President Trump Promises To Make America Affordable Again

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Friday, December 12th, 2025. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. There were more Democratic electoral victories this week as President Trump makes the case that when it comes to the economy, his administration is fixing what the previous administration broke. He gave the state of the economy an A plus plus plus, which is a, I don't think that's how voters, maybe a C is where voters are when it comes to grading the economy. and Lisa Brady. Tech giants and Congress face more calls for action as public awareness about social media risks grows and safeguards fall short. There's a broken approach when it comes to the parental control systems and kids are still getting harmed on an industrial scale on these platforms, even teenagers. And I'm David Marcus. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown. This week, President Trump hit the road for the beginning of campaign-style rallies meant to address affordability, a word he's called a democratic scam, but he's using the time to convince people his policies are working or will work and that he's trying to fix what the Biden administration broke. Look at that. Our prices are coming down. Tip prices. It's a hoax. They just, remember they said the Inflation Reduction Act, remember that? But on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted voters are not convinced, as evidenced by recent Democratic wins in Georgia and in the Miami mayor's race. I warn my Republican colleagues, as Florida and Georgia elections last night showed. You follow Donald Trump to your own doom and our country's doom. The president addressed his economic policies, including tariffs while at the rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. You can give up pencils.

Because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two. You know, they don't need that many. But you always need, you always need steel. You don't need 37 dolls for your daughter. To that, Chuck Schumer said, we're not talking about fewer dolls for Christmas. We're talking about necessities like food, like medicine. Like fixing your car when it gets damaged. Does he understand that these tariffs are raising prices? The presidents insisted that tariffs don't just help even the playing field for American businesses, but that they've come to serve as a national security tool, with which he's ended conflicts. It is really notable that a president who really got energy out of these big rallies, these campaign-style rallies, had not really done any... domestic political travel since being elected. It's extremely unusual. Josh Krausshauer's Fox News Radio's political analyst. The event was in Pennsylvania. It was a raucous crowd in a big swing state. I think, though, it is time to reflect. a problem that this White House is facing, which is that the economy and concerns about inflation, concerns about affordability, which is the Democratic watchword these days, are really growing. And we know we talk, how often did we talk about Joe Biden neglecting the state of the economy and be much more? optimistic than people actually were. And I think that is what Trump and certainly Republicans are feeling on the ground, that people are not feeling the benefits of the economy. They think it's prices are going up for key goods. They don't feel secure. They feel anxious economically. And it is taking a toll on the party in power. And so Donald Trump, I don't know if he was effective in rebutting and offering a more effective message on the economy, but that was the goal of the Pennsylvania rally this week. Yeah, the president still kind of mocks the word affordability, but he says what the Biden administration broke, he's trying to fix. We see the polling. The focus is on high prices. Americans wanted address. So what should the president use his political capital on here? Should it be on the cost of health care first? Or should it be on those food prices? Should it be on all of it? Some of it is also, I mean, there's only so much any one president can do at any given moment to wave, you can't wave a magic wand and make the economy better. Part of the problem, Jess, is that the tariffs that were imposed, very aggressive tariffs, have started to really, you know, be felt by people who are on the front lines of the economy. So like. that the South American tariffs affecting coffee beans, right? I mean, the price of coffee has gone up exponentially over the last year, and most experts will tell you it's a direct result of the tariffs that were imposed. So Trump has sort of done this to himself. He's feeling a lot of pressure from farmers and the agricultural industry because of the tariffs he placed on a lot of, like on China, for instance, on soybeans and other agricultural products. And now he's sort of backing down from some of those moves that he did earlier in his term.

