WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to visit Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to argue that his policies can steady an economy facing shock waves from the war on Iran and to try and defeat one of the few congressional Republicans who has dared to defy him.
In Cincinnati, the president is touring Thermo Fisher Scientific, a pharmaceutical company. There, he’ll tout efforts to lower prescription drug prices, a key part of his attempts to show his administration is focused on making the cost of living more affordable for many Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
After that, Trump will visit a logistics packing facility in nearby Hebron, Kentucky, part of the district of Rep. Thomas Massie. Trump is backing a primary challenger to Massie.
The trip presents an early test of Trump’s ability to cleanse his party of those who oppose him, but also to try and stay on an economic message increasingly strained by the military action launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. He’ll be “talking about the economy, which is, of course, the utmost importance to him,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Polls showed that Americans were increasingly wary of Trump’s handling of the economy even before the conflict with Iran began, and fighting there has derailed Trump’s messaging, as the low gas prices he once bragged about are now surging and stocks that had set record highs have slipped.
Employers also cut an unexpectedly high 92,000 jobs in February, and revisions trimmed another 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls — which the White House had previously hailed as “blockbuster.”
None of that has stopped Trump from continuing to insist the country is booming — and blaming the Democrats for everything else.
“They’re the one that caused the problem,” he told a House Republican meeting in Florida on Monday. “But we’re really bringing down prices big.”
Trump’s affordability tour meets his opposition to Massie
After Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governors’ races in November, the White House announced that Trump would travel the country to show that he’s taking kitchen table issues seriously and reassure voters nervous about still-rising prices and economic growth.
Since then, the president has made stops in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas — though his speeches sometimes have been more focused on his own political grievances than his plans to try and help lower everyday costs around the country.
This trip, however, marks the first time this primary cycle that Trump has sought to keep promises to punish members of his own party who oppose him on key issues. The president has endorsed Ed Gallrein, a farmer, businessman and retired Navy SEAL, who is running against incumbent Massie in Kentucky’s Republican primary on May 19. Trump and Gallrein will appear together on Wednesday.
Massie is an outspoken Trump critic who opposed the White House-backed tax and spending measure, and bucked Trump by pushing to have files related to the sex trafficking investigations into Jeffrey Epstein released. He’s also opposed the U.S. strike on Venezuela that toppled former President Nicolás Maduro and, most recently, the war in Iran.
“This isn’t America First,” Massie posted on X on Sunday, blaming the war for causing gas prices to jump.
Will Weissert, The Associated Press
