Trump and Dave Ramsey talk about '$8 eggs, $5 gas, 7% interest rates' and unaffordable housing

By Venessa Wong

Personal-finance personality Dave Ramsey interviews Donald Trump about affordability issues impacting consumers

Personal-finance author and radio host Dave Ramsey sat down with former President Donald Trump to talk to the Republican nominee about a key issue on the minds of Ramsey's followers: high prices and what can be done to bring them down.

In an interview released Tuesday, Ramsey started off by noting that his show is about money, not politics, telling his audience that "what happens in your house is more important for your success than what happens in the White House." But given the divisive nature of this election, Ramsey said, he invited the presidential candidates "to talk about ideas; talk about what's going to happen."

Ramsey, a well-known fiscally and culturally conservative talk-show host, recently said of Harris and Trump that "neither one of these people are going to be your savior," and "neither one of [them] are fiscally responsible human beings." His team reached out to both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris for interviews; Harris's team was still reviewing the request, he said on his show Monday.

During the interview, Ramsey told Trump his audience is "not concerned with a lot of things, but they are concerned with $8 eggs, $5 gas, 7% interest rates and a house they can't afford, with wages not going up as fast as house prices. This inflation thing's a big deal."

As of August, the average price of eggs had come down to $3.20 per dozen and gas was $3.65 per gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Mortgage rates have also fallen after soaring to 8% in 2023; the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.08% as of Sept. 26, according to Freddie Mac.

Asked to comment further on the interview, a spokesperson for Trump said the delinquency rate on credit cards has skyrocketed under the Biden administration as more Americans cannot afford to make ends meet.

Here are some highlights from Ramsey's discussion with Trump, which covered energy prices, Social Security and other personal-finance topics:

Energy prices and inflation

After Ramsey asked about high prices, including for food and housing, Trump boiled down people's inflation concerns to energy prices, which are highly correlated with voter sentiment. Trump said the first thing he would do to help cut household expenses if elected would be to bring down energy prices by increasing domestic oil production. "We're going to drill, baby, drill," he told Ramsey. Lower oil prices would help bring down interest rates, he argued, because it "takes that burden off the shoulders of the economy and off the shoulders of inflation itself."

U.S. gas prices increased following pandemic disruptions and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By August, a gallon of gas cost $3.65, an increase of more than 30% on average compared with the same month five years earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Speaking on energy prices in the presidential debate last month, Harris said the Biden administration had increased domestic oil production (the U.S. has actually produced more crude oil than any other country for the past six years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration), that she would not ban fracking, and that "we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil."

Read also: 'One job isn't enough': Nearly half of parents work side hustles now

Protecting Social Security

The Social Security trust fund is expected to run out of money in eight years, "as growth in the workforce slows and more boomers collect benefits," according to the Urban Institute, a center-left think tank. Possible solutions include increasing taxes or increasing the retirement age."We have to save Social Security and keep it good and solid. I don't want to be raising ages or anything," Trump told Ramsey. Once again, Trump blamed "migrants" who receive public benefits - an argument that has repeatedly been debunked. As PolitiFact explains, immigrants who are legally qualified to work only receive Social Security retirement benefits after they've worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years, and immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally cannot receive Social Security retirement benefits.

Harris has proposed bolstering Social Security and Medicare "by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes."

Taxes and tariffs

Trump reiterated his plan to cut corporate taxes and increase tariffs. "You have to manufacture your product here, and then you pay 15% [in corporate taxes], and then I'm going to put tariffs on countries so they can't come in and steal our business, so that our businesses now can be competitive," Trump told Ramsey.

Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is expected to add nearly $2 trillion to the deficit by 2028, according to the Brookings Institution.

Trump's proposed tariffs would reduce long-run gross domestic product by 0.8%, the capital stock by 0.7%, and hours worked by 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates. Researchers expect tariffs would ultimately increase prices for consumers, with the Harris campaign often citing a $4,000-a-year increase for middle-class households, the high end of estimates, according to PolitiFact.

Researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said in a recently released report that Trump's proposals to increase tariffs and deport migrant workers would together increase prices for consumers, adding to inflationary concerns.

From the archives (July 2024): How a Trump presidency could 'rock' the EV market - and bring Tesla prices way down

How to 'raise great kids'

While the interview never addressed child-care costs, which have increased sharply and are of growing concern to many American families, Ramsey asked Trump, "How do you raise great kids?"

His response: "The one thing I always told my kids: no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes." Trump talked about his late brother, Fred Trump Jr., who struggled with alcoholism. "I've never had a glass of alcohol, if you can believe it, I think largely because of my brother," he said.

As for teaching work ethic to one's children, Trump said, "They have to like what they do. ... If you don't love what you do, it's not going to work."

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-Venessa Wong

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10-02-24 1055ET

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