Nia-Malika Henderson, Columnist

Trump’s New Inflation Message? Just Change the Topic

The president hammered grocery prices on the campaign trail but has shifted gears now that he’s in office.

February 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM UTC

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.

Price of eggs? What eggs?
Photographer: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump is three weeks into his second term and while he has taken a sledgehammer to the federal government, renamed the Gulf of Mexico, revived plastic straws and pledged to own the Gaza Strip, he has done little to address inflation. That issue, you’ll recall, was among voters’ top concerns and helped Trump win. In fact, a study showed that the very mention of inflation, which Trump often did, caused voters to lose confidence in the Biden-Harris administration.

Well, it seems voters are of two minds when it comes to Trump’s first weeks in office. On the one hand, he has among his highest approval rating ever at 53%, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll. But 66% of respondents said Trump is not focusing enough on lowering prices. That number includes 48% of Republicans, 69% of Independents and 82% of Democrats.