'Make America affordable again': Trump vows economic recovery in key policy speech

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed to restore the American Dream and drive down the cost-of-living in the United States during a policy speech in Asheville, N.C.

"On my first day back in the Oval Office, I will sign an executive order directing every cabinet secretary and agency head to use every tool and authority at their disposal to defeat inflation and to bring consumer prices rapidly down. We'll do it very rapidly," he declared. "From the day I take the oath of office, we will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again."

"We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues with the worst supply chain we've ever had in the history of the country to the prescription drugs," he added. "I will instruct my cabinet that I expect results within the first 100 days, or much sooner than that."

He further made a series of policy promises such as a vow to expand fossil fuel extraction and committed "to the ambitious goal of slashing energy and electricity prices by half."

"My administration will issue rapid approvals for new energy infrastructure, unlock new lands for drilling and achieve energy independence and energy dominant," he further promised.

"To make both new and used cars more affordable, I will end the Biden-Harris electric vehicle mandate on day one," Trump added. "To help seniors on fixed incomes who are suffering the ravages of inflation, there will be no tax on Social Security."

Trump spent much of the early part of his speech touting his economic record and asserting that the current administration had allowed the situation to deteriorate.

"I gave Harrison Biden an economic miracle, and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare, with a nation-wrecking agenda ripped straight out of Kamala's San Francisco liberal playbook," he said.

"Under Kamala Harris and crooked Joe Biden, the American Dream is dead," Trump went on. "You don't hear about the American dream anymore. It's dead her radical liberal policies, of course, horrific inflation decimated the middle class and gutted the finances of millions and millions of American families."

"You don't have to imagine what a Harris presidency would look like you're living through the misery right now, except it will get worse, and you're paying the price, a price like nobody's ever paid, and we're disrespected all over the world as a country," he further asserted.