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Last night, I was invited back on The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle to talk about one of the defining political stories of this moment: the cost-of-living crisis and how Donald Trump is gaslighting the country about it.
It was my first time at the new MS NOW studio, which was honestly really nice. A far more open newsroom vibe than the 30 Rock office. I joined a great panel with former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, Jacob Ward, founder of The Rip Current by Jacob Ward, and Brendan Greeley, contributing editor at the Financial Times. They each offered sharp and insightful commentary, and I highly recommend checking out their work if you haven’t already.
The conversation was wide-ranging, but we began by covering Trump’s affordability crisis and his refusal to accept the reality of struggling American families. You can watch my contribution to that discussion in the clip above, and read a more in-depth breakdown below, as well as other clips from this excellent panel.
Trump is telling people to ignore their own lived experience
In the clip, I start with a simple point: Trump is asking Americans to ignore their lived experience and believe his lies instead.
Right now, inflation is still elevated at 2.9%, prices have not magically gone back to pre-pandemic levels, and families are feeling it. You do not need a talking point to know that. You just need to buy food, pay a bill, or look at your bank account.
So when Trump insists this is all a hoax, he is arguing with the daily reality of the people he claims to represent.
A billionaire lecturing struggling families
In the segment, I said:
Everyone loves when a billionaire who was born into massive wealth lectures them on their own affordability.
This was in response to Trump once again telling Americans to ration dolls and other products as a response to his tariffs raising prices, while he and his family are making billions of dollars in their crypto grifts, corruptly self-dealing, and overall profiting from the presidency.
Trump grew up insulated from the kind of economic anxiety that defines life for millions of Americans. That is why the “baby dolls” line struck such a nerve. He is literally telling people to ration purchases and lower their expectations, while enriching himself and pretending nothing is wrong with his underlying policy choices that helped create this crisis.
Why Trump will never have an “I feel your pain” moment
On the panel, I argued that Trump will never have an “I feel your pain” moment on affordability. There are two reasons for that.
First, empathy is not something Trump is capable of. Feeling someone else’s pain requires a kind of emotional curiosity and humility that he has never shown in public life.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, acknowledging people’s suffering would require him to admit that his own policies have backfired and failed.
You cannot look into the camera and say “I hear you, I understand this is hard” without also admitting that the tariffs you championed have helped drive up costs, hurt farmers and manufacturers, and contributed to the very crisis people are describing.
Trump has built his entire political identity on never admitting failure. So instead of adjusting course, he tries to convince people that the fire they are standing in is actually the warm glow of success.
That might work for a sliver of his base watching a propaganda reel run on Fox News. But it won’t work for independent voters who don’t have their political identity wrapped up in Trump’s personality cult.
Costs keep rising
Here are some of the facts I had in mind going into the segment:
Inflation is still running well above the pre-pandemic norm.
Groceries are up, and utilities are up.
Politico polling shows that 46 percent of Americans say this is the worst cost-of-living crisis they have experienced in their lifetimes.
That includes 37 percent of Trump’s own voters.
Those numbers matter because they show this is not a partisan perception issue. People across the political spectrum are feeling the squeeze.
Trump’s response is not to grapple with that reality. It is to stage an “affordability tour” that tries to redefine failure as success.
Tariffs that backfired
Part of what I wanted to get across, but didn’t manage to fit into the segment, is that every rationale the Trump Administration has sought to use to justify the tariffs has been proven to be nonsense.
Trump’s tariffs were sold as a way to bring back manufacturing, box in China, and strengthen the American economy. Instead, we have seen manufacturing jobs decline, China reaching a $1 trillion trade surplus, farmers and small businesses squeezed, the most layoffs since the pandemic, and higher costs passed down to consumers.
Trump refuses to admit that. So he chooses denial over course correction.
Why this moment matters
This affordability crisis is one of the defining fault lines of our politics.
If we allow a reality where people are clearly struggling to be recast as a success story, we lose the ability to hold leaders accountable for the consequences of their choices.
Voters deserve leaders who will tell them the truth about what is going wrong, take responsibility for policy failures, and fight for solutions that actually reduce costs and improve people’s lives.
Pretending everything is fine is not a solution. It is an evasion.
Another key moment from the panel: Trump’s immigration agenda and white nationalism
At the end of the show, we also had a powerful conversation about Trump’s immigration agenda and who he thinks should be allowed into this country. In that discussion, I talked about the administration’s disdain for legal immigration, the way visa and screening policies target people from countries Trump himself called “shitholes,” and why I believe that reflects a white nationalist worldview rather than a serious security policy.
This one is personal. Under Trump’s visa restrictions, my own immigrant parents from Sierra Leone wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the United States, and I wouldn’t be here.
Thanks again to all of you for supporting my work! It really means a lot.
Watch the full segments
If you want to see more from this panel on The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, you can watch longer segments from the show on MS NOW’s YouTube channel.
Our affordability segment:
Our segment on the Trump Family’s crypto grifts:
