‘Walking Hypocrite!’ Morning Joe Crew Scorches Trump for ‘Roaring’ Economy Spin While ‘Preaching Austerity’ at Rally
MS NOW’s Morning Joe crew scorched President Donald Trump for dismissing affordability as “a Democrat hoax” while touting a “roaring economy” but also “preaching austerity” at a Tuesday night rally.
The president sought to reclaim the economy narrative at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Pennsylvania, an issue of increasing concern for voters ahead of the 2026 midterms. Across a sprawling 90-minute speech, Trump celebrated what he cast as a resurgent economy, declaring, “America is winning again” and “Pennsylvania is prospering again.”
He pointed to job growth in the battleground state and a recent drop in gas prices. He also defended his tariffs, insisting they are delivering gains for the U.S., before veering into a riff about consumer goods: “You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils… You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”
After rolling back a series of clips from Trump’s speech on Wednesday morning, each of the Morning Joe panelists and co-hosts offered their take.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski countered that affordability was “a big issue” and followed: “Not to assume what his supporters think here, but I really wonder how that speech went over if you’re a Trump supporter watching it on TV and the comment about pencils and buying less, I don’t know. I don’t know. It seems a little confusing.”
“He’s saying that the economy is roaring and doing well, but at the same time he’s preaching austerity: Buy less for your children, buy less for your family this Christmas,” co-host Willie Geist said.
He then pointed to Trump supporters he said had been interviewed exiting the rally by NBC News and the New York Times who, he relayed, said “prices were too high” and they were “disappointed by what they heard.”
He continued: “This was supposed to be to reframe the debate about affordability, an acknowledgment that Americans are paying too much for their lives, that they need help from this administration. And he immediately goes on the stage with a banner that says lower prices behind him, which is not true. Inflation is where it was when Joe Biden left office and mocks the idea of affordability. He says it’s a ‘Democratic hoax’ and that no, prices are not actually too high.”
“That didn’t sit well. If you listen to those exit interviews of people at the rally, they say, ‘I like Donald Trump. I like a lot of what he stands for. But he is wrong that things are going well in this country in terms of our pocketbooks,’” he added.
Guest Claire McCaskill interjected: “He can lie about a lot of stuff and his base will take it. It’s very hard for him to lie about how expensive everything is because people feel it. And, you know, I don’t know, this speech, he’s not well. He’s not well.”
She continued to argue Trump should “tell the American public what his grandchildren received for Christmas” as she berated the “excesses” of his “gilded” White House renovations
“How dare him tell people how many dollars they can buy their children, or how many pencils they can have. This guy is a walking hypocrite when it comes to conspicuous consumption,” she jabbed.
Jonathan Martin, who serves as Politico’s Politics Bureau Chief, warned that the speech would hurt the Republican Party and that this kind of riffing at rallies would turn voters off.
“Not only did [he] not stay on the message, he mocked the message. He veered off,” the pundit said.
“The word invalidating comes to mind here, and it’s sort of the overall arc of Trump’s America right now,” Brzezinski said.
She added: “If you’re really cluing in: invalidating, hypocrisy and confusion on every level, on the economy, he calls it a ‘hoax.’ He spends an entire evening in Pennsylvania kind of joking about it and telling people to buy less. Meanwhile, his tariffs are part of what’s tanking it or part of what’s making people hurt. So that’s confusing. That seems hypocritical. That is very invalidating.”
Watch above via MS NOW.
