Trump says reducing food prices will be ‘very hard,’ after campaign promise to cut costs
President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview that bringing down grocery prices will be “very hard,” after he repeatedly promised during his campaign to cut costs, a major factor in winning over voters dissatisfied with the economy.
In a wide-ranging interview on Nov. 25 that was published Thursday as part of his Time “Person of the Year” honor, Trump said he would pardon people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol within hours of his inauguration, sought to distance himself from anti-transgender messages that Republicans used effectively against Democrats in the election and described the Middle East as an “easier problem” to resolve than Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Throughout the campaign, Trump vowed to reduce the cost of food and energy as he blamed price hikes on Vice President Kamala Harris, who had promised to push for a federal ban on price gouging. In August at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump stood near a table of produce such as milk, eggs, cereal and coffee and attributed the price hikes to Harris.
At a rally in North Carolina, Trump told the crowd, “From the day I take the oath of office, we’ll rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again.” He vowed: “Prices will come down. You just watch. They’ll come down fast.”
In the interview with Time, Trump offered a more realistic assessment, with no promises on how he would cuts costs. He said he would address energy costs and the supply chain, which he said would bring down food prices.
Trump also has vowed to impose tariffs on all imported goods from China, Mexico and Canada, a step that could trigger retaliation and higher prices for Americans.
“I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will,” he said in the interview.
Trump said he would pardon people convicted in the Jan. 6 assault within hours or minutes of taking office, meaning the new president could grant pardons while still in the building that the rioters stormed after he falsely claimed he won the 2020 election. Trump did not specifically say which of the rioters would receive pardons, but he said he would review the cases individually and said “a vast majority of them should not be in jail.”
Trump distanced himself from the conservative culture-war issue of barring transgender people from certain bathrooms, saying he did not believe that transgender people using the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity was a major issue – after he and other Republicans had made anti-transgender policies a central point of their closing arguments.
Republicans spent $215 million on network TV ads that painted transgender people as a threat, according to a Washington Post analysis of data compiled by AdImpact. “I don’t want to get into the bathroom issue. Because it’s a very small number of people we’re talking about, and it’s ripped apart our country, so they’ll have to settle whatever the law finally agrees,” Trump said in the interview.
He also said he agreed with incoming congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), who is transgender and has said there are more important issues to focus on after Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) proposed a resolution barring the Democrat from using women’s restrooms in the Capitol. However, Trump also said he would consider rolling back President Joe Biden’s expansion of Title IX protections, which includes prohibitions against harassment of transgender students.
Trump said he did not give up on his previous selection for attorney general, former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), but he said he told Gaetz that he didn’t “think this is worth the fight.” Trump said he spoke with senators, mentioning five who were “hard no’s” on the embattled pick, before Gaetz announced he would withdraw from the confirmation process.
Trump said he did not believe it would be controversial if he banned some vaccines if Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic and Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, could prove that they are dangerous. Kennedy has repeatedly linked childhood vaccines to the rise in autism rates in the country despite scientific research that has concluded there is no link between autism and vaccinations.
Trump rejected that his choosing Project 2025 contributors for Cabinet posts was a reversal of his campaign trail position that he would have nothing to do with the Heritage Foundation project. “I don’t disagree with everything in Project 2025, but I disagree with some things,” Trump told Time. “Now, if we had a few people that were involved, they had hundreds of them.” Trump had posted on his social media platform Truth Social in July that he had “no idea” who was behind the controversial blueprint of what his second term might look like. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them,” he wrote at the time.
Trump declined to say if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given any assurances that he would end the war in Gaza, and Trump also didn’t offer any specifics about what a solution might look like in Israel. “I don’t want people from either side killed, and that includes whether it’s Russia, Ukraine, or whether it’s the Palestinians and the Israelis and all of the, you know, the different entities that we have in the Middle East. There’s so many different entities. But I don’t want people killed,” Trump said. Asked if he trusted Netanyahu, an allied leader with whom Trump has previously had a mercurial relationship, Trump said, “I don’t trust anybody.” He also said, “I think that the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine. Okay, I just want to say that up front. The Middle East is going to get solved.”
Trump declined to answer a question about whether he had talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin after reporting that the two had spoken after Trump won the election as well as several times after Trump left office. “I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate,” Trump said in response to the Time question about if they had spoken. Asked three times if he would protect Ukraine’s sovereignty in negotiations to end the war with Russia, Trump said “I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon.”
Trump promised “a virtual closure of (the) Department of Education,” adding that while he believes most education policy should be decided by the states, “you’re going to need some people just to make sure they’re teaching English in the schools. Okay, you know English and mathematics, let’s say.” His campaign promise to close the Department of Education had appealed to libertarian and small-government conservatives who have long protested the department’s existence. “We will shut down our out-of-control federal Department of Education and give it back to the states and local governments,” he said at the Libertarian National Convention in May.