Trump tells voters the economy is great. It didn't work for Biden.

• Trump's speech mirrored former President Biden's strategy of highlighting positive economic indicators while blaming his predecessor for ongoing issues.
• Despite campaign promises, inflation remains above pre-pandemic levels and unemployment has risen to 4.6%.
• Polls show a majority of Americans, including Republicans, feel Trump is not paying enough attention to high prices.

Americans might be experiencing a bit of déjà vu after watching President Donald Trump trying to cheer up the country amid growing national anxiety about the cost of living.

During the 20-minute speech from the White House, Trump plowed through a vigorous defense of his returning administration's economic record a year after promising voters better days ahead during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Much as the Biden-Harris administration did in the months leading up to last year's contest, Trump argued that the economy is better than Americans tell pollsters they believe it to be, pointing to positive indicators such as rising wages. But while taking credit for those conditions, which he inherited from Biden, Trump tried to blame his predecessor for the less positive conditions that remain unchanged, such as inflation that remains above pre-pandemic levels.

"Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it," he said in opening his televised address to the nation on Dec. 17.

The administration and its allies are looking to reset the narrative for the 2026 midterm elections, political observers say, by filling the public's ears with its achievements. Less than 12 hours after the president's remarks, the White House touted how it made the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent and how inflation eased to 2.7% in November after creeping as high as 3% in September.

"President Trump was resoundingly re-elected one year ago precisely because he, unlike Democrats, understood and acknowledged Joe Biden’s economic disaster," White House spokesman Kush Desai told USA TODAY in a statement. "Turning the page on the Biden inflation and affordability crisis has been a day one priority for the president − while much work remains, (Thursday's) expectation-beating inflation report is the latest proof that the administration's robust economic agenda will continue to pay off for everyday Americans."

In many ways, however, Trump's address to the nation mirrored what didn't work for Biden more than two years ago, when Democrats and their allies insisted on measuring the economy's health using large-scale successes and comparisons to the COVID-19 recession and sky-high unemployment that greeted them at the end of the Trump's first term.

Strategists argue that ultimately undercut Biden's and former Vice President Kamala Harris' credibility with voters during the 2024 campaign.

Veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayers said the parallels between the two are clear, adding presidents often misjudge public perception.

"Biden was doing the same thing and it didn't work, and Trump is trying to do the same thing and it's not working," he said.

Trump pointed to some of the very same bright spots Biden did in his addresses, such as a low jobless rate, while casting economic sore spots as an inherited problem that are Democrats' fault, much in the same way Harris argued in a presidential debate in September 2024 that "Trump left us the worst unemployment since the Great Depression."

Trump is an especially tight spot ahead of the 2026 congressional elections because he campaigned on promises to end inflation, but he hasn't. And unemployment, which was 4% when Trump took office, is now up to 4.6% − a development he avoided in his speech.

"We're seeing recession level job loss, and he is trying to tell folks that ... a sandwich is a five-star meal, and they understand they're not being respected when he does that," Andrew Bates, a former senior White House official during the Biden administration, told USA TODAY.

'Shock therapy:' Trump nervous ahead of 2026 midterms, strategists say

Presidents have for decades tried to take credit for a booming economy while ducking criticisms of a downturn.

But throughout last year's campaign, a major part of Trump's pitch for voters to give him another stay in the Oval Office was that he would pull the country out of the economic gutter.

"Starting on Day One, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods," he said at a rally in Montana in August.

Many voters tell pollsters they think Trump isn't focused enough on that goal. Asked which issue Trump ought to "be paying more attention to right now," 42% of respondents, including 40% of Republicans and 47% of White men without a college degree, said high prices in a December survey by Fox News.

Republican strategist John Feehery, a former top congressional aide, said that when he speaks with conservative lawmakers, there is noticeable skittishness among rank-and-file members, who hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.

GOP candidates got their "butts kicked in several different elections" this year, he said, including blue states, such as New Jersey and Virginia, where Democratic contenders focused on the cost of living. Republicans also underperformed in a Tennessee special election this month in which the Republican candidate won by 9 percentage points in a congressional district Trump won by 22 points last year.

"Trump is trying to get to a little shock therapy, and the speed at which he gave the speech and the kind of tone which he gave it shows the quick timeline that the Republicans are on if they don't turn these perceptions around pretty quickly," Feehery said.

"If they're not nervous, they should be."

Trump has been a noticeably frustrated messenger, even in friendlier settings, such as during a campaign-style rally in rural Pennsylvania earlier in December month when he lashed out at how "stupid people" don't understand the wins he has secured since returning to office.

Ayers, the longtime GOP pollster, said presidents often misjudge public perception about the economy and lash out, such as during the 1992 campaign when, coming out of a recession President George H.W. Bush bristled at criticism that his administration wasn't doing enough to ease economic pain.

"Bush got very frustrated that Americans weren't feeling the same thing that his macroeconomic data were showing," Ayers said. "He kept telling the American people that things are better than they think they are, and Bill Clinton defeated him in the fall with a mantra of, 'It's the economy, stupid.' So the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Economic numbers provide mixed bag for confident Democrats

Trump supporters say the administration should be given more credit for inflation reaching its lowest level since 2021.

But detractors spotlight weaknesses, such as employers adding just 64,000 jobs in November, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report. That poor performance follows an estimated loss of 105,000 jobs in October, which has led to a 4.6% unemployment rate that opponents point out is the highest unemployment rate since September 2021.

And while Trump promised to halve energy costs in his first year, electricity prices are 6.9% higher than a year ago, natural gas costs 9.1% more and fuel oil is up 11.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Bates, the former Biden aide, acknowledged convincing voters things are better than they seem is similar to the challenge the previous administration faced.

One of the other key differences, however, is how Trump is handling his own supporters, Bates said.

"What really separates the two of them is when we would highlight economic successes, we would couch it by saying, 'I know you are hurting, and I know we have so much more to do and I am fighting for you and families like yours every day,'" he said.

"If you look at Trump, he is getting angry with his own supporters for understanding that they are paying more day-to-day."

Trump is seeing his approval rating take a sharp dive: Just 36% of Americans approve of his economic stewardship, according to a December NPR/Marist poll.

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, a former ally, bristled at the administration's tone. In an interview with "60 Minutes," she said it's "insulting" for Trump to give himself an "A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus" on the economy.

"Affordability, or the lack of ability of Americans to afford the cost of living, is not a Democrat hoax," Greene said in an interview Dec. 12 with "PBS News Hour."

Among Democrats, there is widespread agreement that the administration's failure to lower costs should be kept at the forefront of voters' minds and that Trump's speech reeks of political desperation.

Those in the activist left ranks, however, say more populist-minded contenders running in Democratic primaries next year should keep the focus on what they will do to defend working-class Americans against corporate interests rather than the president's performance.

"I don't care what party you are a part of, you cannot lie to the American people about their lived realities," Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, an influential progressive PAC, told USA TODAY.

"That was a failure of Democratic Party leadership during the last administration, and it is no surprise that the Trump administration, whose agenda includes no policies that actually fight for working-class communities, is also lying straight to the American people."

Contributing: Joey Garrison, Daniel de Visé