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with him approval rating At the lowest point of his presidency and polls showing that Americans believe he has taken his broad view of presidential power too far, President Donald trump Heading to his Palm Beach, Florida social club to conclude his year with Two weeks leave.
But before he could leave Uproar continues over Epstein files And at leisure, out for golf and Mar-a-Lago patio parties, the President had to explain to voters in Rocky Mount, North Carolina The rally said that whatever economic pain they are feeling, almost a year into their second term, has nothing to do with them.
For the first 20 minutes after taking the stage, it was unclear whether he would stick to that plan.
Trump, whose voice was hoarse and tired from delivering a sometimes slurred speech, spoke slowly, seeming more focused on reiterating what he had told reporters hours earlier, when Hosted pharmaceutical company executives at the White House.
He claimed that agreements with drug manufacturers, under which they would offer their products at lower prices on a website bearing his name, should be enough to help his party retain control of Congress next year.
He said, “Your drugs are coming down to levels that no one ever thought possible. This achievement should give us victory in the midterms.”
Continuing his stream-of-consciousness comments, the president began musing aloud about how he is “taking on the giant health insurance companies” by refusing to support an extension of a tax credit that expires at the end of this year, causing premiums to skyrocket for millions of Americans.
He falsely claimed that the Affordable Care Act, the landmark 2010 health care reform law, was “designed to make insurance companies rich” and tried to blame congressional Democrats for premium increases that would take effect next month.
“I want the money to go directly to people so you can buy your own health care, and you’ll get better health care at a much lower cost,” he said, without explaining how people could use the small amount of money he proposed to buy health insurance at a lower rate.
Trump then suggested he could talk insurance executives into lowering premiums by calling them to a meeting at the White House, in the same way he had intimidated drug companies into lowering prices by threatening to impose taxes on pharmaceutical imports.
“Maybe they’ll surprise us, but maybe we’ll ask them for a 50% cut, and maybe they’ll give it. You know, you never know. You saw what happened with the drug companies,” he said.
As he continued speaking, Trump laced his prepared remarks with racist comments about the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan OmarHe said he should be thrown out of the country after recently accusing him of fabricating a story about his son being stopped by law enforcement, and highlighted how he coined a nickname for his former colleague, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is resigning her seat early next month.
It took almost an hour until the President returned to his prepared remarks, launching into a series of unbelievable claims about how “100 percent” of the jobs created so far during his presidency have been in the private sector and boasting about how he is building a “Trump economic boom” with “these factories, auto plants.” [and] AI plants.”
He claimed to impose a 25 percent import tax on foreign cars, a 50 percent import tax on steel and a 50 percent tax on imported furniture “to save North Carolina’s prestigious furniture industry, which has been destroyed by China.”
“I was very good at real estate, but I used to come to North Carolina to buy furniture for lobbies or furniture for hotels, and I was here a lot. I mean, you’re destroyed, but it’s coming back again, because I put the tariffs in place,” he said.
Trump’s stop in North Carolina on his way to the holidays was his second campaign-style rally in as many weeks, part of what the White House has said will be a series of events to promote his administration’s economic record.
But so far, it doesn’t seem like voters are buying what he’s selling — whether it’s from the White House or from the stump at his signature rallies.
A National Public Radio/Marist College poll released this week found that 57 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump’s economic management, while 36 percent approved of it — the lowest rating on the issue during his two terms in office.
While polling data showed a split among partisans, with 81 percent of Republicans saying Trump is doing a good job and 91 percent of Democrats holding the opposite view, a full 68 percent of self-described independents say they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy.
It also showed that Trump’s overall approval rating has fallen to 38 percent – his lowest recorded level of approval since the end of his first term in 2021.
As far as Americans’ views of “affordability,” the survey didn’t paint a good picture for Trump on that topic.
Nearly 70 percent of respondents – including nearly half of Republicans – said so the cost of living Their neighborhood is not affordable at all or not very affordable. In contrast, nearly 30 percent of respondents said the cost of living is affordable in their area, representing a 25-point decline from June.
At the same time, almost one in three respondents said that their personal financial situation has worsened in 2025. Almost the same number of people expect their financial situation to worsen in the next year.
The majority of respondents, 52 percent, also said the US is currently in a recession. And slightly more said Democrats are better equipped to manage the economy than Republicans — 37 percent versus 33 percent.
According to the latest unemployment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans have reason to be concerned.
While the US economy added 64,000 jobs last month, the report said it lost 105,000 jobs last month in October. Further revisions by the Labor Department also removed 33,000 jobs from August and September payrolls.
The BLS report also showed the nation’s unemployment rate climbed to 4.6 percent, its highest level since 2021.
Overall, the pace of hiring has slowed markedly, hampered by uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs and the impact of higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to curb inflation.
US companies are largely retaining their existing workforce but are hesitant to hire new employees as they grapple with integrating artificial intelligence and adapting to Trump’s unpredictable policies, particularly his double-digit taxes on imports from around the world.
In a statement, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin condemned the president’s performance as a “desperate” follow-up to his “confused” address to the nation a few days earlier, and said Friday’s rally was in the same vein.
“North Carolinians are struggling, and they’re not falling for Trump,” he said.
“Working families in North Carolina and across the country are fed up with their food, health care and hard-earned dollars being cut so that Trump’s billionaire donors can attend Great Gatsby parties and enjoy massive tax handouts.”