[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 10, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8586-S8587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             AFFORDABILITY

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the first stop on Donald Trump's so-
called affordability tour was a train wreck.
  Last night's speech in Pennsylvania was supposed to kick off a new 
messaging campaign on affordability, but all it did was expose how 
Donald Trump simply doesn't get it. Anyone listening to Trump's speech 
could see he simply doesn't get what people are struggling through. He 
is trapped in his billionaire bubble.
  In his speech that was supposed to be about affordability, Donald 
Trump kept making fun of the word ``affordability.'' Does he have to go 
shop for groceries and not be able to buy the things his family needs? 
When your car is damaged in an accident and you don't have money for 
the deductible and you don't have a car, does he understand that?
  Donald Trump is in his bubble, and he kept making fun of the word 
``affordability.'' People are struggling. They can't afford basic 
needs. And Donald Trump keeps making fun of it by calling it all a 
giant hoax. But Americans know affordability is not a hoax. They see it 
as very real every time they go to the grocery store, pay their bills, 
pay their rent. And Donald Trump just doesn't get it.
  What was Donald Trump's solution to affordability? Well, last night, 
Trump said parents should buy their kids fewer dolls for Christmas. We 
are not talking about fewer dolls for Christmas; we are talking about 
necessities like food, like medicine, like fixing your car when it gets 
damaged, like maybe going to see the grandkids whom you haven't seen in 
2 years because you can't afford the trip. He said

[[Page S8587]]

kids at school should have fewer pencils.
  Then he repeated that his favorite word was ``tariffs.'' What kind of 
world does he live in? Does he understand that these tariffs are 
raising prices through the roof? When he said his favorite word was 
``tariffs,'' the crowd sure didn't like that. His own crowd didn't like 
that, his own crowd of MAGA people.
  So Donald Trump simply doesn't get it. It takes a special kind of 
delusion to tell parents to buy their kids fewer toys and pencils while 
bragging about new ballrooms and gold in the Oval Office. You cut back 
on your Christmas presents for your kids, who might really want 
something and have looked you in the eye 10 times and said: Mom and 
Dad, can I have that? Instead, he is spending money on new ballrooms 
and gold and brags about it. That is Donald Trump in a nutshell, but 
that is not all.
  During an interview released a few hours before this so-called 
affordability tour, Donald Trump was asked how he graded himself on the 
economy. He said A+++++, but the American people are giving him an F. 
What crackpot economics did Donald Trump study? An A with five pluses?
  Well, in that case, let's look at the test scores. Over the last 
year, the price of beef has gone up at the grocery store by 20 percent. 
That is an F. Today, Americans pay 40 percent more for a single cup of 
coffee on their way to work than they did last year. That is an F. 
People are paying more in electricity bills while Donald Trump has cut 
domestic energy jobs. That is a massive F. People are paying more for 
clothing, more for produce. And this week, our farmers had to be bailed 
out with taxpayer dollars because of Donald Trump's disastrous tariffs.
  The final grade: a big fat F. In no universe does Donald Trump 
deserve anywhere close to an A, a B, or even a C for his job on the 
economy.
  The reality is that Donald Trump is a failure of a President and a 
failure on the American economy.
  And I am not the one giving Donald Trump a grade; it is the people 
themselves. Last night, while Donald Trump was mocking affordability in 
Pennsylvania, voters in Georgia and Florida gave him a big fat F. In 
Georgia, just 1 year ago, Democrats lost that State house district by 
22 points. Last night, they won it. We have had the first Democratic 
mayor in Miami in 30 years--what used to be a Republican redoubt. Those 
elections are another warning shot from the ballot box: Americans are 
tired of paying more for the things they need. They are tired of Donald 
Trump mocking them because they can't afford the things they need.
  I warn my Republican colleagues: As the Florida and Georgia elections 
last night showed, you follow Donald Trump to your own doom and our 
country's doom.
  Donald Trump might claim he deserves an A+++++, but at the ballot 
box, he is clearly getting an F.

                          ____________________