Vice President JD Vance admits the prices of groceries and housing are “too expensive” but once again has laid blame at the feet of the “disastrous Biden economy,” despite the Trump administration having taken the reins more than eight months ago.
“Housing is too expensive, groceries are too expensive. Now, I would say they’re too expensive because we inherited a disastrous Biden economy, and we’re making progress,” Vance said, speaking to Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle.
The vice president made the remarks Friday when discussing the struggling U.S. economy and its potential link to a surge in popularity for Democratic New York mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.
It comes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index data for August, the first month that most of Trump’s tariffs took effect, showing that inflation rose 0.4 percent last month – and 2.9 percent in the past 12 months.
Economists forecast that consumer prices rose 2.9 percent in August from a year earlier, according to a survey of economists by data provider FactSet. That would be an increase from an annual pace of 2.7 percent in July. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, core inflation is expected to have increased 3.1 percent, the same as in July.
Both figures are above the Fed’s 2 percent inflation target.
“First of all, we have to give the President a lot of credit here, because he inherited one of the worst inflation crises in American history, and we’ve had very stable inflation over the last seven or eight months, sort of two to 3 percent right?” Vance said.
“Where economists typically say that you want it, but there’s a lot of work to do, because prices got so high under the Biden administration.”
Vance went on to note that many young people “feel like the American dream is unaffordable,” adding that some of his fellow conservatives “make a mistake in dismissing Mamdani as a socialist, as a communist.”
President Trump himself referred to Mamdani as “my little communist” in an appearance on Fox & Friends two weeks ago.
“It’s only been eight months, but we’ve made a lot of progress, but unless we give young people a stake in the future, we can’t dismiss their concerns as socialism,” Vance continued.
“They’re going to choose socialism if given an option between free stuff and a bad life. We have to make sure they have an option between free stuff and a real life of dignity, of purpose. That’s what the American conservative movement can provide to them.
“But we’ve got to do a better job at articulating it, or they’re going to continue to be attracted to people like Mamdani.”
It comes after a Marist poll, released last week, put Mamdani head and shoulders above other candidates in the mayoral race, due to be decided on November 4.
Mamdani leads with 45 percent of the vote, with former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in second place with 24 percent.
The pair is followed by Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa with 17 percent and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who recently announced he would not be dropping out, in last with 9 percent. Five percent of likely voters say they’re undecided.
