Vice President JD Vance is making it clear he hears the country’s frustrations — even as he pushes back hard on who should shoulder the blame for stubborn prices.
According to Fox News, in a new interview with NBC News, Vance said the public’s dissatisfaction is unmistakable.
“I think I would certainly say voters are impatient. I think voters have every right to be impatient,” he said.
He emphasized that the administration shares that urgency.
“We are impatient, too, and we’re going to see if what we do and what we think we have to do converges with what the voters think we should be doing.”
Still, Vance argued that expectations need to be grounded in reality.
With President Donald Trump less than a year into his term, he said it’s simply not possible to undo what he described as years of economic damage overnight.
“I think the president certainly understands that prices got way too high,” Vance told the outlet.
“But I think what the president’s saying is the idea that, 11 months into the administration, that we could solve all of the affordability problems created by Democrats — I mean, that’s the hoax. The hoax is the idea that it’s our fault and not the Democrats’ fault. And I do think that’s a totally bulls— narrative.”
He added that elections are deliberately spaced to give policy time to take root.
“I think the voters will ultimately have to make that choice,” he said. “I certainly see some of the polling that you’ve seen. But I think that the reason why we have elections every two years and not every year, at least for Congress, thank God, is you’ve got to give a little bit of time for this stuff to work.”
“We’ll find that out in about a year,” Vance added. “And we’re just going to keep on working as hard as we can until then.”
The comments came as Trump used a Tuesday Cabinet meeting to launch his own criticism of Democrats and their messaging on affordability.
There is a “fake narrative that the Democrats talk about: affordability,” the president said.
“They just say the word,” he continued. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”
“I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability; nobody could afford anything. The prices were massively high,” he said.
Vance echoed that message during the meeting.
“If you look at every affordability crisis that’s confronting the American people today, it is traceable directly to a problem caused by Joe Biden and congressional Democrats,” he said.
A Fox News poll from mid-November showed Trump underwater on economic approval, with 61 percent disapproving and 38 percent approving. The survey carried a ±3 percentage point margin of error.
Americans will vote again in 2026 as key midterm contests determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress during the remainder of Trump’s term.
