President Donald Trump will deliver a televised speech Wednesday evening that is expected to focus heavily on the economy, an effort to reverse declining public opinion numbers and the view even among some supporters that he has not lived up to key campaign promises.
Trump’s ratings reached their lowest levels of his second term late last month. Although his numbers have rebounded slightly, he still remains underwater with the public, particularly on domestic economic issues such as the cost of living.
A Washington Post average of national polls so far in December found that 39 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing, compared to 57 percent who disapprove. On the economy in particular, the average is slightly worse for Trump, with just 36 percent approving and 58 percent disapproving.
Trump is not expected to make major new policy announcements during the 9 p.m. address, a White House official and a person close to the White House told The Washington Post. But the two individuals, who requested anonymity to preview the speech, cautioned that Trump could change his mind ahead of the address.
“I think the message this evening is we inherited a mess and we’ve done a great job and we continue to, and our country is going to be stronger than ever before very soon,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon, after attending a ceremony at Dover Air Force Base to honor the arrival of remains of U.S. service members killed over the weekend in Syria.
Throughout the day, speculation mounted about whether the president would address the possibility of war with Venezuela, after Trump on Tuesday made a dramatic escalation in his months-long pressure campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving the country, declared the Venezuelan “regime” a foreign terrorist organization and accused government officials of using oil to enrich themselves and finance drug trafficking.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would discuss “all that he’s done to bring our country back to greatness, and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years.”
While Trump’s advisers have attempted to coach him on discussing the economy in terms that resonate with working-class and middle-class Americans facing financial hardships, the president has continued to refer to the topic of affordability as a “Democratic hoax” and has touted a surging stock market as one of the examples of his improvements to the U.S. economy. The White House has also attempted to do a better job selling legislation passed over the summer that officials say will bring tax cuts for most Americans come April.
Inflation, which spiked under former president Joe Biden, has remained stubbornly high throughout Trump’s first year in office, while hiring numbers have been weak. Industry groups have blamed the array of tariffs Trump has unilaterally imposed on foreign imports for increased prices on retail goods.
Two senior White House officials told The Post that Trump, as a result of growing discontent over the economy, is expected to hold near-weekly rallies in the new year after holding few since his victory in November 2024. The increase in domestic travel in part reflects an effort to reconnect with his base of loyal supporters, some of whom believe Trump has lost sight of the reason they elected him — which many in MAGA say was to boost working-class Americans and be relentless in his pledge of “mass deportations.” Instead, these supporters have said, the president has been distracted by international affairs, striking deals with corporations and overseeing White House construction projects.
If President Trump wants young men to vote for JD Vance in 2028 to continue the America First MAGA agenda that our country so desperately needs, then, Mr. President, we need you to follow through on both denaturalizations and mass deportations. pic.twitter.com/C7ArhU0yUf
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) December 2, 2025
Last week, Trump traveled to Pennsylvania to talk about affordability — though the president veered off course for much of the speech, and again mocked the word “affordability.” The president is similarly scheduled to hold a rally on Friday in North Carolina on his way to a two-week sojourn in Florida for the holidays.
White House and outside advisers have encouraged Trump to dramatically shift his focus on domestic issues after spending much of the summer and fall on foreign affairs. The president frequently claims that he has ended several foreign wars, including conflicts between Israel and Hamas and Israel and Iran.
And Trump continues to signal his interest in taking more aggressive action against Venezuela. On Wednesday, he told reporters that the country “took all of our energy.”
“They took all of our oil from not that long ago, and we want it back,” Trump said. “They took it. They illegally took it.”
Among other recent issues dogging the White House was the Tuesday publication of an interview with Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, a normally tight-lipped adviser who was quoted reflecting critically on some of the administration’s policies — including its approach to deportations, the attorney general’s handling of the investigation of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s occasional efforts to punish his enemies. Wiles referred to Vice President JD Vance as a “conspiracy theorist” and described Trump as someone with an “alcoholic’s personality.”
White House officials and Trump’s Cabinet members — including some who Wiles spoke critically of — rushed to her defense, as did Trump.
Vance, Cabinet members, White House advisers and Republican officials in Congress have urged the public to be patient, predicting that Trump’s policies would bring more economic relief next year ahead of the midterms.
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