TRUMP HAS TAMED FOOD INFLATION. WHAT ARE THE POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS?

Now, our custom each day is to begin our broadcast with a little history lesson.

And on this day in nineteen forty-seven, an American president sat down in the White House to speak directly to the American people.

Nothing unusual about that today, but back in those days, well, no one had ever actually done it before.

Now, World War II had been over for a little over two years.

America was booming.

But across the Atlantic, much of Europe remained devastated.

Drought, floods, cold weather, failed crops, and millions of people were facing a hungry and desolate winter.

So the American president went to the American people for help.

But this time, he did it using a relatively new piece of technology, television.

President delivered on this day, October the fifth, nineteen forty-seven, the first televised presidential address from the White House.

And what was the subject of this historic address? Food.

Truman wanted Americans to conserve food so that more could be sent to a hungry Europe.

But he also turned to something else, something that sounds remarkably familiar, inflation and the cost of living.

Take a listen.

Another reason for conserving food is to aid in controlling inflationary spirals and in preventing undue price burdens for our people at home.

Already, many of our families with moderate or low incomes are being forced by high prices to lower their standard of living.

Most of the upward pressure on prices is a result of competition among Americans for scarce goods.

Seventy-nine years ago today, the first televised presidential address ever delivered from the White House.

It hit about forty-four thousand TV sets, mostly on the East Coast.

And President Harry S. Truman is talking about food and inflation and prices and the cost of living, all of it on this day, October the fifth, nineteen forty-seven.

Reminds us that some things don't really change.

Here we are all these decades later, and Americans are still angry about what it costs to live in this country, to buy groceries, and to raise a family.

Yesterday on CNN's State of the Union program, we were talking about exactly that.

Here's what I said to Jake Tapper about the midterm argument to come.