Last year, Donald Trump couldn’t stop talking about the economy.
As a presidential candidate, he assailed Democrats for inflation and rode the persistent malaise over the high cost of living right back to the White House, promising swift relief even though economists warned that his plans could actually drive prices higher.
Today’s lackluster jobs numbers are a reminder of how quickly the issue could present him, and his party, with political peril as elections approach.
The economy added only 22,000 jobs in August, which, my colleague Lydia DePillis explained, is a sign that the labor market appears to be stalling. Looking backward, the news is even worse: A revision to June’s figures shows the labor market actually lost 13,000 jobs that month, making it the first negative number since December 2020.
There are other signs of trouble. A key measure of underlying inflation rose over the summer as Trump’s tariffs put pressure on prices, driving up the costs of things like furniture, appliances and clothing. Manufacturing activity has been shrinking for six months.
It’s not clear right now just what will happen to the economy between now and next year’s midterm elections. (And today’s news might deliver an upside for Trump: The darkening labor market could mean that he gets his long-sought cut to the interest rate, as my colleague Colby Smith pointed out today.)
But what is clear, right now at least, is that the president has a problem.
A recent Gallup poll found that his approval rating on the economy fell to 37 percent in August, from 42 percent in February. That’s a steep drop from his average approval rating on the economy during his first term, which was 52 percent.
When you dig into specific issues, it doesn’t look any better. A poll late last month by The Economist and YouGov found inflation to be the top ranked issue for voters — and just 34 percent of them approved of his handling of the issue, according to the poll.
And then there’s the vibe — the feeling of malaise that weighed down President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris last fall. Last month, 63 percent of Americans thought the economy is getting worse, Gallup found — one point higher than the 62 percent who believed that in October 2024, right before the election.
Democrats are seizing the moment as an inflection point, eager to hammer home to voters what Trump has done to make the economy his own as they attempt to wrest control of Congress from Republicans next year. Trump passed expansive tax cuts into law and implemented steep tariffs that have driven up prices of everyday goods and raw materials. He is also trying to exert more control over the historically independent Federal Reserve.
“The American people are feeling the impact of the Trump administration’s dangerous one-man command policies in community after community,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, said in a statement on Friday. He added that Trump and Republicans had promised to lower the cost of living, but failed.
Democrats have been struggling to unify around how to hit back at Trump, but many have taken a key lesson from their walloping loss in the 2024 elections. They believe a laser focus on the economy can help them win in tough races next year. Voters rated the economy as their top issue in every one of The New York Times and Siena College’s pre-election polls last year, and exit polls showed that Trump outperformed Harris among those who believed the economy was in poor shape.
Trump’s White House defended its handling of the economy in a statement on Friday. Republicans say the midterms are a lifetime away, and that Trump will be able to shape what voters care about no matter what happens.
“Will the economy always be top of voters’ minds? Yes. But did voters care as much about trade, immigration or crime pre-Trump as they do now? No, and that’s because Trump has made people care about things he thinks are important,” said Bill Stepien, a Republican who managed the president’s re-election campaign in 2020.
“So don’t assume President Trump will be reacting to any issue next November, because he will be trying to drive the discussion in his direction,” Stepien added.
Indeed, Trump is already working hard to make sure the midterms are about anything other than the economy. He has openly said that he believes his crackdown on crime in Washington — which he has said he intends to expand to cities like Chicago and perhaps New Orleans — will play well for him next fall.
“I think it’s going to be a big, big subject for the midterms,” he said last week, referring to the issue of crime, “and I think the Republicans are going to do really well.”
IN HIS WORDS
What Trump didn’t say
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”
— President Trump, Truth Social, Friday, Sep. 5
Days after the leaders of three major Eastern powers — China, Russia and India — clasped hands and shared a warm greeting, Trump acknowledged India’s shift away from the U.S. and toward America’s adversaries.
But in his social media post, Trump did not mention the role he played in pushing the country away.
In August, he imposed 50 percent tariffs on India for importing Russian oil. Trump has also claimed that he “solved” the military conflict between India and Pakistan. That irked India’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who told him U.S. involvement had nothing to do with a May cease-fire.
Trump’s post, as my colleagues Luke Broadwater and David Sanger wrote today, was an unusual acknowledgment that his blunt force approach has had unintended consequences.
The Moment
A rare appearance in the White House
Melania Trump keeps an unusually low public profile for a first lady, but on Thursday, she appeared alongside prominent technology executives for a round table about artificial intelligence. My colleague Haiyun Jiang was there to photograph the moment — and Shawn McCreesh, who covers the White House, is here to tell us what happened.
It’s an anomaly for us on the White House beat when Melania Trump decides to pay a visit, as she did on Thursday. In a contrast to appearances by her husband, her events are invariably low-key, and this one did not deviate.
Her fashion was impeccable. She read from a binder. She took no questions and did nothing surprising, while the likes of Silicon Valley bigwigs like Sam Altman looked on. If the event revealed anything, it was her continued focus on technology. So much of what this first lady (who has her own crypto memecoin) has shown up for in Washington has had to do with deepfakes, catfishing and, now, A.I.
It also offered a fleeting glimpse into Melaniaworld, which makes for one of the subtler subplots in the sprawling and rococo drama that is the Trump administration.
On Thursday, she brought along her most trusted confidante, Hayley Harrison, who, like her boss, keeps an extremely low profile. Her official title is chief of staff to the first lady; she and Melania Trump have worked closely together since the first Trump administration. Harrison sat at the round table on Thursday, too, and was appointed to the White House’s A.I. task force — though we didn’t get to hear from her.
The planned construction of a ballroom near the East Wing is expected to push some of the first lady’s staff out of their offices there and into the White House residence, which greatly excites them. I was told this week to expect to see much more of the first lady in the coming months. Time will tell.
you shouldn’t miss
A SEAL Team 6 mission gone wrong
On a winter night in early 2019, a boat interrupted a top secret Navy SEAL mission to install spyware in North Korea. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire, killing everyone on the boat and dooming a mission that was already fraught with risk.
In a remarkable feat of reporting, my colleagues Dave Philipps and Matthew Cole have uncovered details of a top-secret operation that was never publicly acknowledged by the first Trump administration — not even to Congress. Withholding that information, they wrote, may have violated federal law.
Read their investigation here.
Shawn McCreesh, Minho Kim and Jacob Reber contributed to this newsletter.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to how President Trump is changing Washington, the country and its politics.
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