Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared on the website of Food & Water Action (our affiliated organization) at an earlier date.

Almost every corner of our daily lives has become more expensive. By one recent poll, nearly half of Americans said they’re finding groceries, utilities, healthcare, housing, and transportation hard to afford. 

Yet, rather than work to rein in the cost of living, Trump is pretending like we’re making it up. In December 2025, he called affordability a “hoax” and a “con job by the Democrats.” The president and his cronies have served us lie after lie and signalled that they are completely out of touch with the lives of everyday people. 

Here are their five worst comments (so far).

1. Brooke Rollins: Healthy Meals for $3

According to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, meals that follow the administration’s new food pyramid and healthy eating guidelines can save us money! That is, if you don’t mind getting your daily dose of veggies from a single piece of broccoli.

As Rollins said on News Nation, “We’ve run over 1,000 simulations. It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and one other thing. So there is a way to do this that will actually save the average American consumer money.”

In a total handout to meat corporations, the new dietary guidelines emphasize protein from animal products. The recommendations to eat more meat not only oppose nutrition and climate science — they’re also more expensive than plant-based proteins. 

2. Trump: “Prices Are All Coming Down.”

Energy bills rose 13% in 2025, according to an analysis from Climate Power. But in Trump’s fantasy land, “Energy has come down incredibly. Prices are all coming down.” 

The reality — climbing power bills — is founded in Trump’s own energy policies. His rampage against affordable renewables, his championing of energy-hungry data centers, and his support for liquefied natural gas exports are all contributing to higher energy costs. 

Grocery prices have also continued to climb under Trump 2.0, despite what he’d have you believe. In 2025, our analysis found that the price for Thanksgiving staples grew far above inflation in the first months of Trump’s term. While overall inflation sat at 2.2%, staples like potatoes climbed by 7.3% and canned vegetables, by 5%. 

At the same time, the President falsely claimed that Thanksgiving dinners would cost 25% less that year. But the Walmart report he referenced compared a smaller basket of entirely different items from 2024 to 2025.

3. Trump: Other Countries Pay Tariffs, Not the U.S.

Trump repeatedly claimed that exporting countries, not U.S. companies, pay tariffs on imported goods. This was a bald-faced lie to voters about how tariffs work. Tariffs are, in fact, a tax that American companies pay on goods they import, which can raise the prices that we see on shelves.

Counter to Trump’s lies, U.S. families are paying the price for his tariffs. In September 2025, Yale’s Budget Lab estimated that they would cost the average family $2,400 a year. 

Make no mistake, tariffs can be a useful tool to protect U.S. industries, especially when paired with other good policies that invest in domestic manufacturing and support independent farmers. But Trump’s senseless tariffs are doing much more harm than good. 

For instance, the President instituted tariffs on goods like coffee and bananas, even though there are no U.S. banana or coffee industries that benefit from more expensive imports. Now coffee prices, for instance, are up 20% since Trump first stepped into office. His tariffs are pillaging our pocketbooks with absolutely nothing to show for it.

4. Scott Bessent: Immigration = Rising Beef Prices

Immigrants play an invaluable role in the U.S. economy. There’s even evidence that mass deportations of agricultural workers may contribute to higher food prices. And to be clear, even if this weren’t the case, the administration’s inhumane immigration policies would still be reprehensible.

Nevertheless, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is not above spouting lies about immigrants in attempts to explain rising prices. In November, Bessent falsely claimed that migrants have brought cattle into the U.S. that have infected American cows with disease.

He isn’t the first Trump official to cruelly scapegoat immigrants for our economic woes, either. On the debate stage in 2024, Vice President J.D. Vance falsely claimed undocumented immigrants were a primary driver behind unaffordable housing, and he doubled down in December of 2025.

5. Scott Bessent: Our Parents Are Buying 12 Homes

According to Bessent, the average “mom and pop” landlord could be “your parents [who], for their retirement, have bought 5, 10, 12 homes.” Trump’s Treasury Secretary seems to have entirely missed the memo: Housing prices have skyrocketed in recent years, and many count themselves lucky to buy one house or hold onto the one they have. The idea that a typical retiree owns a dozen homes just shows how out of touch the administration is.   

The dream of owning a home is getting increasingly out of reach, especially for young people. The median age of a first-time home buyer recently hit 40 years old. Meanwhile, rents have continued to climb.

While the Trump administration has made gestures at tackling rising housing costs, they’ve so far been utterly ineffective. One of Trump’s ideas is to lower mortgage costs with swift, steep cuts to interest rates. But economists warn this could backfire and spike inflation. The president seemed blasé about the risk, saying, “If inflation comes, then we’ll take care of it when it comes.”

Easy for you to say, Mr. Trump. Not so for the millions of families working hard to keep their heads above water.

We Know What We Really Need to Make the U.S. Affordable

While the comments coming out of the Trump administration are outrageous enough, the biggest harms come from its policies. Trump’s misguided tariffs, dogged devotion to Big Ag and Big Oil, and pro-corporate agenda are directly contributing to the cost-of-living crisis. 

By stripping protections from us and giving handouts to mega-corporations, Trump is handing CEOs more power to raise prices and profit at our expense. If Trump really had “no higher priority than making America affordable again,” he would rein in corporate greed. 

But considering just how much the president has allied himself with oligarchs and the ultra-wealthy, we’re not holding our breath. Instead, we’re organizing across the country, from city halls to the halls of Congress, for policies that will cut corporate power and make life more affordable for the rest of us.