Republicans are taking heat on two fronts as they struggle to win the affordability messaging battle while killing affordability legislation.

“Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists tell NBC News they worry that high prices and their party’s poor messaging on affordability could cost them in the midterms,” the news network reported over the weekend.

Politico reported on Monday that “Republicans are divided over how to address growing cost-of-living concerns over health care, housing, student debt and more.”

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As President Donald Trump calls affordability a “hoax” and a “con job,” recent polls show his approval rating is underwater, and some say Republicans have not made the affordability crisis a central legislative focus.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune appeared to suggest affordability is an issue to tackle down the road.

“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Leader Thune said in an interview, Politico noted. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”

One of the things Senate Republicans did was join with Democrats to pass out of committee — unanimously, some Democrats noted — a bill to improve housing availability and affordability.

House Republicans killed the legislation, known as the ROAD to Housing Act.

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“Just this weekend, congressional leaders released a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act without housing legislation sought by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and other key House Republicans objected.”

Senate Democrats expressed outrage.

“Leave it to House Republicans to fumble a comprehensive, bipartisan housing package that passed out of the Senate committee UNANIMOUSLY!” decried U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN).

“Unbelievable,” lamented U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). “House Republicans just killed our broadly bipartisan housing affordability bill, which would have been a great first step towards lowering skyrocketing rents & mortgages. Republicans are actively torpedoing progress towards lowering your rent.”

“Trump claims he wants to lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that UNANIMOUSLY passed the Senate to do just that,” noted U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “If Republicans keep blocking legislation to cut housing costs, Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress.”

The communications director for U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Singer, summed it up: “It’s not the message, it’s the policies.”

Economist and economics professor Justin Wolfers told CNN, “When we talk about affordability, so much of what’s going on with prices is in fact a direct result of public policy. We’ve seen tariffs that have raised costs. We’ve seen a big rise in deportations, which are making it difficult for farmers to bring in their crops. We’ve seen health insurance premiums rise as Congress has fiddled with Obamacare subsidies.”

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On Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that he will “be involved” in the federal government’s decision on whether to allow the streaming service Netflix to buy mass media and entertainment conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery. On Monday, Paramount Skydance, another mass media and entertainment conglomerate, announced a hostile takeover bid for WBD — with news soon following that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm is part of the Paramount offer.

“Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case,” Axios reported. “Paramount is led by David Ellison, whose billionaire father Larry is a major supporter of President Trump.”

Axios added that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, “was not mentioned in Paramount’s press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid, nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.”

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Fortune reported that “Affinity and the other outside financing partners have agreed to forgo any governance rights, which Paramount said means the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would have no jurisdiction over the transaction.”

But Axios’ Sarah Fischer wrote on social media: “Ask yourself, why would anyone want to put money into an investment of this caliber and have no governance rights or board seats?”

“Essentially,” she added, “people want to have control/access/political power behind the scenes.”

“Reality is,” Fischer explained, this hostile takeover is a good explanation “of how capitalism/democracy can be exploited for political gain,” with “Paramount essentially betting our open system incentivizes shareholders to take [the] best financial deal even if it means giving soft power” to three sovereign wealth funds, the President, and his son-in-law.

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Critics are blasting Kushner’s and Trump’s involvement.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) remarked, “Donald Trump said he’ll ‘be involved in’ deciding if Netflix can buy Warner Bros. Is that an open invite for CEOs to curry favor with Trump in exchange for merger approvals? It should be an independent decision by the Department of Justice based on the law and facts.”

Award-winning journalist Sophia A. Nelson, responding to trump’s remarks, observed: “This is ridiculous. Corrupt. And NOT what a President gets involved in.”

Professor, investor, and marketing executive Adam Cochran wrote: “Trump is talking about him personally being involved in deciding the fate of the Netflix-Warner Brothers deal, and how it’s ‘bad.’ Meanwhile his son-in-law is financing the competing offer. There has truly never been a more corrupt administration in US history!”

Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), wrote: “F– NO to another corrupt Trump deal. Nepobaby, Jared’s, involvement would deliver CNN to MAGA.”

NewsNation’s Kurt Bardella, a communications advisor and media relations consultant, asked: “Alexa, what is a ‘conflict-of-interest’?”

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As layoffs hit record levels, unemployment has risen to a near-four-year high, manufacturing continues to contract, and the U.S. faces “persistent” inflation, the White House says President Donald Trump will be sharing with the American people the “positive” news about jobs, incomes, and inflation.

“The American people don’t know how good they have it,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” After blaming Democrats for “scarcity,” he insisted that “next year we’re going to move on to prosperity.”

Kevin Hassett, the Director of the White House’s National Economic Council told CNBC on Monday, “There’s a huge amount of positive news that the president is going to be breaking this week about the economy.”

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“And so there’s a lot of positive news that’s positive for people’s jobs, for people’s incomes, and for inflation. And President Trump is just going to go out there and remind people of that,” said Hassett, who is rumored to be in line to be Trump’s pick to head the Federal Reserve.

Once again, Hassett turned to Trump’s first term to offer positive examples.

Hassett said, “going back to the eye of the horizon … President Trump’s economic policies were profoundly popular just before COVID, in his first term, because he had $6,500 of income growth after the big tax cuts.”

He added that next year, “the typical person who’s got no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, is probably gonna see an extra $1,600 to $2,000. A lot of that will come as tax refunds in the beginning of the year.”

Hassett appeared aware that Trump’s polling on the economy is underwater.

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“As Americans voice broad concerns about the economy,” The New York Times reported late last week, “Mr. Trump is facing discontent from across the political spectrum, with even some of his longest-serving allies raising complaints and urging the administration to refocus on economic issues.”

“Across surveys,” the Times added, “voters express frustration with the current state of the economy. A majority of voters said they had been hurt by Mr. Trump’s economy in the Fox News poll, and three-quarters of Americans said their grocery costs had gone up in the past year, according to polling from Marquette University Law School. Just 26 percent said Mr. Trump was doing a good job at managing the cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.”

But Hassett insisted that “people are going to look at their wallets and say, ‘Oh boy, this guy’s really making me better off.’ And in the end, that’s more important than any poll.”

Kevin Hassett on Trump’s economic message: “There’s a lot of positive news that positive for people’s jobs, for people’s incomes, and for inflation, and President Trump is just going to go out there and remind people of that.” pic.twitter.com/SwrblunvQE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2025

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