Donald Trump Jr. pulled into the drive-thru during vacation with two of his boys and picked up a talking point. “We went to McDonald’s, and it was $48 for a 10-year-old, 14-year-old and me,” the eldest son of the wealthy president would recall during the 2024 campaign. “If Donald Trump Jr has sticker shock at McDonald’s,” he said leaning into the class dynamic, pausing for effect, “we have a serious problem!”
The bit always killed. It was an encapsulation of the deep economic discontent with Democrats that drove voters into the arms of his father. More than any other issue, exit polls later showed, anxiety over the economy helped make Trump president a second time.
A year later, despite slowing inflation and a booming stock market, relief has not yet trickled down to the kitchen table of everyday Americans. Even McDonald’s remains expensive. And now Democrats, not Republicans, are the ones winning off-year elections on the affordability question.
President Trump attempted something of a reset on Monday at the McDonald’s Impact Summit. And he did something rare while doing it: He acknowledged that economic pain was ongoing during his watch, and he admitted his job was not done.
Inflation has abated from its peak during the Biden era, but he insisted it could still go “a little bit lower,” explaining to owners and operators of his favorite fast-food franchise gathered in Washington, D.C., that “we want perfection.”
“We’re fighting for an economy where everyone can win,” Trump said, “from the cashier starting a first job, to a franchisee opening his first location, to the young family in the drive-thru line.”
All of this is an undeniable shift. The president told Laura Ingraham of Fox News just last Monday that concern over rising prices was “a con job by the Democrats.” The same president then said one week later of Republicans and Democrats, “Affordability should be our word, not theirs.” He qualified, of course, that he was cleaning up a different president’s mess. “The Biden administration started the affordability crisis,” he said, “and my administration is ending it.”
The fear among some Republicans: Trump may be making the same mistake as Biden did, namely overhyping economic achievements at a time when voters still feel pain at the pump, in the grocery checkout, or at the drive-thru.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, formerly a Trump favorite, delivered that warning, to the frustration of the White House. “Gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping. It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store,” the Georgia Republican said last week during an appearance on “The Sean Spicer Show.”
Some Republicans close to the president believe the economy is where his focus, or at least the emphasis of the White House, should have been all along. One source familiar with Trump’s thinking cautioned that “no one gives a damn what you did to solve Middle East peace, when they have no peace in the grocery store.”
The GOP now finds itself in the same unenviable position as the Biden administration did: urging an increasingly exasperated public for patience. The effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which the GOP is touting as the economic savior, will be obvious come April when voters have more cash on hand after tax season.
Back to the McDonald’s drive-thru.
Trump worked one briefly during a campaign stunt, delighting his supporters as he manned the fry station for a shift weeks before the presidential election. Returning to fast food, said GOP strategist Doug Heye, immediately grounds the conversation. By kicking off his affordability push during an address to franchise owners and operators, Heye said, Trump picked a real-world example that demonstrates to voters he “understands what the problem is and is working to fix it.”
An unhealthy staple of the American diet, fast food is convenient but not cheap. Families are increasingly going without the Big Macs and Filet-O-Fish that Trump favors. The president made only a passing reference to meat prices Monday, telling McDonald’s franchise owners that decreasing energy costs would bring down costs overall.
Earlier this month, the fast-food giant committed to eating some of the cost in order to reduce prices and to win back budget-conscience consumers. “Maybe I’ll have to be back here again next year,” Trump told the crowd, “if you get them down enough.”
Philip Wegmann is a White House correspondent for RealClearPolitics. This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
