[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 82 (Thursday, May 14, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S2288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                ECONOMY

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, well, every day, Americans see headlines 
about rising prices.
  Just this week, The Economist said: ``America faces another grocery-
price shock.''
  CNN: ``America is in for yet another long spell of price pain.''
  PBS News: ``Iran war hits home as gasoline prices fuel significant 
U.S. inflation jump.''
  Trump will surely try to brush aside these reports of higher costs as 
``fake news,'' but Americans don't need to see the headlines to know we 
are in an affordability crisis. Americans feel the crushing weight of 
higher costs caused by Trump's disastrous war and failed economic 
policies every time they walk through the grocery aisle and step up to 
the gas pump.
  What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan 
from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs. In fact, they 
see the opposite.
  The other day, Trump said:

       I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't 
     think about [anyone].

  Trump's clueless comments make my blood boil. ``I don't think about 
[anyone]?'' They make Americans' blood boil. Americans can't understand 
how a President can be so cold, so callous, and so proud of it.
  Donald Trump doesn't think about how every time Americans go to the 
pump, they are paying over $4.50 for a gallon of gasoline--up more than 
$1.50 since Trump started this war.
  Donald Trump doesn't think about how a family's weekly trip to the 
grocery store got even more expensive, with food prices going up in 
April more than in any month in the past 4 years.
  Trump certainly doesn't think about how wholesale inflation just hit 
6 percent--the highest it has been in nearly 4 years.
  Donald Trump doesn't think about you, America.
  Trump is really wrong when he says he doesn't think about anyone. He 
thinks about himself and only himself, as his past comments have shown.
  Donald Trump thinks about how badly he wants the American people to 
bankroll his $1 billion ballroom. If ``ballroom Republicans'' won't 
think about the economic suffering of the American people, then they 
had better start thinking long and hard about their own political 
futures.

                          ____________________