Donald Trump’s efforts to shore up support for Republicans backfired spectacularly after he admitted that he “doesn’t give a damn” about Americans’ affordability crisis.
The president, 80, came under fire after he bragged about the United States profiting off high oil prices—against the advice of his own advisors—during a campaign stop in Georgia on Saturday.
“We’re making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, but my people said, ‘Please don’t mention that, sir,’ because people are paying a little higher,” Trump told the crowd.
“But what we’ve done for this country, we’re making money like this country has never made before.”
Trump acknowledged that “the headlines” would likely read “Trump is talking about all the money they’re making while people are suffering at the pump,” but admitted “I don’t give a damn.”
“I’m going to say it,” he conceded, “we’re making a freaking fortune.”
Trump’s comments come as high gas prices and inflation have plummented US consumer setiment to record-breaking lows—something critics quickly noted.
“Congratulations to Big Oil on their very successful, record-profits presidency,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to Trump’s remarks in an X post.
“Give [POTUS] credit for leveling with the American people,” former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote in an X post. “HE’s making money like he’s never made before. And he doesn’t give a damn about high gas prices.(Not a great closing message, though.)”
Susan Glasser, a staff writer at the New Yorker, likened the comment to Trump’s entire second term.
“This is like the epigraph for the entire Trump 2.0 presidency,” she wrote.
Trump’s controversial remarks come at a time when many Americans see the president as out of touch with the cost-of-living crisis.
In September, data shows that inflation surged hotter than anticipated. Consumer prices rose 3.7 percent last month from a year ago, up from 3.4 percent in August and above the 3.6 percent year-over-year many economists expected.
Meanwhile, the president has traversed the country, insisting affordability is a hoax cooked up by Democrats, as voters signal that rising prices and their struggles to make ends meet are the top issue in the election.
White House spokesperson Matthew Middleton has previously asserted to the Daily Beast that Trump “has implemented an aggressive, pro-growth economic agenda that has blunted Biden’s inflation crisis, driven economic growth, increased wages and created private-sector jobs in areas that had been hollowed out and shipped overseas.”
“The President has always been clear about temporary disruptions as a result of the Iran conflict, but this administration will continue to deliver economic wins for the American people over the next two years,” Middleton said.
