MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump has been looking for ways to lower gas prices, which are much higher than before he started a war with Iran. On Friday, the Trump administration lifted sanctions against Russian diesel - sanctions that had been in place since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Trump described a deal to import millions of tons of Russian diesel over time. This agreement has upset members of Congress and U.S. allies. And for voters who are focused on affordability, it is unlikely to have any immediate impact on diesel prices.
MARTIN: NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is looking at the politics of this. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Russia was already under strong sanctions since it invaded Ukraine, and Congress just passed new sanctions against Russia. Trump signed that law. So what is Trump doing now?
LIASSON: What he's doing is he is trying, without much success yet, to bring down oil prices before Election Day. You know, he blames Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries for higher gas prices in the U.S., even though it's the Iran war that is causing higher prices in the U.S. And he has demanded that Ukraine stop bombing Russian oil refineries. He hasn't demanded that Russia stop bombing Ukrainian energy infrastructure, its electrical grid or civilian targets. Trump is also calling for Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's ouster. He has had a very long-held grievance about Zelenskyy.
MARTIN: And the president has been even more preoccupied with many of his other grievances. How does that play into the Democrats' closing message for the midterms?
LIASSON: Yes. Well, in the past few days, Trump has attacked Norway for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, even though the Norwegian government doesn't make that decision. He's trying again to launch an investigation to fire Lisa Cook, one of the Federal Reserve Board members. He's tried and failed to fire her in the past. The Supreme Court stopped him from doing that. He's also launching a Department of Justice antitrust investigation into the TV networks that have boycotted sharing footage of Trump after he banned CNN from the White House press pool.
And what we see from polling and from NPR's own swing-voter focus groups is that voters want Trump to focus on their priorities - bringing prices down. And instead, they complain that he's too focused on the ballroom or the arch or the press pool or the Kennedy Center. And all this comes as Trump's efforts to try to win the midterms keep failing and running into roadblocks. Last night, a federal court issued a temporary restraining order against some taxpayer-funded campaign ads that he's been running.
MARTIN: So we're about three weeks out from Election Day. Let's zoom out for a minute. And what's the outlook for Republicans?
LIASSON: Well, the dynamic hasn't changed much. Republicans are still on defense, although they have a tremendous amount of money to defend themselves with. About two-thirds of the Republican campaign spending is now focused on states and districts where Trump won by more than 10 points in 2024. And the Senate map is tilted red. There are more Senate seats up this year. Also, those states are more rural. They're more exposed to high diesel prices, high fertilizer prices. There are a lot of low-income voters in those states, many of whom voted for Trump, that are just now starting to feel the cuts in Medicaid and food assistance and other safety net programs from that One Big Beautiful Bill.
And, you know, Donald Trump has the same challenge that Joe Biden had. He is trying to convince voters that the economy is doing better than their own day-to-day experiences tell them, and that is a very hard thing to do.
MARTIN: That is NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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