S6 Ep13: Just Press The Deflation Button! (with Catherine Rampell)

The Focus Group Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump got elected in 2024 because voters felt prices were too high. But, as our guest says, that's not really a great thing for a politician to promise. So, as we head into the holiday season of Trump's first year back in office, how are his voters feeling about the state of the economy? New Bulwark economics editor Catherine Rampell joins the show to discuss the state of the economy and what politicians can and cannot do to fix it. We also hear from voters about how their holiday spending habits have changed since last year.

By Catherine Rampell:
Trump Is Falling Into the Same Trap That Ensnared Biden
Trump’s One Weird Trick for Eliminating Bad News: Delete It

Transcript

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1:26.4	Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the
1:31.6	bulwark, and this week we're dealing with something that is on everyone's mind this Thanksgiving
1:36.2	and Black Friday weekend, The Economy. This was supposed to be Donald Trump's signature issue.
1:41.7	People felt a lot of economic pain over the past few
1:44.8	years, which we have chronicled on the show a lot, and they thought he did a pretty good job in
1:49.6	his first term. And nostalgia for that was one of the things that got him reelected. Now, many of them,
1:56.6	even the optimistic ones, are wishing things would move along a little faster.
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