WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has predicted the US will end the year “with 3% real GDP growth” — as President Trump prepares a national tour to tout his economic successes before the 2026 midterms.
“We inherited a mess,” Trump said at the White House on Monday, the day before he is set to visit a casino in the key swing state of Pennsylvania to discuss how his administration’s policies have helped lower prices through a mix of deregulatory moves and key investments in the energy and AI industries.
“But Democrats caused the affordability problem. … They caused it — we’re fixing it,” added Trump, who is expected to hit more states during his messaging tour in January.
The Trump White House is recalibrating its pitch to voters after a bruising off-year election cycle for Republicans in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City, which in some key districts reversed gains the president made during the 2024 election.
Nearly half of registered voters said post-election that Trump’s economic policies — including an aggressive trade war with major partners such as China — are doing more harm than good, according to a November Fox News survey.
Bessent waved away concerns about the issue in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, projecting the US is “going to finish the year, despite the [Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer] shutdown, with 3% real GDP growth.”
The US Bureau of Economic Analysis will release third-quarter economic analysis Dec. 23, but in an early estimate from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, annual GDP growth is projected to hit 3.5%.
“The economy has been better than we thought. We’ve had 4% GDP growth in a couple of quarters,” Bessent said.
The government’s latest inflation report, which was delayed by the shutdown forced by Schumer of New York and other Democrats from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, found consumer prices rose roughly 3% from September 2024 to September 2025.
Wage growth also stood at 1.6% when adjusted for inflation, according to a JPMorgan report released last month.
Bessent has already trumpeted blue-collar wage growth reaching 1.7% in the first five months of Trump’s term, the highest level of any administration during the same period in nearly 60 years.
The Bank of America Institute meanwhile estimated in an October report that the lowest wage-earning households’ pay only rose 1% when compared with the previous year. The highest wage-earning households shot up 3.7% from October 2024 to October 2025, that report found.
Some analysts have been referring to the indicators as having created an economy that is increasing disparities between rich and poor.
Democrats have expressed confidence that some of the poor economic signs will give them an advantage in the midterm elections, as they roll out their own Make America Affordable Again campaign for voters.
Trump has countered that the “affordability” message is a “con job” by Democrats after inflation peaked at 9.1% under former President Joe Biden.
The president is also proposing up to $2,000 in tariff “rebates” to win back consumers who have doubted his trade war’s benefits, as well as 50-year mortgages for first-time home buyers.
On Monday, Trump was set to announce a $12 billion bailout for US farmers, too — particularly for soybean producers — who have been hurt by stalled trade negotiations with China.
There also are still-to-be-expected benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a signature achievement of Trump’s first year in office, with massive, across-the-board tax cuts and an end taxes for tip workers and others.
“The best way to address the affordability crisis is to give Americans more money in their pockets, which is what this bill has done,” Bessent has said.
“The American people don’t know how good they have it,” he also told CBS on Sunday. “Now, Democrats created scarcity, whether it was in energy or over-regulation, that we are now seeing this affordability problem, and I think next year we’re going to move on to prosperity.”
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