meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
PBS News Hour - Segments

Trump shifts focus to affordability ahead of State of the Union

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

News, Daily News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Trump is in Georgia and is talking about affordability and the economy, a theme he's expected to spotlight again in next week's State of the Union address. White House correspondent Liz Landers reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

President Trump is in Rome, Georgia today, talking about affordability and the economy.

0:06.0

A theme he's expected to spotlight again in next week's State of the Union address.

0:10.0

Our White House correspondent Liz Landers has more on this and joins us now.

0:13.0

So Liz, as you've been reporting, the president has been frustrated.

0:16.0

He's not getting enough credit when it comes to the economy.

0:18.0

That's why he went to Georgia to talk about this.

0:24.8

What did he say? Well, today he was focused on affordability, the economy. This was also a political visit for him. This is a congressional district that's going to have a special election soon.

0:29.3

So kind of several birds with one stone here. He was touting the stock market. He was touting

0:34.6

some signature legislation that has also passed recently.

0:39.0

The Great Big Beautiful Bill is basically a tax cut bill. And you know, when you hear the fake

0:46.0

Democrats talking about it, like, oh, the great big, beautiful bill, you know, they've tried

0:50.5

and mocked. We put four years worth of goodies into that bill and everybody

0:56.1

said it couldn't be done. The president visited a restaurant there and then he gave that speech at a

1:01.6

steel mill in Georgia. This was his first domestic trip on this issue talking about affordability

1:08.1

in the economy since he went to Iowa a few weeks ago. But Omna,

1:11.1

there was some mixed messaging here today. He goes off on tangents when he gives these speeches

1:16.8

sometimes, was talking about the operation in Venezuela a few weeks ago at the beginning of the year,

1:22.5

also talking about a number of grievances on issues where he doesn't think he's getting credit on.

1:27.6

So he still has trouble sometimes sticking directly to the messaging.

1:32.4

Well, your reporting has also shown that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, held a sort of unusual

1:36.6

closed-door strategy session this week to talk about messaging for the midterms.

1:41.7

What do we know about that?

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PBS NewsHour, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PBS NewsHour and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.