Trump to Focus on Affordability in Iowa01/27 06:26

   President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White 
House's midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration 
remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by 
federal immigration officers this month.

   DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday 
as part of the White House's midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as 
his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second 
fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.

   While in Iowa, the Republican president will make a stop at a local business 
and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary 
Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in 
Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.

   The trip will also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie 
Wiles said last week. It's part of the White House's strategy to have Trump 
travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on 
affordability issues facing everyday Americans -- an effort that keeps getting 
diverted by crisis.

   The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend 
shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the 
neighboring state of Minnesota. Even as some top administration officials moved 
quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting 
until an investigation into the shooting was complete.

   Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United 
States' upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of 
his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it.

   Republicans are hoping that Trump's visit to the state on Tuesday draws 
focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of their pitch as they 
ask voters to keep them in power in November.

   "I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress we've 
made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and 
growing our economy," Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of 
his trip. "Now we've got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable 
housing bill, deliver for Iowa's energy producers, and bring down costs for 
working families."

   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.

   But Trump's penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off 
cost-of-living issues and his administration's plans for how to combat it. In 
Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a 
problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a "hoax" to 
hurt him. At that event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. 
from "filthy" countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.

   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.

   Still, two of Iowa's four congressional districts have been among the most 
competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this year's midterm 
elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette 
Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowa's four House seats in the 
2018 midterm elections during Trump's first term, see a prime opportunity to 
unseat Iowa incumbents.

   This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor 
and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds 
and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political 
shake-ups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy 
Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and for U.S. 
senator, respectively.

   Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is 
running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his 
appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand.