In pivot on affordability, Trump unveils barrage of proposals to address costs

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On Monday, President Trump surprised Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a phone call after she criticized him during a speech on affordability.

Only days earlier, he had pitched a cap on credit-card rates that sounded like a proposal from the Massachusetts senator’s wish list. “I told him that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit-card rates if he will actually fight for it," Warren said in a statement. Until recently, Trump has called Democrats’ focus on affordability a hoax, but the issue has since taken on urgency in his administration.

The president has announced many proposals aimed at gaining more leverage over the economy and the cost of living. He’s done it by upsetting Wall Street supporters and pitching ideas more closely associated with liberal Democrats. The president’s proposals include banning large investors from buying single-family homes, and directing government-backed mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds in an effort to lower rates for home buyers.

He’s floated using tariff revenue to fund payments of at least $2,000 to most Americans. The president is also drawing up plans to dominate the Venezuelan oil industry, efforts he believes could lower oil prices, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday night, he posted on social media that he never wants “Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers" and that big tech companies building data centers “must ‘pay their own way.’" The president has touted the American economy as strong, pointed to economic growth and a low unemployment rate and graded himself “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus" on the economy.