Part of it is self-imposed. We talked about this a lot with Biden, too. Biden decided to spend well more than economists thought was wise, and that led to inflation. Well, Trump decided to impose very aggressive tariffs, and now we're seeing the economic consequences, people feeling the pain in certain areas where the goods are seeing their prices go up. There's also the messaging part of it, which is... you don't want to be dismissing the American people's pain. And there have been a few moments where Trump has given interviews where he seems to dismiss the fact that people are feeling the pinch economically. Or, you know, in the interview he did this week, I think with Politico, he gave the state of the economy in A plus plus plus, which is a, I wish I got some of those grades in school, Jess. But I don't think that's how voters, maybe a C is where voters are when it comes to grading the economy. So there's a little bit of... worry that the rhetoric from the administration is not matching the reality that a lot of Americans feel. And all of this is really gearing up for a midterm fight, right? Because Democrats we see time and time again when they get the floor say, we are going to hammer this issue all the way through next November. I think it was Republican Congressman John Rutherford in Florida, though. He specifically told Politico, if we fumble health care, nothing else is going to matter. So it seems like there are a couple of tracks that Republicans might want to at least politically focus on the health care front. There's going to be some bipartisanship needed, right? Yeah, I mean, look, I don't expect any legislation to pass this year. You need to have 60 votes in the Senate and much more bipartisan coalition to pass the subsidies. But at some point, though, something may have to give. That the polling suggests that voters would love more government support to help pay for the health care bills to help cover more, have their insurance cover more of the prices they pay for health care. And that could put enough pressure on Republicans that they do come to the table at some point and come up with some compromise. But this is not a Congress that is in a bipartisan mood, certainly. It's not a Congress that's in a legislating mood. It passed its one big beautiful bill, largely on a party line vote, Republican vote. And there's not a whole lot of getting together and trying to fix the country's problems on a bipartisan basis. So I'm skeptical that you're going to see, at least in the short term, any real legislation on health care passed. Another big effort we're seeing on the midterm front from the White House is on redistricting, right? It seems to be going pretty well for the GOP. The Supreme Court upheld the Texas redistricting maps. I think Missouri is still fighting over the seat they're trying to redistrict. North Carolina got it done, making one more seat lean red. But now there's this fight in Indiana. The president's not really happy with the state's Senate leader, it appears. Yeah, I mean, look, this is a lot of capital being spent for a very minimal gain. We're talking about two house seats in Indiana, and Trump is picking a fight punching down to other Indiana Republicans because a lot of the Republicans in the state Senate don't want to redraw the lines. And actually, a lot of them think that they actually could cost Republicans are not guaranteed to win every seat even on the partisan map if they have a bad night on election night. So there's a lot of short-term day trading, the short-term thinking in the White House,

is about winning this fight here and now. When you actually look at the broad landscape of redistricting and look at all the states that have... decided to change the lines. Republicans are not, at best case scenario for Republicans, they're not going to gain more than a few seats in the House. But that could be enough, right? I mean, the margins are so tight. Usually, yes, Republicans have a very narrow margin. Every House seat does matter. Usually when your administration is facing the job approval numbers you are and you're dealing with a number of House seats that are actually in play, I don't think two or three seats is going to make the difference. In fact, I think the White House by looking to be very partisan and doing things aggressively and not doing things on a bipartisan basis, they're probably costing themselves overall with public support. And they're spending a lot more, they're doing a lot more damage to the to the overall political environment for Republicans that could cost them more than just a few houses. Speaking of political environments, let's talk about some Democratic wins lately. I know the Tennessee special election of District 7, that wasn't a Democratic win. That was a Republican win. But Afton Bain. made it a closer race than it probably should have been. And then we saw this week a Georgia House seat. This is a state house seat now. This is not a congressional seat, but it flipped from red to blue. While it's just at the state level, it's being called a major upset. And in Miami, Democrats flipped the Miami mayor's seat. That's been what Republicans since the late 90s are these bigger warning signs after what happened in November. Well, look, big picture. Any new president is going to have a tough midterm. It's almost guaranteed that the wins are against you in the first midterm. And Trump's job approval is, you know, in the low 40s at best. So yes, the environment is not good for Republicans. And you look at the results of some of these special elections or off-year elections, and they're very good at first glance for the Democratic Party. I also think there's some of the morning signs for the Democratic Party, too, at least the Tennessee result was. was encouraging, obviously, when you have a very deep red Republican seed, you only lose by nine points. You could say that's great news. The Democrats also nominated a socialist to be their candidate, and there was a lot of evidence in polling that that race could have been even closer and maybe could have been won by Democrats if they actually nominated someone who fit the district a whole lot better. And one of the stories in the – I mean, these are off-year elections, obviously Democrats – Democrats because they are much more engaged in every election, they are going to have – the wind that they're back in these local off-year elections. I think the bigger test for Democrats, and I don't know if we know how they're going to, how things are going to play out in the next year, but they need to make sure that they have moderate, electable candidates that emerge from these primaries, because there could be a number of races that are very winnable, but because... They have weak candidates or two extreme candidates. They could end up costing the party seats that are otherwise very, very good opportunities. Okay. So speaking of everything you just said, let's go over to Texas. And I want you to take what you just said and put it on.

