Trump critics launch new group to highlight rising costs

NEW YORK (AP) - A bipartisan group of President Donald Trump’s critics is launching a new organization, dubbed the Cost Coalition, to highlight Trump’s struggle to control rising costs in the early months of his new presidency.

The group expects to be especially active ahead of upcoming elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to preliminary plans shared with The Associated Press this week ahead of a formal announcement. The Cost Coalition will push its message through a combination of paid advertising, social media, press interviews and on-the-ground events with small business leaders, veterans and the faith community.

Terry Holt, a former spokesperson to former President George W. Bush and former House Speaker John Boehner, both Republicans, is serving as a senior communications adviser along with Andrew Bates, a former spokesperson for former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

"In 100 days, Donald Trump put the best-performing economy in the world on a crash course toward recession. Trump's tariffs - the biggest middle class tax hike in modern history - are making everyday prices skyrocket and wreaking havoc for businesses large and small," Holt and Bates said in a joint statement. "Next up are grossly inflationary tax cuts for the wealthy that will only saddle future generations with staggering debt. Whether you're a Republican, Democrat, or anything else, Donald Trump's agenda is an economic crisis threatening your livelihood and standard of living."

The new group enters a political landscape already packed with powerful voices fighting to shape the national conversation little more than 100 days after Trump began his second term. The Republican president vowed to "end inflation" on Day 1, but he has focused more on immigration, culture wars and exacting revenge against his political adversaries while launching a global trade war that has pushed some costs higher and threatens to send the U.S. economy into recession.

Trump late last week said on his social media platform that there is "NO INFLATION" and claimed that grocery and egg prices have fallen, and that gasoline has dropped to $1.98 a gallon.

That's not entirely true: Grocery prices have jumped 0.5% in two of the past three months and are up 2.4% from a year ago. Gasoline and oil prices have declined - gas costs are down 10% from a year ago - continuing a longer-running trend that has continued in part because of fears the economy will weaken.

Inflation did drop noticeably in March, an encouraging sign, though in the first three months of the year it was 3.6%, according to the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, well above its 2% target.

The Cost Coalition will be led by a team of veteran operatives who played key roles for Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful presidential campaign: Republican strategist Austin Weatherford, the leader of "Republicans for Harris"; Rev. Jennifer Butler, Harris’ national faith and engagement director; Libby Jamison, the Harris campaign’s national director of veteran and military family engagement; political strategist Leslie Gross, a veteran of the Obama-Biden administration; and George Holman, who served in the Biden administration.

A spokesperson declined to say how the new group will be funded, except to say it has "seed contributions" from some large donors in both parties and will also rely on grassroots donations. As a project of the American Values Alliance, the organization will be set up as a nonprofit with a hybrid political action committee. As such, it won’t have to publicly disclose all of its funding sources.