MEMORANDUM
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: DNC War Room
DATE: January 24, 2025
RE: Trump Promised to Lower Costs, but He’s More Focused on Raising Drug Prices, Releasing Violent Criminals, and Enriching His Billionaire Backers

Donald Trump is already breaking his promises and screwing over the American people. After spending his entire campaign lying about his plans to bring down prices, Trump spent his first week in office threatening health care access, moving to raise prescription drug prices, pardoning violent criminals, and laying the groundwork for another tax handout to billionaires. From the minute he took the oath of office, Trump admitted he “do[es]n’t care” about the economy, instead focusing on old grievances, attacks on critical programs, and handouts for his billionaire backers — not what’s best for working families.

Trump spent his entire campaign peddling lies about his promises to lower costs for Americans in his second term:

• “Make America affordable again” and end inflation “rapidly,” starting on his first day in office
• Lower the cost of “everything” including groceries, electricity rates, airfare, and housing 
• Bring down energy prices by 50%
• Reduce the price of gas, even below $2 a gallon 
• Lower mortgage rates 3% and “maybe even lower than that” to make housing more affordable

… but here’s what Trump spent his first days in office doing instead: 

• Gave billionaires collectively worth over $1 trillion a front row seat to his inauguration while leaving the American people out in the cold
• Rolled back a Biden-Harris rule to lower drug costs for millions of Americans
• Signed executive order gutting protections for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act 
• Pushed congressional Republicans to go along with his national tax to pay for another tax handout for his billionaire friends 
• Halted thousands of infrastructure, transportation, and energy infrastructure projects funded under the Inflation Reduction Act 
• Pardoned violent January 6 rioters who assaulted police and attacked our democracy 
• Featured his close advisor, Elon Musk, doing Nazi salutes at an inauguration event
• Invited a Nazi sympathizer to his inauguration ceremony  
• Signed an executive order attacking reproductive rights, pushing the extreme fetal personhood theory, and gutting protections for transgender Americans 
• Shut down the White House’s Spanish-language page 
• Handed out top secret security clearances without any of the usual background checks, risking our national security
• Rolled back ethics requirements signed into law by the Biden-Harris administration  
• Advocated for his billionaire Cabinet, pressuring the Senate to confirm his unfit and extreme nominees 
• Overturned the Equal Employment Opportunity order, which protected Americans against employment discrimination 
• Stripped 51 former national security officials of their security clearance as an act of revenge
• Pursued his perceived grievances against civil servants by firing career officials across the government, including “four top officials” from the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration courts; 4-star Coast Guard Chief Admiral Linda Fagan; and over a dozen senior State Department career officials, raising “alarm bells” from current officials 
• Signed an executive order weakening protections for federal employees, making it easier to fire civil servants and install loyalists  
• Signed an executive order attempting to overrule the 14th Amendment and end birthright citizenship 
• Picked a fight with a bishop and demanded an apology after attending the National Prayer Service 
• Ceded global leadership to China by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and World Health Organization
• Renamed Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico

Bottom line: Trump can lie about campaign promises and lowering costs all he wants, but his actions make his priorities clear: He’s focused on his personal grievances and putting billionaires and ultra-wealthy special interests first — and the American people last.