As the war in Iran drives a surge in gas prices and shakes financial markets, President Donald Trump is leveraging his reality TV experience in an effort to shift public attention to new tax breaks that will send larger refunds to some Americans.
On Monday, Trump received a McDonald’s delivery at the Oval Office from a worker wearing a “DoorDash Grandma” T-shirt, who said she saved $11,000 because of a Republican-backed law that allows Americans to temporarily deduct income from some tips from their federal taxes. On Thursday, he is scheduled to fly to Las Vegas, the swing-state city with lots of hospitality workers who stand to benefit from the policy.
Ahead of the Wednesday tax deadline, the White House also released a Pixar-style animated video celebrating the tips that gig workers will save, culminating in a cartoon version of the president hugging a pizza delivery worker.
“You go the extra mile for your customers, now your tax return goes the extra mile for you,” the video says, after showing the delivery driver holding a receipt that says “You keep 100%!” signed by Trump in Sharpie.
Republicans are positioning last year’s tax and spending-cut bill as their answer to rising concerns about affordability. But the Iran war has largely overshadowed the White House’s efforts to project greater empathy for Americans’ financial challenges. And rising gas prices threaten to wipe out the higher tax refunds that the average household will receive from the new tax law, economists say. Multiple polls also show that most Americans still think their taxes are too high.
The result puts the Trump administration in a position that would be familiar to veterans of the previous administration — struggling to convince Americans that their economic conditions are better than they feel. Former president Joe Biden’s aides spent much of his administration fruitlessly trying to make a similar case as voters soured on rising prices.
Republicans have signaled the tax refunds will be central to their midterm campaign messages as the party looks to protect its narrow majority in Congress. The National Republican Congressional Committee on Tuesday launched ads targeting Democrats who voted against the law that included the tax cuts — the massive tax and spending package Congress approved last summer known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.
“This Tax Day, remember who made it worse,” said the narrator in the ads.
Meanwhile, Democrats are seeking to keep the public focused on the inflationary impact of the Trump administration’s policies.
“No amount of political Tax Day spin will change the reality that hardworking families are getting more and more pissed at House Republicans for jacking up the price of gas, groceries, and health care while billionaires get to cash in on massive tax breaks,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton said in a statement.
Tax experts have warned that the cuts created by the Republican-backed bill will be experienced unevenly across the economy. The bill increased the standard deduction and introduced targeted tax cuts for some parents, senior citizens and those who earn tips and overtime pay.
The law also raised the threshold for deducting state and local taxes from federal income, which stands to benefit higher-income Americans who pay more than $10,000 in state and local tax bills. The law also cut some programs used by low-income households, including Medicaid, health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.
Stanford economists estimate that the average American household will spend an additional $776 this year from higher gas prices. According to the IRS, the average refund for the nearly 100 million households that had already filed returns as of April 3 was $3,462, which is $346 more than last year’s average for early filers. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates the returns could be up to $748 larger than last year by the end of tax season.
The war in Iran has interrupted tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint, pushing up oil prices. Trump has suggested that gas prices will quickly fall once the conflict ends, but the researchers warned that gas prices probably will remain elevated for weeks or months after the strait reopens, because it will take time for production to ramp back up.
The Stanford estimate does not include the increased prices that Americans will pay indirectly because of higher gas prices, including higher costs for groceries and higher airfare, said Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economist. Many of the workers who benefit from “No Tax on Tips,” including drivers for DoorDash and Uber, are also more exposed than the average American household to rising gas prices because their work relies on driving.
“The administration’s effort to pivot toward affordability has been undercut by the foreign policy decisions in ways that are creating clear messaging issues for the administration and real difficulties for households that are struggling to get by,” Mahoney said.
Only 38 percent of Americans approved of the way Trump was handling his job as president, according to an April poll from the Economist and YouGov.In the same survey, 59 percent said they felt the economy was getting worse, and 38 percent said they were worse off financially than they were a year ago.
Despite a rise in the average refund this year, most voters still think their taxes are too high. In a new Fox News poll, 70 percent of voters say their taxes are too high. Despite Trump’s tax cuts, that figure represented a record high, surpassing a previous high of 64 percent in March 2024. A Gallup poll found that 59 percent of Americans say their taxes are too high, a rise from the average since the 2001 tax cuts were enacted. The levels remain lower than in the 1990s and 1970s.
The White House said in a statement that the elimination of taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security will benefit “working-class Americans.”
“President Trump has always been clear about temporary disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, but the President’s proven agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance delivered historic job, wage, and economic growth in his first term, and it’s again laying groundwork to repeat the success in his second term,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kelly Loeffler, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, are expected to appear at a White House briefing Thursday to tout the administration’s tax policies, according to a White House official.
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