Former Congressman Colin Allred lost to Senator Ted Cruz last year by eight points. He was going to run again next year against John Cornyn, right? The other senator whose seat is up. But Alrid has now pulled out after what he calls a friendly conversation with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. She said that she is now running for the Texas seat in the Senate. Republicans are... overtly gleeful at this. Speaking of moderate, winnable candidates, what do you make of Jasmine Crockett? Yeah, well, that's a great, great example. The evolution of the Democratic Party in Texas, that was a seat that maybe they couldn't win the Texas Senate race because it's a Republican state, but they originally thought Colin Allred is a guy who was running much. much more effectively than Kamala Harris did in Texas. She lost by, I think, 15 or 16 points, and Alred lost only by eight points. So you see the opportunity that someone like Alred could provide the party. But he never got, because the Democratic base wants someone more liberal, wants someone who's attacking Donald Trump all the time, that he didn't catch fire. And then someone like Jasmine Crockett, then she still has a primary. But now she looks like the frontrunner could be the Democratic nomination. And no one I've talked to on the Democratic side thinks she has any chance of winning or even putting that Texas Senate seat in play. So, like, this is the dilemma for the Democrats in a nutshell. They have the wind at their backs to the point where Texas could be a competitive Senate race. You know, John Cornyn may lose a primary. There's a lot of things going on in Texas. at least democrats could put that seat in play but then again when you have Jasmine Crockett as your nominee there's zero chance you're going to be able to win that seat so it's uh they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity uh the democratic party these days Finally, California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to a video put out by the White House. The White House said in their video, it's cuffing season with shots of ice and other officers making arrests. Gavin Newsom replied with an AI video of the president, President Trump and others around him, like Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller, all in handcuffs in the back of like a police car or sitting on the curb. He's clearly running in 2028, right? Yeah, I mean, look, everyone's going to, that's, that's, it's going to be a big field. We know what like it was like in 2020. I think, you know, you're hearing Governor Bashar of Kentucky, Rahm Emanuel. I mean, it is going to be a very, you need a free for all. I think you're raising up. The big question is like. Is someone who's more electable, like a Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania? Is someone who is more moderate in that same vein the way the Democratic Party goes? Or do they go and really find the fact that the party wants someone from the left or from the base? And that's the dilemma that a lot of Democratic candidates are facing right now. Josh Kassar, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Jess.

Conversations are happening at the pickup lines, at the libraries, in schools, and parents are bringing this up with other parents because they're seeing it in their own kids and also hearing it on mainstream news, like you. Right. And when it's hard to, for one parent to sort of lay down the law and say, you know what, we're drawing a line in the sand, we're going to make some changes in our house, unless that... child's peer group is kind of doing the same thing. And more and more studies are backing all of this up. We've got the recent one from researchers at University of California, Columbia, and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia that found having a smartphone at age 12 was associated with an increased risk of obesity, depression, and insufficient sleep compared to not having a smartphone. And the interesting thing about that one is that it focused... on smartphone use in particular, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. And the smartphones, I think we often forget that smartphones are really adult phones. They were built for adults. And then companies like Apple, so 88% of teens, own an iPhone, so I focus a lot on Apple. They add these parental control systems called Screen Time. That parents complain is very difficult to use. Kids can get around it. And Apple, who has all the money in the world and has a really seamless, beautiful technology. It begs the question why their parental control systems aren't better because they actually make money from kids using their phones more. Every time a kid downloads an app saves an image to iCloud, they make money off of all of that. And so they want kids and young people and everyone using the phone as much as possible. So these smartphones that were not built for kids don't align with a healthy childhood. Australia has a brand new... social media ban for kids underage 16, although speaking of getting around things, some underage users have already been posting about how they're getting around this age limit. Supporters say age limits are worth it, despite violations, just as with alcohol, for instance. Would you want other countries, including the U.S., to have a law like that? Can that help? 100%. And I think it's important to understand why 13 was the age limit in the first place. And it's not because the platforms were safe for 13-year-olds. It's because of online privacy laws that require parents to give consent for collection of their children's data if they're under 13. And so these companies went with 13 so they can cut parents out of the equation, enter into contractual agreements with minors legally, and then went ahead and served them addictive and harmful algorithms. And so I think this law just fixes what was already broken, fixes the age limit that was too young in the first place. You are a former social media executive. Can you say whether the goal has in fact been to get people, including kids, addicted? 100%. There is internal documents that have been released in a lawsuit here in California. This lawsuit is over a thousand families suing meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. And some of these internal documents literally have mission statements that say our vision is to create a product that is, dot, dot, addictive. Like they literally are building for addiction. There's internal PowerPoints with scans of children's brains pointing to areas of the brain that are vulnerable.

that they can use to get kids scrolling longer. And so it is 100% per their own words, built to be addictive. You've highlighted how some tech companies tend to emphasize improvements to their safety measures and the parental controls. They push back on things like age verification sometimes saying, you know, that should happen in app stores, not on the platforms. Are the tech companies not being held accountable enough? Yes, I mean, they've been rolling out parental control systems for years that are just not working. And I talked to a Snapchat. former Snapchat executive recently. And she told me that she was there in those conversations at Snapchat when they were building the parental control system for the first time. And they just all agreed that parents aren't going to use this. So why would we invest a lot of money into it? And that has borne out to be true on Snapchat. Only 1% of parents use the parental control system. And so parents aren't using it because parents don't want to be on these platforms, some of them. But also they don't work well and they're confusing. They're meant to not work well. And, you know, the teen accounts on Instagram, they tout, Instagram touts all of these amazing things. It protects teens. They have ads literally everywhere. And when responsible groups have tested these platforms or these parental control systems, They found that three out of four of the safety measures either have been removed or didn't work at all. And so there's broken approach when it comes to the parental control systems. And kids are still getting harmed on an industrial scale on these platforms, even teenagers. There has been some movement, especially at the state level lately, to address tech-related threats in general. and to crack down on online exploitation of kids. There's a bipartisan package now in the U.S. Senate taking aim at extortion, focusing in part on changing sentencing laws, also making it a crime to coerce a child into physically harming themselves or others, including animals. I'm guessing, though, that the people who threaten children online really don't care what laws are getting passed. So how do we stop the predators? Yeah, the predators flock to platforms like Roblox and Instagram and Snapchat because it's a directory of children and teens. There's anonymity there that the predators can hide behind. There's encryption, so their crimes are hidden. I mean, on Snapchat, the snaps literally disappear on the front end and the back end. So when law enforcement subpoenas, Snapchat, they often, per a lot of reports, don't reply or don't send... evidence of these crimes. And so we do need help from a legislative level. There was recently a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing and a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss.

dozens of different online safety bills. I like that we're casting a wide net. But unfortunately, a lot of these bills have been watered down with tech influence. A lot of them actually take away power from the states to regulate. And so there's been an issue with the amount of money and power the tech companies have and spend on lobbying against these online safety bills or watering them down. A lot of them right now are worrisome, a lot of these bills. And so it's hard to know which ones are good and which ones are bad until we see final versions. This can feel like a losing battle, especially because of the rise of AI now. Kids are forming connections with chatbots. That's another layer of potential threat. Is this a bit of a runaway train right now, or are there things that can happen quickly enough? to make a difference to protect more kids on a mass scale. Right. And legislation has been too slow. I mean, it's been decades since we passed anything that effective to protect kids online. The lawsuits are making progress. Those take a long time. But there is going to be a trial at the end of January where we will see Mark Zuckerberg. We will see Instagram head Adam Messary, Snapchat CEO, Evan Spiegel sit in the courtroom and have to answer for these decisions that they've made that have harmed children. I think that will do a lot for awareness. families win this lawsuit. That will set a precedent that these companies have to be safer. This week, Petrosi was part of a multi-state protest, also including advocates in Australia, demanding that Apple make changes to remove sexual abuse material in iCloud, to create a simple button allowing kids to easily report eye message abuse, and to make it safer for minors in the App Store, where inappropriate content is still sometimes recommended despite parent controls. Apple has emphasized efforts to improve safeguards, including programs through family sharing, while still balancing privacy and security for all users. Other tech giants... and social media platforms have also been hit with lawsuits and have also insisted they're working to address safety concerns. So I think the lawsuits are what we're counting on, but also just parent voices and parent advocacy. If we make enough noise and parents come together on large enough numbers, these companies don't like bad PR. I think we can pressure them through that type of direct corporate action. While you are pushing for change, what is your message to parents at this point? My message to parents is you need to delay and you need to delay with conversations with your children about why these platforms.

are not safe for them, why they're bad for their brain. And there's so many books and podcasts and resources for parents to have those conversations. But a lot of parents will push back and say, I don't want to raise my kid in a bubble. I want them to be tough and understand what the world is like. And I don't want them to go crazy for it when they turn 18. This is all untrue. What we're doing is protecting literally the development of their brain. When their brain is wired for addiction from scanning through these short form videos, they will tend to be. become addicted to other substances and still the internet more when they're older. And so you're really giving them a gift by delaying access to these technologies and these unsafe adult devices and platforms through setting them up for success rather than just a struggle. Nikki Petrosi, founder of scrolling two death, that scrolling the number two death. Thank you very much for spending some time with us. Thank you, Lisa. This was lovely. And now, some good news with Tanya J. Powers. A $20 flea market find in California has led to priceless photos being returned to their owner. Patty Scanlan is an artist and finds inspiration from vintage photos. So last weekend, when she was looking through items for sale at the Pasadena City College flea market, she found a whole box of them, many featuring a woman whose face caught her attention. Scanlan says she thought, oh, that woman is beautiful and I love her vibe. But instead of it being a stranger in the photos, it was someone famous. The woman was Ricky Lake, the actress and 90s talk show host, and the photos showed her with her son Milo, who was now 28, when he was a child. Scanlon knew she needed to get the photos back to Lake and went on social media to ask if anyone knew how to reach her. She included a few of the photos in an Instagram post, and almost immediately Lake reached out to her. Now, finding family photos of events from almost a quarter century ago would be precious to most of us, but these were extra special. Lake had lost her home in January's Palisades Fire and with it all her possessions, including the cherished photos. Scanlon and Lake went on Instagram live together to explain the story, with Lake saying she had particularly mourned the loss of the photos of her sons when they were young. Scanlon called finding them and getting them to Lake a miracle. Lake called Scanlan an angel saying, quote, I cannot thank you enough for your generosity. The fact that I'm going to get something back that I thought was lost forever makes me so happy. It means everyone. everything to me. The two have made a plan to meet up in the future, and Lake has agreed to sit for Scanlon to do a painting of her. Tanya J. Powers, Fox News.

It's Will Tane Country. Watch it live at noon Eastern Monday through Thursday at Fox News.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss the show. Listen and follow the podcast five days a week at Fox News Podcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Subscribe to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News Commentary. David Marcus. What's on your mind? The Cedar Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis is divorced from the downtown area by a tangle of highway overpasses. And as it turns out, it's the perfect place for Somali immigrants in Minnesota to create an enclave that is much more Somali than American. On the main drag, you see the skeletal remains of shuttered non-Somali businesses such as the aptly named Western World, an outerware supplier that had stood in the location since 1970. Every newly open business is Somali. Block by block under the steady gaze of the 1970s brutalist Riverside Towers, now populated mostly by Somalis, the neighborhood is losing its old identity and transforming into something that looks more like Africa than Minnesota, aside from the snow, of course. This is not new in America. Immigrant groups have long come to our nation and chosen to live in isolation with their own customs. The difference here is that the Somali community in Minnesota is also seeking and gaining political power, not just in their neighborhood, but also across the state and even the federal government. In the wake of a massive fraud scandal in which perhaps as much of a billion dollars intended to feed hungry kids was allegedly stolen by organizations with very close ties to the Somali community, local residents are starting to feel mounting frustration. One woman I spoke to named Jane in her late 30s and very sympathetic to immigrants did admit, quote, they kind of have their own thing going on, end quote. Recently, mayor of Dearborn Michigan Abdullah Hamoud got in hot water for suggesting that America should not be a melting pot, but rather a salad, basically that every individual immigrant group should retain its cultural norms. In fact, it has always been possible in America for groups to live separately from the rest of society, obeying their own rules, but these groups, such as the Amish and Hasidic Jews, don't seek state and federal power. Assumulation has long been the prerequisite for political power for the very reason that in politics, our elected officials officials must serve everyone's interest, not just their own isolated communities. Hold on. Even when Somali voters cast ballots for a candidate such as Mayor Jacob Frey, who is not one of them in November's Minneapolis election, they were still the electorate that Fry had to pander to most. This explains in large part why this alleged theft of so much money by Somali organizations went unnoticed and uninvestigated for so long. Not only did the Somali political machine view any such investigation as inherently racist, but it also had the political muscle to make Democrats such as Governor Tim Walz look the other way.

The point here is not that there are people in the world who are not capable of assimilating into American society. The point is that they have to want to. One almost has to admire the lengths to which the Somali community goes to remain isolated. On many stores can be read a green sign that reads Ramad Pay, which is a Minneapolis-based money-wire service that sends cash to several Muslim countries. So even in sending money home, the Somali community has managed to circumvent American banking systems and keep all the fees in the community. The Somali community and its leaders, such as Representative Ilhan Omar, have a choice to make. Either they can assimilate, as so many other groups have before them and take their place in state and federal politics. or they can stay isolated. What cannot be allowed to continue is for this community to exert political pressure on the rest of the country while simultaneously claiming that any oversight over that influence is bigoted. That game must be well and truly over. In Cedar Riverside, Western World is not just a going out of business clothing store. It's a symbol of growing tension between Minnesota Nice and Somali-based graft. As more and more corruption emerges, the tension will only continue to grow. This is David Marcus. Fox News Digital columnist and author of Sharrade, The COVID Lies That Crushed in Asia. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.