The Internet Isn’t Buying Trump’s Economic Claims

Brazil's Lula wins surprise re-election, vowing to defend the country against pressure from Washington. Plus, in the homestretch ahead of the midterms, Americans aren't buying Trump's economic message. Even among friendly corners of the airwaves or friendly corners of the internet, the president and his party have been losing support when it comes to the economy. And it's drivers versus pedestrians as the battle over car-free zones heats up. It's Monday, October 26th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won re-election, pulling off a surprise victory against the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, his bitter rival. Journal correspondent Samantha Pearson says da Silva now faces the challenge of governing a deeply divided country. Tensions that were on full display yesterday. Just as polls were closing here at 5pm, a Supreme Court justice ordered voting to be extended by another two hours, following complaints about public transport and heavy rain. The problem was that at that point, some polling stations had already closed, meaning that some people could keep voting, some people couldn't. The decision essentially caused enormous confusion and even temporarily halted the vote count. Now Bolsonaro is refusing to vote. He's refusing to recognise the result on that basis. He says he'll seek to have the election annulled. So there's a real possibility here of a prolonged legal battle. And that brings us to the biggest challenge for Lula. He's heading into an unprecedented fourth term at the age of 80, facing a powerful Conservative Congress and nearly 60 million Brazilians who voted against him. In fact, the right have actually strengthened its position in both houses of Congress, despite losing the presidency. So Lula is going to have to negotiate with politicians who oppose much of his agenda, particularly on government spending and economic policy. And the Bolsonaro movement clearly isn't going away. Nor is Washington. More than 20 years after first winning the presidency, Da Silva is now the last remaining stalwart of South America's left wing, following a string of defeats from Chile to Colombia and Peru. And as a result, Samantha says the tensions with the Trump administration are likely to remain high. On foreign policy, he'll continue strengthening Brazil's ties with China and other BRICS countries, even as Washington tries to expand its influence across the region. But Lula is by nature a pragmatist. He spent decades negotiating with political opponents and finding common ground when it serves Brazil's interests. So the two countries still have important economic interests in common, particularly trade and critical minerals. We'll see plenty of disagreements with Washington, particularly over climate and foreign policy. There's also strong and sensitive on both sides to keep trade flowing and maintain at least a working relationship. Brazilian stocks and the country's currency are tracking lower following yesterday's results. Investors had viewed a Bolsonaro win as being more market-friendly on his promises of fiscal consolidation, privatization, and closer alignment with Washington. While elsewhere in Latin America, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has returned home after 11 months in exile. Crowds yesterday cheered her on as she entered the capital Caracas. The return of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate could put new pressure on interim President Delcy Rodríguez, whom President Trump has increasingly embraced as a partner in securing lucrative oil deals. Florida Republicans had backed Machado's return, concerned that Trump's support for Rodríguez was alienating Venezuelan and Cuban voters ahead of the midterms. U.S. officials had backed transition talks involving a different opposition leader, with a third round of negotiations that concluded last week including no timetable for a presidential election. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In an August interview with the journal, Machado said she couldn't lead Venezuela's transition to democracy or put pressure on its current leaders from abroad. And hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets again in France over the weekend to protest the cost of living and deteriorating public services. While the demonstrations were largely peaceful, clashes with police broke out in several regions, and a new Ipsos poll finds that the French public remains broadly unimpressed with the government's handling of the unrest. Into that fray, right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen kicked off her campaign yesterday, calling on voters to take part in what she called a movement for France's renaissance, a message that mixed promises of beauty, humanism, and progress with familiar themes around immigration and crime. According to Ipsos, voters gave Le Pen the highest marks for her response to recent unrest, though she appears to have made few gains in attracting new voters ahead of April's elections. In markets news, we're looking ahead to a busy week with interest rate decisions due from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Both are widely expected to keep interest rates on hold as policymakers pause following previous hikes. However, strong U.S. economic data and high inflation mean investors are anticipating further Fed rate increases in the coming months, likely starting in December. And AI jitters are likely to remain in the spotlight in the coming days ahead of an action-packed week of earnings, with hyperscalers Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft all reporting results. Coming up, we'll look at what a massive analysis of TikTok videos, podcasts, TV ads, and more can tell us about economic sentiment just over a week out from the midterms. That's after the break. We are just over a week out from the midterms, and last-minute campaigning has reached a fever pitch. Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama made his first appearance on the campaign trail, harshly criticizing President Trump and Republicans at a rally in Ohio. This administration's actions are directly responsible for rising costs. The current president chose to make a series of bad decisions. Most importantly, he decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for and nobody voted for. For his part, President Trump has held at least seven midterm rallies in mostly red states over the past week, trying to energize his supporters as polls predict Republicans losing the House and possibly the Senate. And if they win, the midterms even, it's the start, it's the start of something very bad, very dark, very horrible for our country. Across 11 hours on stage, President Trump tried making the case that the economy is booming on his watch, though at least on social media, that's not going over well. The Journal analyzed thousands of TikTok videos, podcast episodes, cable news segments, and TV ads running in the most competitive congressional races. And reporter Jack Gillum says that the number of people disputing Trump's economic claims far outnumber those who back them. You can imagine it's a little difficult to try to put your finger on the