President Trump delivered a 90-minute campaign-style speech in Rocky Mount, N.C., promoting a new deal with nine drugmakers to lower prices for Medicaid recipients and cash-paying patients. He credited tough diplomacy — including an anecdotal threat of tariffs on France — for progress on drug costs, but much of the event drifted into personal attacks and unrelated controversies. Trump defended his health and criticized the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search; Democrats say affordability will be a central midterm issue as Republicans try to show governing competence.
Trump Tours Battleground North Carolina, Pitches Drug-Price Deal While Mixing Policy With Personal Attacks
President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally in Rocky Mount, N.C. on Friday. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images)
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — President Donald Trump used a 90-minute, campaign-style address Friday night to press the case that his administration is lowering costs and strengthening the economy, while also veering into extended personal attacks and unrelated controversies.
Facing mounting pressure to demonstrate that his policies are making everyday goods more affordable, Trump highlighted a newly announced agreement with nine pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices for Medicaid recipients and for people who pay cash for medications rather than using insurance.
Trump claimed his dealmaking was driven by tough negotiating — including an anecdote in which he said he threatened French President Emmanuel Macron with a 25% tariff unless France agreed to changes that would reduce U.S. drug costs. “I said if you don’t do it I’m going to charge you a 25% tariff on everything you sell to America,” he told the crowd.
Behind him, a sign read: “Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks.” But much of the event drifted from specific policy detail to political rhetoric. Trump attacked Reps. Ilhan Omar and Marjorie Taylor Greene, invoked Hillary Clinton and at times offered off-the-cuff asides that diluted the economic message he sought to deliver.
“We’re fixing four years of disaster and decline,” he said, adding: “We were a dead country, and now we’re talking about the golden age of America — think of it, in 10 months.”
The president also addressed questions about his health and cognitive fitness, saying he has passed multiple cognitive tests and that, at 79, he feels as he did decades ago. He acknowledged that there may be a time he will not be “100%,” but said that time is not now.
Trump renewed his criticism of the 2022 FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence, describing agents as having gone through his wife’s closet and left behind “a mess.” He said he sued the government over the search and joked about whether to keep any potential settlement money, saying he would instead donate it to charity.
Observers note the timing: Trump’s push comes with about a year until the midterm congressional elections, when Democrats plan to make affordability a central campaign theme. Pollsters and some Republicans have urged a tighter focus on concrete cost-cutting measures to blunt voter dissatisfaction over prices.
That message, however, has competed with fresh controversies this week: an unfounded social-media claim about filmmaker Rob Reiner that drew bipartisan rebukes; workers affixing Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which angered the Kennedy family; and the Justice Department’s release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein under recently enacted deadlines.
Mark Mitchell, head pollster at Rasmussen Reports who briefed Trump and senior White House officials last month, said the campaign is trying to pivot from earlier dismissals of affordability concerns to a more direct focus on housing and cost-of-living issues. “You need to show America that Republicans and Trump can govern together and address the really deep problems,” he advised.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.
