was the same as it was during Biden's last month in office.
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