You only get 2 pencils is brilliant messaging Mr President please repeat this across the nation
— JA (@jesse_altman) December 10, 2025
As part of an unscripted riff on his trade agenda, Trump declared, “You know, you can give up certain products. You can give up pencils.” He added, “You always need steel. You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter — two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”
So as the public sours on the state of the economy and families struggle with rising costs, the Republican president’s instinct was to tell Americans to be satisfied with less.
Nearly a half-century ago, as U.S. consumers struggled with the cost of home-heating oil, then-President Jimmy Carter encouraged Americans to turn down the thermostat and wear a sweater. Nearly 50 years later, as the nation faces a different kind of malaise, the incumbent president wants Americans struggling with the cost of living to “give up certain products.”