From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

In the wake of last week's off-year election defeat, the Trump White House decides it needs to tackle affordability.

Americans are now being promised $2,000 tariff checks, 50-year mortgages, and cheaper stakes. But are these

policies aimed at the root of the problem, and are they likely to help the GOP soothe voter concerns?

Welcome to Potomac Watch, the daily podcast from the Wall Street Journal Opinion Pages. I'm Kim Strassel,

your host today, and joining me to talk about how you too

can get a 50-year mortgage are my editorial page colleagues Alicia Finley and Mene Uquay-Bruhe

Berua. So the reality is that the Trump team does have a few talking points in its favor when it

comes to the economy. Afflation has certainly come down from at least the heights

under it was under Joe Biden, although it remains higher than it should be and ticked up slightly

in the last report. There's some evidence gas prices have come down a little bit under Trump.

Real average earnings have grown in 2025, but the reality is that Americans aren't feeling better about their situation.

A recent NBC news poll found that only 30% of Americans felt the Trump administration was

living up to its expectations for handling inflation and the cost of living.

And that came through last week in the election where real majorities of voters in Virginia,

New Jersey, made it clear they have transferred blame for the economic struggles under the last

White House onto this one. In light of this, Donald Trump has been all this week about affordability

unveiling a new raft of ideas for helping cost-strapped Americans.

A big one, which you put out on the tweet this weekend, promised, quote,

a dividend of at least $2,000 a person, not including high-income people, will be paid to everyone.

Let's listen to the president talking about it more here in the Oval Office on Monday.

And one of the things we're going to do, we're going to issue a dividend to our middle income people and lower income people of about $2,000.

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