‘I inherited a mess’: Trump promises economic boom, slams Biden in nationwide broadcast

United States President Donald Trump has promised Americans an economic boom in an address to the nation.

Trump, on Wednesday, December 17, 2025, blamed Democratic predecessor Joe Biden for high prices of items in the United States.

“Good evening America. 11 months ago I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” the 79-year-old president said in his live speech from the White House.

He insisted that prices of gas and groceries that have worried Americans were “falling rapidly, and it’s not done yet. But boy, are we making progress.”

In a surprise announcement, Trump said 1.45 million United States military service members would each receive “warrior dividend” bonus checks for $1,776 before Christmas, paid for with revenues raised from tariffs.

“1,450,000 military service members will receive a special we call Warrior Dividend before Christmas… in honour of our nation’s founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier $1,776,” the billionaire president declared.

He added that specific amount was in honour of the year of the founding of the United States, the 250th anniversary of which the country will celebrate next year.

Trump promised that “we are poised for an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen” in 2026, when the United States will co-host the FIFA World Cup, with Canada and Mexico.

But while the White House had billed the speech as a chance for Trump to set out his economic agenda for the rest of his second term, much of it consisted on attacks on familiar targets.

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He repeatedly raged against Biden, the Democrats, and migrants whom he said “stole American jobs.”

Democrats fired back after the speech, with Senator Chuck Schumer saying in a statement that Trump “just showed he lives in a bubble completely disconnected from the reality everyday Americans are seeing and feeling.”

“The facts are that prices are going up. Unemployment is going up. And there’s no end in sight,” Schumer added.

Trump’s speech comes at the end of a whirlwind year in which he has launched an unprecedented display of presidential power, including a crackdown on migration and the targeting of political opponents.

But polls show what Americans are most concerned about is high prices, which experts say are partly fueled by the tariffs he has slapped on trading partners around the world.

Trump got his worst approval ratings ever for his handling of the economy in a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll published on Wednesday, with 57 per cent of Americans disapproving and expressing concerns about the cost of living.

A YouGov poll published on Tuesday showed that 52 per cent of Americans thought the economy was getting worse under Trump.

The Star