Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War combat veteran who lost both legs when her Black Hawk helicopter was struck in 2004, accused President Donald Trump on Saturday of breaking his promise to lower costs. She pointed to $310 in extra grocery spending, beef above $7 a pound and coffee approaching $9. The Illinois Democrat, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, delivered the message in a short post on X, just ten days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The post lands as the Iran war she has spent months trying to end by force of Senate vote remains unresolved.
What Duckworth Said
Duckworth posted the message at 9:55 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. The full text of the post reads:
“Americans paid an extra $310 for groceries in Trump’s first year in office alone. Now ground beef is over $7 a pound and coffee is topping $9.
Families can’t afford Trump’s broken promises.”
The $310 figure, along with the beef and coffee prices, tracks closely with data Duckworth and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin released on June 29. That release said Americans had paid $310 more for groceries in Trump’s first year back in office than in 2024, and that grocery prices had risen four percent in his second term. The release put the average price of ground beef at a record high of nearly $7 per pound, with coffee costing nearly $10 per pound. The data came from the Senate Joint Economic Committee.
The same release tied rising costs to the war with Iran. It said Illinoisans had spent $2 billion more on gas since the war began in February, with the average family spending $357 more. It said a household driving a pickup truck now pays $163 to fill up, a 48 percent increase from before the conflict. In all, the release said the average Illinois household had paid more than $3,400 in higher costs because of Trump’s policies and the war. “On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised no more wars and lower costs—and instead, Illinoisans are getting the exact opposite,” Duckworth said in the release.
The Promise at the Center of the Post
The “broken promises” in Duckworth’s post refer to Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge to lower costs for Americans. In the June release, Durbin said Trump promised “again and again” to do so “on day one.” The administration’s own actions have at times acknowledged the pressure on household budgets. In November 2025, Trump signed an executive order exempting more than 200 food products from tariffs, including beef, coffee, bananas and tomatoes. Asked whether his tariffs had raised consumer prices, Trump said they “may in some cases.” The administration had previously insisted the tariffs were not a major factor in higher grocery prices.
A Long Record on Tariffs and Prices
Duckworth has criticized Trump’s tariffs since they were announced. After the April 2025 “Liberation Day” announcement, she said: “Don’t be fooled. Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ is a disaster in the making for middle-class Americans. Trump’s tsunami of tariffs will make groceries and other everyday items more expensive, costing families an extra $6,000 a year.” When Trump later paused most of the tariffs for 90 days, she said he could not “erase damage he’s already done to middle-class families,” according to the title of her official statement, which also called him “a failed and bankrupt businessman.”
On Feb. 20, 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs in a 6-3 decision. Duckworth responded: “Trump’s illegal tariffs were a self-inflicted economic catastrophe caused by one wannabe dictator’s greed, vanity and hunger for power. They forced millions of Americans to pay more for groceries, toys and so many more everyday essentials, squeezed small business owners and pushed farmers to make impossible decisions just to survive.” She added that the ruling “won’t put the $1,700 that the average family has already spent back in their pockets.”
She later joined Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and other Senate Democrats in introducing legislation to create a tax rebate for families who paid higher prices because of the tariffs. “Donald Trump’s illegal tariffs stole billions from American families—and they deserve a refund,” Duckworth said. At the end of July, the U.S. Treasury paid out $100 billion in tariff refunds to corporations, prompting Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to write to Trump seeking a share for Illinois families.
The War Powers Fight
The war with Iran began in late February, and Duckworth was among its earliest and most persistent critics in the Senate. Speaking on the floor on March 18 in support of Sen. Cory Booker’s War Powers Resolution, she said she was there “to support the Senator from New Jersey’s War Powers Resolution that would reassert the American people’s constitutional say over decisions of war and peace—through their elected representatives—and put an end to this unjustified, illegal war.” Republicans blocked the measure 47-53.
Days later, as the Senate voted on Sen. Chris Murphy’s resolution, Duckworth returned to the floor. “Americans deserve better than unanswered questions, unjustified conflict and unnecessary tragedy,” she said. Republicans blocked that resolution, too, 47-53. Her release for that vote described the war as having already killed 13 servicemembers.
In April, she forced a vote on her own resolution. “Tomorrow, the Senate will have yet another chance to fulfill its constitutional duty by passing my War Powers Resolution that would put an end to Trump’s mayhem in the Middle East. No more broken promises. No more foreign wars,” she said ahead of the vote. Republicans blocked it on April 15, 47-52. Her official release said she had led a group of Senate Democrats to the floor to urge Republicans to remember their oaths. She joined Sen. Adam Schiff and others for another vote on the 60th day of the war, the point at which the 1973 War Powers Resolution requires a president to withdraw forces absent congressional authorization.
By May, the votes were getting closer. A May 19 release described a record three Republicans voting the prior week for a resolution to end the use of military force in Iran. “We got three Republicans to vote in favor of our last War Powers Resolution—the closest we’ve come to ending Trump’s illegal war in Iran—because Republicans are finally starting to realize how costly and disastrous this conflict is,” Duckworth said. On June 23, the Senate voted 50-48 in support of a War Powers Concurrent Resolution. Duckworth called herself one of the “Senate Six,” the original group of senators forcing votes to end the hostilities.
In her statement after the 50-48 vote, Duckworth linked the war directly to the cost-of-living argument in Saturday’s post. “Donald Trump promised the American people no more wars and lower costs. Instead, families are suffering through a disastrous war that killed 14 servicemembers, burned through at least $35 billion, drove costs through the roof and emboldened our adversaries,” she said. “America is less safe and worse off.” The same week, she voted against committee passage of the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act after Republicans on the Armed Services Committee blocked her amendments to hold Trump accountable for the war.
Costs Rise, the War Continues
On Sept. 7, Duckworth held a roundtable in Rock Island, Illinois, titled “We Can’t Afford This.” Her release said the average Illinois household had by then paid more than $4,200 in higher costs for everyday essentials under the Trump administration. “Grocery bills, energy bills and health care bills are piling up,” she said. “From Rock Island to Carbondale to Chicago, families all across Illinois are telling me the same thing: ‘We can’t afford this.’”
The war itself has not ended. A June ceasefire collapsed over control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. has maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports while Iran has continued to attack ships passing through the strait. Trump rejected a seven-day ceasefire proposal Iran presented in September, and indirect talks through Pakistan and Qatar were still under way as of this week. Iran has said conditions for reopening the strait remain in place.
The Midterm Stakes
Duckworth’s post arrives as both parties focus on affordability ahead of Election Day. On Polymarket, odds show a 92 percent chance Democrats win the House and a 67 percent chance they win the Senate. Her message, which combines a specific dollar figure, two grocery-aisle staples and a one-line accusation, reflects the argument Democrats have made in recent months: that Trump’s tariffs, health care policies and war with Iran have raised costs for families despite his campaign promises. Democrats have also pressed that case through the war powers votes that Duckworth has helped lead since March.
For Duckworth, who has built her Senate career on military and veterans issues, the grocery post connected two of her central arguments. She has said repeatedly that the Iran war and Trump’s economic policies are driving up costs, and Saturday’s message distilled that into a single line: “Families can’t afford Trump’s broken promises.”