US President Donald Trump on Tuesday made his first big pitch ahead of this year’s midterm elections on his administration’s economic performance, even as his White House remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.
Mr Trump gave a speech in a suburb of Des Moines where he talked up the tax cuts he signed into law last year and took credit for the soaring performance of the stock market, saying he “made a lot of people rich”, including some “that I don’t even like”.
“If we lose the midterms, you’ll lose so many of the things that we’re talking about,” Mr Trump told Iowans, who are expected to reflect their feelings on his presidency when they vote in two highly competitive congressional races this year.
The trip for the Republican president was part of a White House push to focus more on affordability ahead of elections in November that will determine control of Congress.
But the president once again suggested that concerns about prices were exaggerated by his political opponents, saying: “They come up with this word ‘affordability’.”
“First time you heard about it was like a few months ago,” he said.
He went on and added: “You’re not hearing it so much any more. You know why? Because the prices are coming down so much.”
The visit was part of the White House’s strategy to have Mr Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on economic issues facing everyday Americans – an effort that keeps getting diverted by crises.
On the ground in Iowa, Mr Trump first made a stop at a local restaurant, where he met some locals and sat for an interview with Fox News Channel in which he said he was attempting to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota.
The latest effort comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in Iowa’s northern neighbour.
Mr Pretti had participated in protests following the January 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officer. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Mr Pretti, Mr Trump said he was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete.
As Mr Trump left the White House on Tuesday to head to Iowa, he was repeatedly questioned by reporters about Mr Pretti’s killing. Mr Trump disputed language used by his own deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, who on social media described Mr Pretti as an “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents”. Vice President JD Vance shared the post.
Mr Trump, when asked Tuesday if he believed Mr Pretti was an assassin, said: “No.”
When asked if he thought Mr Pretti’s killing was justified, Mr Trump called it “a very sad situation” and said a “big investigation” was under way.
“I’m going to be watching over it, and I want a very honourable and honest investigation. I have to see it myself,” he said.
He also said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was quick to cast Mr Pretti as a violent instigator, would not be resigning.
Later, as he greeted diners at an Iowa restaurant, Mr Trump weighed in further with comments that were likely to exacerbate frustration among some of his backers who are also strong Second Amendment proponents.
“He certainly shouldn’t have been carrying a gun,” Mr Trump said of Mr Pretti.
He called it a “very, very unfortunate incident” but said: “I don’t like that he had a gun. I don’t like that he had two fully loaded magazines. That’s a lot of bad stuff.”
Mr Trump, speaking in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines, talked up the wide-ranging tariffs he imposed on nearly all US trading partners. He also promoted the deals he has struck with drug makers to get them to lower costs on some prescription drugs.
Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman Rita Hart emphasised that Mr Trump’s tariff policies have hurt Iowa farmers and criticised Iowa’s Republican leaders for cheering Mr Trump on “as he has taken a wrecking ball to our economy”.
“It’s laughable that Trump is coming here today to talk about affordability of all things when Iowans are literally paying more because of his disastrous policies,” Ms Hart said.
Mr Trump’s affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the president’s political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.
Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris.