The following is a lightly edited transcript of the December 15 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

President Donald Trump can’t seem to decide whether affordability is a hoax or not. He keeps saying concerns about prices are a con job by Democrats. But now he’s tweeting out video of himself talking about how important it is to do something about affordability, which seems to admit that costs are a problem, even on his watch. We think this neatly captures the dilemma that Trump and Republicans find themselves in. And it comes even as Republicans are starting to sound the alarm about the midterms a lot louder than before. In fact, the Republican National Committee chair is admitting that in the midterms, the party faces almost certain defeat. Economist Rob Shapiro has a great new piece at Washington Monthly spelling out the core of the problem, Trump’s policies. So we’re talking to him about all this. Rob, good to have you on, man.

Rob Shapiro: It’s great to be here, Greg.

Sargent: So again and again, Donald Trump has said in the past few months that affordability is a con by Democrats, a scam, a hoax, etc. etc. So it was a bit surprising to see Trump post video of himself on Truth Social at a rally at which he said this.

Donald Trump (voiceover): And I have no higher priority than making America affordable again. That’s what we’re going to do. And again, they caused the high prices and we’re bringing them down. It’s a simple message.

Sargent: So there you have Trump trying to say that the only reason affordability is an issue is because of Democrats, Joe Biden, etc. Now, in fact, Trump inherited an economy that The Economist called the envy of the world.

Rob, that aside, there’s no way to avoid the basic facts of the situation here, right? Which is that Trump now finds himself forced to admit that costs on his watch are a problem. Your thoughts?

Shapiro: Well, you know, there are two realities here. One is the economic reality that people feel they can’t afford the things that they used to be able to afford. And the second is the political reality, which is they blame Trump for it. And they blame Trump for it, I think, because he spent the first six months of his term saying, I’m going to totally redo economic policy, totally redo the economy around the tariffs. And so he seized responsibility for the economy. And of course, the tariffs only raised prices.

So they make the underlying issues worse. And people believed him. He was the master of the economy. Well, they don’t like the results. So he’s got a political reality, which is ultimately based on the underlying economic reality.

Sargent: Well, just in case people need a refresher, CNN put together a few clips of Trump on affordability. Listen to this.

Donald Trump (voiceover): The word affordability is a con job.

They use the word affordability, it’s a Democrat hoax.

Look, affordability’s a hoax.

Sargent: So what’s funny about this is that the political........

© New Republic