President Donald Trump has a name for it.
“I do the weave,” he explained at a rally in August 2024. “You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about like, nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together … and friends of mine that are, like English professors, they say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.’”
Literary merits aside, the weave also brings to mind how Trump is tackling the issue worrying most Americans: the high cost of living — even as he continues to deny it’s a problem. Speaking at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday, he called affordability, “a fake word by Democrats.”
Nevertheless, in the first few days of the new year, the president has jumped from one proposal to another to address high prices, often with little clarity about how such ideas might work, what effect they’d have and if they’re even legal.
In fact, the sheer number of Trump’s economic proposals, one after the other, often announced on social media with few details, might seem like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
And in the end, that might be how the barrage of Trump’s thoughts plays out as the chances for anything being approved by Congress or implemented by private companies, let alone surviving possible legal challenges, appear slim.
But that doesn’t seem to be stopping the president from trying. And the “weave” incorporates just about all of his economic notions, from increasing the housing supply to bringing down interest rates and lowering gas prices.
Trump announced last week that to make housing more affordable, he would ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes. The next day, he told mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to try to bring down interest rates.
On Friday, he met with nearly two dozen oil and gas executives at the White House to pressure them to start drilling for more oil in Venezuela, which could lower prices at the pump for consumers. The reaction from many in attendance, however, was less enthusiastic. Exxon Mobil’s CEO said that currently, Venezuela was “uninvestable.” A few days later, Trump responded, “I’d probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn’t like their response.”
On Friday evening after that meeting, Trump declared, “We will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies,” and said starting Jan. 20, he’d call for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates. (While lower interest rates could save consumers $100 billion, it might also lead credit card companies to limit credit to those who need it the most as well as raising fees and gutting reward benefits for everyone.)
By Sunday, it was news that the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. was investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for possibly lying to Congress about renovations of the Fed’s headquarters. While the president denied knowledge of the investigation, the move by the Justice Department was seen as sending Powell — and any future Fed chair — a message: Heed the president’s calls for lower rates.
For his part, Powell pushed back forcefully in a remarkable video response. “This unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”
Then on Monday, Trump turned to high energy prices. He announced on Truth Social that Microsoft will “make major changes beginning this week to ensure that Americans don’t “pick up the tab” for their POWER consumption.” Tech companies’ insatiable demand for electricity to power artificial intelligence has pushed up prices across the country. Next up will be health care. During his speech in Detroit, Trump said he’d soon announce his health care affordability framework that will include lower drug prices. As Trump weaves from claims he’s the “acting” president of Venezuela, to the argument that he needs Greenland, or declaring that the “Trump economic boom is officially begun,” he’s created a whole world for himself, and we’re just bystanders. Trump is famous for going off script in meetings and at public events and seems to relish it. “I go off Teleprompter about 80% of the time,” he said in Detroit. Yet even in that speech, there was a thread tying his economic thoughts together. It might seem like that’s “affordability,” but as the president tends to undercut his own proposals by claiming that’s a fake word, it’s something else instead. It’s something we’ve consistently seen since Trump returned to office. It’s the conviction that if he says it, it will happen. Oil companies will drill in Venezuela. Credit card companies will cap interest rates. Inflation will be defeated. (It hasn’t been. Beef prices are up more than 16%, as just one example). As Trump weaves from claims he’s the “acting” president of Venezuela, to the argument that he needs Greenland, or declaring that the “Trump economic boom is officially begun,” he’s created a whole world for himself, leaving many of us to watch.
Charles Herman
Charles Herman is a coordinating producer for “The 11th Hour” on MS NOW. Recommended
