Download the press release here
Monroe County, PA – President Donald Trump is hosting a rally in Monroe County, Pennsylvania at the Mount Airy Resort and Casino, just a week after he called affordability a “hoax.” Over 200 rural community members will be gathering in a nearby grocery store parking lot with signs to share their stories about the rural reality of Trump’s economy: unaffordable food prices amid Republican SNAP cuts, skyrocketing healthcare costs because of Republican ACA and Medicaid cuts, and the rising cost of living due to Trump’s tariffs.
What: Rally to Protest the Rural Affordability Crisis Trump Created, rural Northeastern Pennsylvanians sharing their TRUE stories of the rural affordability crisis.
Where: Shoprite Parking Lot, 3430 PA-940, Mount Pocono, PA 18344
When: Tuesday, December 9, 4:30 – 6pm EST
Who: RuralOrganizing.org, Indivisible Poconos, Action Together NEPA, Mutual Aid of the Poconos, and 200+ local, rural Northeastern Pennsylvania residents.
Visuals: Rural people will be holding signs, groceries will be collected and distributed to food banks for rural Pennsylvanians in need.
Trump says groceries are getting cheaper and that affordability is a hoax, and now he is finally emerging from the opulent palace he’s trying to build in Washington, DC, to go to a resort and casino behind a two-mile perimeter so struggling Pennsylvanians stay out of sight and don’t disrupt his out-of-touch fantasy and increasingly bizarre ramblings. Trump is panicked because rural people’s eyes and wallets are contradicting the lies he’s spinning so they’re turning on Trump and Republicans, resulting in tanking poll numbers, disastrous elections, and an almost certain Blue Wave in 2026. That’s why Trump is trying to shore up support in the most rural corner of one of the most competitive Congressional districts in the country, PA-08, represented by the floundering Rob Bresnahan, to kick-off the damage-control tour of 2026.
Rural people of Northeastern Pennsylvania will be standing up and telling the truth in the face of Trump and Bresnahan’s lies: people whose ACA premiums are doubling, people who can’t feed their children because they’ve lost their SNAP benefits, people who depend on hospitals that are in danger of closing because of Medicaid cuts – all due to the war on rural people that Trump, Bresnahan, and the Republicans have been waging. Please be in contact if you would like to be connected to a local rural storyteller to interview about these experiences.
In a statement posted to TikTok, Megan Kocher, RuralOrganizing.org, Distributed Field Manager and rural Northeastern Pennsylvania resident, said the following:
I’m Megan. I live in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and I wanted to jump on really quick with an update for everyone that Donald Trump is coming to our backyard in the 8th congressional district tomorrow, Tuesday, December 9th, as part of his economy-focused tour. This is very interesting because Donald Trump just recently proclaimed that affordability is a hoax. Affordability is not a hoax, and we know that, but maybe it looks like a hoax from Donald Trump’s newly updated presidential palace in Washington, D.C.
I live in a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and I work on rural issues. And I also have eyes. So I see the prices that everybody else is seeing when we go to the grocery store. And now Donald Trump is coming to our community to observe the devastation that he created. He’s coming to a rural area in Northeastern Pennsylvania because he and Rob Bresnahan know that they are losing rural voters for good reason. They gutted Medicaid. They cut billions from SNAP, and they devastated our agricultural economy with their tariffs and workplace raids. And no staged press stunt is going to change the reality that we’re living in, which is that our communities, our rural communities, are struggling because of what they did. So what we have now is a desperate Donald Trump and a desperate Rob Bresnahan coming to our communities trying to shore up rural votes.
And the funniest part is that this rally is so on-brand for Donald Trump, since it’s taking place at a casino and resort. He will literally be driving past a closed Rite Aid on his way to get there. He’ll be driving past us, posted up at the local grocery store, where residents can’t afford food for their families because of their policies. They will pass every single sign of the affordability crisis and ignore it on their way to that casino. But we know what’s really going on.
Rural communities like ours and rural communities in Pennsylvania will decide who controls Congress in 2026. And they made a decision to start this tour in Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district. They are terrified about what is going to happen in the midterms, and we are ground zero. While they hide from their constituents, refuse to host in-person town halls and gather in their casinos and resorts, we’re out here doing the work, talking to people about their SNAP and Medicaid experiences, and hosting food drives. And we are not going to stand for this.
Rural America sees exactly what is going on and Northeastern Pennsylvania is not going to welcome Trump into our backyard. So please join us tomorrow, December 9th at 4:30 at the local ShopRite to say that these policies are not welcome in our communities.
The mission of RuralOrganizing.org is to rebuild a rural America that is empowered, thriving, and equitable. Follow us on Social Media @RuralOrganizing.
###