pulse of what the electorate is saying. So we wanted to start and look at some of the mediums that people really use the most, one of them being TikTok, which is a pretty favorite place that people, especially under 30, get their news. So what the Journal has done is set up this system where we have taken this very large sample, like tens of millions of TikToks. TikTok videos, not to mention hundreds of thousands of podcast episodes and other ways that politicians are trying to reach people over the airwaves. And we wanted to just ask a very simple question, especially when it came to the economy. And that is, the president says it's doing well, that it's made improvements under his watch. Are they buying it? And the answer resoundingly is no. I don't know what more needs to happen in the United States before people start to realize this is clearly a lie. It's not working. It's never working. We tried to take that economic. economic message and splice it up into about nine different topics, including how voters felt about this $5,000 dividend, for example, that he promised. If Republicans won the midterms, it's a hot economy. Gas prices, which seem to be the most talked about issue. And really across all of them, except really when it came to jobs, the potential electorate that we saw on TikTok, that is the response that people had in terms of these messages, whether they repeated the president's claims or they just talked about them outright, whether they. posted videos making sort of sarcastic faces over the top. The answer was no, the economy is not good. And that really doesn't bode well for Republicans going into the midterm elections. Are you really America first? Because it sure as hell doesn't seem like it, especially when you look at everything that's going on in this country. You can only blame the Democrats and Joe Biden for so long. Measuring what the American voter thinks is very complicated. And pollsters use a lot of social science to do that. And that's one metric. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important for the American people that they do. This is our best effort to sort of augment that, to look at proxies of that sentiment, especially political ad spending. There's hundreds of millions of dollars here that are being spent on advertising. This could be one of the costliest Senate cycles or House cycles probably in modern history. So what is the best way to measure that? Well, essentially, the vibes of what people are saying online. And it was pretty overwhelmingly negative about where they feel the direction of the country is going in terms of how affordable it is. So I would say that's the big takeaway that struck me. is that even when we went looking for positivity, it was harder and harder to find as time went on. And Jack says that pattern also shows up in political ads in the closest House and Senate races, where Republicans aren't selling the president's economy, and some are even acknowledging the hardship. To us, political advertising usually is like the best way that politicians feel like they can get their message across because airtime costs money and some of these markets can be very expensive. And what we found is that certainly among Republicans, there was one ad, one ad that we found out of thousands that actually mentioned Trump in the economy. And it was essentially an attack ad. It was a Republican in New England who was trying to get a broad base of support, and he was actually criticizing his own party in the economy. When the president's policies are bad for New Hampshire, I'll oppose them, just like I opposed the war in Iran and the trade war with Canada. That's New Hampshire independent. You can imagine the Democrats overwhelmingly are using the issues that they're talking about. You have high gas prices with diesel hitting more than $6 a gallon, regular unleaded hitting more than $4.27 a gallon in the U.S., which is outside of California, fairly expensive. That is among the single biggest pocketbook issues that these candidates on the trail are talking about and really create a liability for the Republicans and potentially losing control of the House and maybe even in the Senate. To see our full analysis about how people are talking about the midterms, check out the link we've left in our show notes. And finally, when voters in San Francisco go to the polls next week, they'll be voting, among other things, on Proposition G, a ballot measure to restore weekday vehicle traffic to the Upper Great Highway. It's a stretch of road along the Pacific coast that six years ago was temporarily converted into a car-free zone, a move later made permanent in 2024. But San Francisco reporter Jim Carlton says that the creation of Sunset Dunes Park came with little outreach to those who were not in favor of the move. He said, There was complaints from residents that it was taking much longer to do a simple trip through alternate routes. And so they signed a petition to have another vote, and this is called Proposition G, and that's on the ballot now for November 3rd. And there are fierce arguments on both sides. The yes on G, which is to return cars back to the highway. They say this is a compromise. It would be open Monday through Friday for cars. And then Saturdays and Sundays, it'll go back to park. The no on G faction, they believe that this would be destroying a popular playground. And so they're saying that basically it's much better as a place to recreate and enjoy the ocean. And, you know, we shouldn't go backwards in essence. While San Francisco is a leader in pedestrianization, both it and a number of other U.S. cities like New York and Seattle have looked to Europe for inspiration in removing cars from main roads. And starting today, London is getting one such makeover, as parts of shopping and tourism hotspot Oxford Street closed to cars, buses, taxis, and even bikes. Our Hattie Moyer paid the street a visit just before its transition. The lower part of Oxford Street at the moment is really hazardous. Pedestrians aren't watching where they're going. Us bus drivers really are quite scared by it every day. I agree with it. It's a win-win, really. I see both sides to the situation. In terms of getting the pedestrians about, a lot easier for them to go through, walk about the place. But at the same time, diverting all the buses onto the road, it's a lot easier for them to go through, walk about the place. I think it's a good thing if you're a tourist and want to see Oxford Street and enjoy it. Do I think it's a good thing overall? No, I think it'd be very disruptive. And I think it'll actually cause more disruption than benefits. So can statistics break the impasse? Back in San Francisco, that's what the two sides are clashing over, with park advocates citing a drop in traffic accidents, while opponents argue that estimates of 1.7 million people will be affected. Back in San Francisco, that's what the two sides are clashing over, with park advocates citing a drop in traffic accidents, while opponents argue that The fight right now is very bitter. It's very divisive. I don't know who's going to win, but it's going to determine the fate of this iconic highway. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal.