Speaker Johnson echoes Trump’s communism rhetoric in Ciscomani stump

Bessent, Johnson and Ciscomani said the administration’s economic strategies are popular with Arizona business leaders. The three participated in a roundtable closed to the media before holding a 20-minute press conference.

About 10 business leaders from the manufacturing industry participated in the roundtable, including Frito-Lay and electric car manufacturer Lucid, a spokesperson for Ciscomani said.

Bessent said Frito-Lay workers told him the tax deduction for overtime pay was the most popular aspect of the Tax Cuts for Working Families, a rebranded name for the tax cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress in 2025.

According to a July news release from the Treasury, 29 million people have claimed an overtime deduction nationwide.

The visit comes shortly after the matchup between Ciscomani and Democratic challenger JoAnna Mendoza was finalized for the November election after both candidates ran uncontested in their July primaries.

Ciscomani said he is feeling confident about the economy’s role in the November midterms, and criticized Democrats' push for government assistance to create new jobs.

“We believe that the way that you stimulate the economy is letting people keep more of their hard-earned money,” Ciscomani said.

Across the political spectrum, affordability is set to be the defining issue of the 2026 midterms, PEW Research Center reports, with grocery and fuel costs continuing to rise.

Data from the Common Sense Institute, a conservative-leaning economic think tank, reports Arizona has taken longer to recover from the price surge following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cost of a year of basic necessities in Arizona increased $4,000 more between 2019 and 2025 than the national average. The state also saw the 2nd highest increase in grocery costs within the same time frame, according to CSI data.

When asked about the CSI data, Ciscomani said the Trump tax cuts are increasing the average American family’s take-home pay by at least $10,000.

The tax cuts have come alongside major cuts to federal aid programs such as Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Arizona’s SNAP participation was cut in half since the passage of the Trump bill and its new work requirements, leaving many Arizonans previously receiving aid to grapple with increased food costs.

While Ciscomani praised the current administration’s economic policies, his Democratic opponent pointed to a struggling manufacturing facility just down the road.

Electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid recently laid off 700 people in Casa Grande, citing a decline in market conditions. Mendoza said the layoffs were due to the elimination of the clean energy tax cuts.

“Juan Ciscomani betrayed Arizonans when he voted to gut our health care, jack up food costs, and jeopardize hundreds if not thousands of good-paying jobs,” Mendoza said in a written statement.

Before the Trump tax cut package passed the Senate in 2025, Ciscomani and other vulnerable House Republicans wrote a letter asking that Senate leaders reconsider some cuts to clean energy, writing after his vote in favor that ending the tax credits would disrupt projects currently under construction.

U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego also criticized the visit from Johnson and Bessent, asking for Bessent to meet with the individuals laid off from Lucid.

“I’m calling on Scott Bessent to meet with these workers, look them in the eye, and answer for the policies that put them out of work,” the Arizona Democrat wrote on social media.

Johnson also echoed President Donald Trump’s recent shift to anti-communist messaging in a short speech in support of Ciscomani. The president has increased that rhetoric in recent weeks after several victories of Democratic Socialist-aligned candidates in the 2026 primary elections, Reuters reports.

Johnson said voters need to “keep the grown-ups in charge,” by voting for Republicans like Ciscomani.

“They’ve got to make a decision that they want to continue with common sense, growth and opportunity, or do we want to go down this dark, dangerous, deadly road of communism?” he asked.

Bessent called DSA-aligned candidates “the Communist Working Party.”

Ciscomani’s opponent Mendoza is not affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, said Kyle McCarthy, a spokesperson for her campaign.

“JoAnna is running for Congress to lower the cost of gas, groceries, and health care for working families and to bring servant leadership to DC for all Southern Arizonans,” he said.

Bessent also spoke of the Trump Administration’s push for individual financial responsibility, mainly through the expansion of Trump Accounts, an investment account program launched on July 4 that’s available for families with newborns and seeded with an initial $1,000 for each account from the Treasury.

He disputed criticism these accounts have only been accepted by wealthy families. According to Bessent and the Treasury Department’s data, 86% of enrollees so far make below $200,000 a year.

“It is for the bottom 80% of zip codes,” he said. “We want to create an ownership society through the Republican Congress, President Trump, and the entire administration. President Trump wants to create assets, not debts, for the American people.”