(Dec 19): Bonus cheques. New holidays. A return to the moon.
In the span of less than 24 hours, President Donald Trump unveiled a series of initiatives with widespread appeal — with promises of more to come — as he also contends with falling popularity and economic uncertainty.
The president approved sending US$1,776 cheques to active-duty soldiers and designated the days before and after Christmas as federal holidays for 2025, surprise moves that came just as many Americans wrap up their work and school duties for the year to spend time with family.
Trump on Thursday also handed out wins to his allies in the cannabis and space industries through long-sought executive orders that also carry broad appeal: relaxing rules for marijuana use and sending astronauts back to the moon.
The president even got a present of his own. The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board — stacked with Trump’s hand-picked allies — voted Thursday to rename the Washington venue after the president, dubbing it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
The attempts to spark joy, at least for some constituencies, follow a string of bad news for the president: tumbling poll numbers, a weak jobs report and mounting concern among Republicans that they are poised for a shellacking in the 2026 midterm elections. The swirl of negative economic trends and growing discontent among his GOP allies has intensified pressure on Trump to tap his executive power to reframe the narrative.
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“Republicans appreciate that this is going to be a challenge for them when it comes to affordability and the midterms,” Annalyse Keller, a GOP strategist, told Bloomberg Television on Thursday.
The economic pressures come alongside a cascade of other unwelcome headlines. This week alone brought a controversial profile of Trump’s chief of staff and backlash to his comments over the death of director Rob Reiner. Friday marks the deadline for the Justice Department to release a trove of documents tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a move the president had opposed for months before reversing course in the face of public pressure.
Several hundred thousand files will be released on Friday, and more are in the offing over the coming weeks, according to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
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Unresolved issues
Trump’s efforts to focus on domestic economic concerns follow weeks that were largely dominated by foreign affairs: a military ramp-up in the Caribbean as tensions rise with Venezuela, a marquee trip to Asia to discuss trade with foreign leaders and a still yet-to-be-resolved war in Ukraine.
Trump entered the White House not quite a year ago with promises to drastically cut energy and grocery prices and put a stop to overseas conflicts. But fulfilling many of those promises has proved elusive, and voters are taking notice. His approval rating has dipped to 39%, according to an Ipsos poll this week, showing a decline in support from Republicans.
Trump on Wednesday took to the airwaves to directly speak to Americans in a nearly 20-minute prime-time address — a more formal and scripted affair than his near-daily appearances in the Oval Office where he frequently gives lengthy, wide-ranging remarks.
The address stuck largely to economic issues his advisers want him to stress. The president pledged that inflation has “stopped”. (The core consumer price index rose 2.6% in November, a rate that economists say is likely understated.)
Trump also predicted that prices on “electricity and everything will fall dramatically”. That means he’ll need to reverse a trend of surging power rates, which jumped more than 10% in the first eight months of 2025, one of the largest increases in more than a decade.
Trump also pledged to soon reveal a housing overhaul plan that he said would address a growing affordability crisis.
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On Friday, Trump was set to announce a latest set of deals that will see manufacturers sell prescription drugs at a discount through a government website due to launch next year.
Housing, energy prices and cost-of-living issues are anticipated to be at the center of the 2026 congressional midterms. Trump, while not on the ballot, also has a stake in the outcome. If Republicans lose their control of one or both chambers of Congress, Democrats will then have greatly expanded powers to investigate the White House — and possibly impeach him for third time.
Trump has mused about even grander plans than the ones he unveiled this week to address economic uncertainty. He’s floated a US$2,000 cheque for all Americans funded by tariff revenue, ending income taxes forever and slashing interest rates to zero.
But he can’t unilaterally make good on any of those ideas. Congress controls many of the fiscal policy levers, while the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee votes on interest rates.
What’s more, some of the president’s plans would either spike deficits or require potentially painful revenue-raising offsets, while others have been been shrugged off by lawmakers as unserious.
Uploaded by Felyx Teoh
