Welcome to Meet the Press Now.

I'm Gabe Gutierrez in Washington.

As President Trump prepares to hit the road for battleground Pennsylvania,

as administration and his party are struggling on issues tied to the economy

and affordability ahead of next year's midterms. A senior White House official telling NBC News,

the president will hold a campaign-style economic event tonight. In a state, he flipped in last

year's election in large part because of the economy. But polls and recent elections show

that voters are souring on the president's handling of the issue. Still, the president gave

himself high marks in a new interview with Politico. I wonder what grade you would give

A plus. A plus. A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. When energy comes down, everything, because it's so much

bigger than any other subject, but energy has come down incredibly. Prices are all coming down.

It's been 10 months. It's amazing what we've done.

We should note, energy prices overall have actually gone up since the President took office,

according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the latest inflation report shows prices

overall up 3 percent compared to a year ago.

The President's rosy assessment of his handling of the economy comes as he's gone from

dismissing affordability concerns as a democratic hoax just a week ago

to now acknowledging that it is a problem, although insisting that it is Democrats' fault.

Affordability is a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing,

and they didn't end it. We fixed inflation.

And we fixed almost everything.

You know, this whole thing is they use the word affordability.

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