President Donald Trump addresses the nation in an address in the Diplomatic Room of the White House on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Doug Mills – Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – As Americans continue to face rising prices ahead of the year-end holiday, President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor for inflation and health care costs in a prime-time speech Wednesday in which he also claimed to have solved the problems.
Trump “inherited chaos” and made the United States “the envy of the world” by imposing a crackdown on immigration, tariffs and tax breaks, he said.
“In the last 11 months, we have brought about more positive change in Washington than any other administration in American history. There has never been anything like it, and I think most would agree that I was elected in a landslide,” Trump said.
Against a backdrop of Christmas decorations, Trump also promised that $1,776 checks for U.S. military members would arrive by Christmas.
And he continued to blame Democrats for health care costs that are expected to skyrocket next month when the Affordable Care Act’s tax credits for marketplace plans expire.
Nearly a year into his second term, Trump remains fixated on blaming former President Joe Biden, even as his own approval ratings are sliding, according to numerous recent polls.
A plaque below Biden’s photo in Trump’s newly installed Presidential Walk of Fame reads “Sleepy Joe Biden,” according to reports from journalists at the White House on Wednesday.
“When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, some would say in the history of our country, causing prices to be higher than ever before and making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This was during a Democratic administration, and that was the first time we heard the word ‘affordability,'” Trump said.
Consumer Price Index Data Figures released Thursday for September through November show the total cost of goods rose 2.7% over the past 12 months, after rising 3% in the 12 months ended September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Trump took office in January 2025, he was at 3% over the previous 12 months. Due to the government shutdown, the bureau did not analyze data for October 2025.
In recent weeks, Trump has said “affordability” is a “hoax.”
But the bulk of Trump’s somewhat hastily planned address – the White House announced it on Tuesday – focused on reducing the cost of housing, electricity and health care.
Trump announced that he would pay every US soldier a “warrior dividend” of $1,776. The amount is a tribute to the year the country was founded, said Trump. Checks are “already on the way,” he said.
That could add up to $2.6 billion, according to a White House report treasure On Wednesday evening, it announced that 1.45 million military personnel would receive the payment.
Healthcare costs
He also advertised trumprx.govwhere he said Americans can get “unprecedented discounts” on prescription drugs starting in January.
“These big price cuts will significantly reduce the cost of health care,” Trump said.
He promoted a Republican plan on Capitol Hill to fund individual health savings accounts (HSAs) with annual amounts of $1,000 to $1,500, depending on age and poverty level. An HSA is not health insurance.
“I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own health care. You get much better health care at a much lower price,” Trump said.
Four Republicans in the House of Representatives defected Wednesday to sign a Democratic-led petition to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and force a floor vote in January on expanding health insurance premium subsidies for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
“My favorite word”
Trump addressed the economy for several minutes, explaining that food and fuel prices are falling. According to the government, both claims are false.
“I’m reducing these high prices, and I’m reducing them quickly,” Trump said.
The latest consumer price index for September showed Gasoline prices rose 4.1% over the past 12 months and “were the largest driver of the monthly increase across all items,” rising 1.5% from the previous month.
Food prices rose faster than overall inflation in recent months, according to the latest government data. Food prices were 3.2% higher in August than a year ago, according to the data.
Nevertheless, Trump claimed that an economic turnaround had occurred thanks to his international trade policy.
“Much of this success has been achieved through tariffs – my favorite word, ‘tariffs’ – which were successfully used against us by other countries for many decades, but no longer,” he said.
The U.S. ended the 2025 fiscal year with a deficit of nearly $1.8 trillion, or about 6% of the domestic economy’s gross domestic product.
Trump imposed unilaterally a 10% global tariff on all foreign goods in April, as well as higher tariffs for many major trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Trump’s emergency tariffs soon are legal.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. collected nearly $195 billion in tariffs in fiscal year 2025, up from $77 billion in fiscal year 2024 monthly billing.”
According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist, Americans have lost confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the economy Opinion poll Published Wednesday.
Trump received a 36% approval rating for his economic strategy, the lowest rating in the last six years the poll has asked voters the question.
A Fox News Opinion poll The study, released Nov. 19, found that 76% of respondents viewed the economy negatively. Of all voters surveyed, 41% approved of Trump’s performance and 58% disapproved. That’s a decline from the conservative news network’s survey of Biden’s approval ratings at the same point in his presidency, which the network said was 44%.
Mom about Venezuela
The president did not devote much time to discussing his military deployment off the coast of Venezuela, despite declaring just 24 hours earlier that the U.S. had established a “blockade” in the Caribbean Sea.
Trump posted on his own social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday evening that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America.”
The campaign, which has become an issue for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, is about preventing drug smuggling into the United States, as Trump and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly said.
Democratic lawmakers are Put pressure on the Trump administration to release unedited footage of an attack on September 2 that killed two castaways who were clinging to the remains of a boat after an initial attack.
