President Trump traveled to Iowa Tuesday in an effort to shift the national political conversation away from his aggressive and deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and toward the economy and the midterm elections — and to convince voters that his policies are helping alleviate widespread concerns about affordability.
In a relatively brief speech at the Horizon Events Center outside of Des Moines before a crowd chanting “USA!” and waving signs reading “LOWER PRICES” and “BIGGER PAYCHECKS,” Trump reviewed the 2024 election results and the accomplishments of his first year in office, with an emphasis on the tax cuts included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans passed last summer.
Discussing the tax cuts for workers earning tips, Trump invited Erica Pirtle, the manager of a whiskey bar, onto the stage. After complimenting Pirtle for her looks — “Oh, she’s so beautiful,” he said — Trump claimed that her employees would earn “thousands and thousands of dollars extra because of the no tax on tips.”
“Thank you, President Trump,” Pirtle said. “No tax on tips is huge for everyone in the service industry. Thank you very much.”
More broadly, Trump claimed he has slashed drug prices by a mathematically impossible 1,000% and reduced grocery prices, despite economic data showing otherwise, while repeating his complaint about the use of the word affordability, which he said is a made-up problem invented by his enemies looking to hurt him. “They come up with this word ‘affordability,’” Trump said of Democrats.
Although the focus of the speech was largely on the economy, Trump did not shy away from talking about his lethal efforts to stem drug trafficking and to crack down on illegal immigration in Minneapolis and elsewhere. He asserted that most of the immigrants being detained are violent criminals and suggested that immigrants should have to prove that they are not going to “blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people” before being allowed into the country.
Questioning the tariffs: Earlier in the day, Trump stopped at a restaurant, where he was asked about the historically high tariffs he has imposed on imports from trade partners around the world. Claiming the tariffs have raised $600 billion in revenues last year — more than twice the actual amount — Trump rejected the idea that the tariffs have hurt farmers, who have lost billions in sales to key customers overseas, most notably China. Instead, Trump cited the money his administration has given to farmers who have seen their foreign markets dry up.
“I gave the farmers $12 billion last week,” Trump said with a bit of irritation. “I took them out of tariff money,” he added, repeating a false claim that the aid money for farmers came from import revenues rather than the Depression-era program his administration actually used.