Trump urged to focus on egg prices in letter led by Massachusetts lawmakers
BOSTON - What is President Donald Trump doing to lower the price of eggs and other foods at the grocery store? That's the question Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jim McGovern are asking in a letter sent to the White House on Sunday.
The two lawmakers from Massachusetts led the letter signed by 21 Democrats in Congress, including Rep. Seth Moulton. Warren said in a statement that despite campaigning on a promise to immediately lower the price of groceries, Trump has "largely ignored" the problem in his first week in office.
The letter says Trump "instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers."
Trump's executive order on prices
"Americans, in the first days of your new presidency, are facing egg shortages amidst an avian flu outbreak and still-high prices at the grocery store," the lawmakers wrote. "Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them."
The president signed an order on Jan. 20 requiring "all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief." It included a directive for the federal government to "eliminate harmful, coercive 'climate' policies that increase the costs of food and fuel."
Economists told CBS News it's unclear if the order will do anything to bring down inflation.
Bringing down food prices
The letter tells Trump "you have tools you can use to lower grocery costs and crack down on corporate profiteering." It urges the president to use executive action "to lower food prices by encouraging competition and fighting price-gouging at each level of the food supply chain."
The recommended steps include making it tougher for big business to shut out smaller suppliers in the food industry, diverting more government food contracts to small businesses and blocking mergers in the industry when appropriate.
"If you are indeed committed to lowering food prices, we stand ready to work with you," the Congressional Democrats write.
A USDA analysis says a combination of bird flu and inflation could cause egg prices to jump up by 20% this year, and some Massachusetts supermarkets have been limiting how many eggs customers can buy.
"Prices are going to come down," Vance says
In a "Face The Nation" interview on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance said "prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time."
"Donald Trump has already taken multiple executive actions that are going to lower energy prices, and I do believe that means consumers are going to see lower prices at the pump and at the grocery store, but it's going to take a little bit of time," Vance said. "Rome wasn't built in a day."
