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ROME, GA - President Donald Trump made a late push to swing votes in the contest to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and touted his economic record during a trip to Georgia, declaring he “solved” affordability as polls show Americans are concerned about the economy.
Trump arrived in Rome, in Georgia's 14th congressional district, ahead of the March 10 special election to replace Greene, who resigned from her seat after feuding with the president. He interspersed campaigning with a pitch for his economic policies, which will face a referendum in the 2026 midterm elections, and more unfounded statements about election fraud in a state he has frequently targeted, and where the Justice Department recently seized ballots from 2020.
The president spoke for more than an hour at Coosa Steel Corporation, a business he said has benefited from his aggressive tariff program, which is facing a legal challenge and awaiting a Supreme Court ruling. Trump complained that he has to “justify” the tariffs before the Court.
“The tariff is the greatest thing that’s happened to this country,” he said in speaking to reporters before the speech.
Trump also emphasized private sector job growth during his second term, tax cuts and stock market gains as he worked to sell his agenda in the face of polling indicating many Americans have concerns about his economic stewardship.
Just 34% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a survey released this month by The Economist/YouGov. The president’s net approval on the economy is at its lowest point in either term in the poll.
The survey also found that just 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of inflation and 53% believe the economy is getting worse.
President Trump talks Fulton County FBI raid during Georgia event
President Trump commented on the FBI seizure of ballots in Fulton County during a speech in Georgia.
Trump told the crowd in Georgia that affordability is no longer an issue, though.
“I’ve won. I’ve won affordability,” he said, adding later on affordability that “we’ve solved it, and we’re going still lower, but we’ve solved it.”
Trump pointed to recent inflation data. The Labor Department reported that inflation cooled to 2.4% in January, better than forecasters expected. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, is 2.5% over the last year, the lowest since 2021.
Yet surveys show that consumer costs remain a persistent concern, and the White House recently cited the $6.69 per pound cost of ground beef, the highest since record-keeping began in the 1980s, in an executive order allowing more tariff-free beef from Argentina.
Trump’s Georgia event was part of a series of trips he has taken in recent months to talk about the economy. It offered a preview of his upcoming State of the Union address, with Trump telling the Georgia crowd he planned to cover some of the same ground in his Feb. 24 remarks at the Capitol in Washington, DC.
Yet even as the White House has sought to focus on the economy, Trump often has been preoccupied with other issues and Georgia has been central to his unfounded accusations that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump highlighted the FBI raid on Jan. 28 at a Fulton County election center near Atlanta. Authorities seized ballots and other records from the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden and then sought to overturn the results. Fulton County is challenging the seizure and seeking the return of the ballots.
"They're trying to stop anybody from looking, you know why? Because they cheated like dogs," Trump said.
The economy is expected to be top of mind for voters in the midterm election, which will decide control of Congress, and Georgia could be a key state.
Republicans are trying to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, who Trump slammed as “a real stiff.” The president hasn’t endorsed anyone in Georgia’s Republican Senate primary, but one of the candidates, Rep. Mike Collins, briefly joined him on stage Feb. 19.
Before that contest, though, is the special election to replace Greene. Trump is backing Clay Fuller, a state prosecutor, and urged Republicans in Georgia’s 14th district to get behind him in the crowded race.
Fuller joined Trump on stage, calling him “the greatest president in our country’s history.”
Greene repeatedly has questioned whether Trump has stayed true to his MAGA movement, criticizing his foreign policy moves and other actions. Once a close Trump ally, her rupture with the president has been acrimonious.
“If you had put America FIRST from the start, instead of your rich donor class and foreign policy, you wouldn’t have to strategize on how to gaslight Americans,” Greene wrote on social media in response to recent reporting about the White House strategizing on midterm messaging.
Fuller, meanwhile, promised to be a “warrior” for Trump.
“We will never stop fighting for the MAGA movement and President Donald Trump,” he said.
Contributing: Rachel Barber, Aysha Bagchi