Vice President JD Vance argued voters should have patience with the pace of economic improvements, saying that despite what he described as progress, there was “no way” the Trump administration would have been able to quickly reverse Biden-era cost-of-living setbacks.
Officials “have to be honest with the American people” about what is possible, Vance said in an interview with The Washington Post.
“The idea, as much as I would like it to be true, that we were going to completely undo the $3,000 of take-home pay that was eroded under the Biden administration, and we’re going to fix that in a day — there was no way it was ever going to happen,” Vance said in the interview on Thursday while traveling back from an event in Wisconsin.
Vance also talked about another major issue confronting the administration as it moves toward this fall’s midterm elections — falling approval on its immigration enforcement tactics.
The administration has struggled for months with continued voter discontent over the cost of living. President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1.” Since taking office, he has repeatedly touted a “roaring economy,” growth in the stock market and reductions in the prices of eggs and rent.
Vance’s comments about the stubborn affordability challenges the administration faces acknowledged the gap between voters’ waning satisfaction with the White House and the accomplishments Trump and Republicans are trying to sell ahead of the November elections.
But he cited recent initiatives by the White House to address the concerns of Americans who don’t feel they benefit meaningfully from a booming Dow, including steps to bring down the cost of some prescription drugs and proposing retirement accounts for Americans whose employers don’t offer them.
“I think there are certainly proposals that we can make to make sure that people feel it more, and that people are benefiting more from American prosperity,” said Vance, who unlike Trump, grew up facing financial hardships. There are still people in his life who aren’t wealthy, he acknowledged.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that by 48 percent to 29 percent, Americans said the economy has gotten worse, not better, since Trump was inaugurated a year ago. Asked whether they are personally better or worse off financially since Trump returned to the presidency, 22 percent said better, 33 percent worse and 44 percent said there has been no change.
In the poll, most Americans said they can afford basic necessities like their current housing costs, groceries, utilities and gasoline. But large numbers across income levels said larger expenses and the cost of things associated with an enjoyable life — including taking a week-long vacation — are out of reach.
Overall, 53 percent of adults said they have just enough money to maintain their standard of living, nearly identical to a year ago, while roughly half said that discretionary spending on going out to dinner, vacations and new cars is unaffordable.
On immigration, Vance recalled a moment weeks after the inauguration last year, when he and Trump were reviewing border crossing data and were “shocked” to see how quickly the new administration had managed to effectively stop illegal crossings.
Vance said Trump told him, “You know, we’re going to be a victim of our own success — because people are so worried about the border, we’re going to fix the border, and then people just aren’t going to be as concerned about the immigration issue,” the vice president recalled.
“Political leadership,” Vance said, involves trying to make your case to the American people, “but accepting that, when you solve a concern for voters, they then go on to the next concern.”
The current environment “requires some rhetorical and strategic balance” by the administration on immigration, but “that doesn’t mean we can give up on the immigration agenda.”
A growing majority of Americans have soured on Trump’s handling of immigration. The recent Post poll found that 58 percent of Americans said he had gone too far in his efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, a rise of eight points since the fall. Trump’s approval rating on one of his signature campaign issues has eroded steadily over the past year, falling to 40 percent in the latest poll, down 10 points from a year ago, when half the country approved of his handling of immigration.
For Vance, the immigration debate has been marked by repeated friction that he, one of the country’s most prominent Catholics, has had with the church over the administration’s policies.
In an interview Feb. 19 with the Catholic news site EWTN, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the recently retired archbishop of New York, said Vance had “apologized” to him for publicly questioning last year whether U.S. Catholic bishops “were worried about their bottom line” after Trump cut a long-running federal partnership with the church for refugee resettlement services.
Asked about Dolan’s claim, Vance told The Post he didn’t recall exactly what he said to Dolan, and that the last time the two spoke “in detail” was roughly six months ago.
“I’m not saying he’s lying, but I mean, look, sometimes I say things too harshly. I say things too directly,” Vance said. He recalled speaking to Dolan about the bishops’ need to “be careful your financial interests and the immigration issue don’t actually cloud your judgment.”
Vance said he “could have made that comment more carefully without going too hard at” church leadership. “I’m sure that I said something like that,” Vance added, “but I don’t remember exactly what I said.”
Vance said he admires the “spirit” and “Christian charity” of the church, which “has to minister to everybody, whether you’re a prisoner who’s committed a crime, or whether you’re an illegal immigrant who’s coming to the country illegally.”
“I also recognize that, you know, I have a different job, and my job is to make sure that the American people are as safe and prosperous as they can be,” he said. “And sometimes that means that possibly very good people that the Catholic Church are ministering to, I have to say, ‘has that person come into our country legally?’ And if not, should we try to do something to change that?
“So that is going to inevitably lead to conflict between the government and the clergy,” Vance continued. “What I try to do is come at that conflict in a spirit of charity.”
More recently, Vance was appointed to lead Trump’s newly waged “war on fraud,” in which the administration has taken particular aim at investigating people in Minnesota responsible for allegedly stealing from federal programs. Although it began with a focus on Minnesota, the crackdown will spread throughout the country, the White House has said.
Vance said he and Trump had discussed the coordination needed across departments to make any anti-fraud push successful, including a need for a “Treasury element” to look at financial transactions, Homeland Security to look into the immigration status of those involved, and a “DOJ component” to prosecute cases. The White House, meanwhile, would need to coordinate.
“You should lead this,” Vance recalled Trump telling him.
Asked about whether the new initiative will be an improvement over DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency that was once led by Elon Musk, Vance said there’s some “continuity,” but that the new anti-fraud effort was “going to be different.”
The DOGE effort fell far short of its cost-cutting goals, and Musk in recent months acknowledged that it was just “somewhat successful.”
“DOGE did not have a DOJ component, for example — we certainly will,” Vance said. “You know, DOGE was obviously led by a guy, Elon, who, we sort of knew we had Elon for six months, and he would go back to running his companies. For better, for worse, I’m here for the next three years.
“So if you love me, that’s great. If you don’t like me, I’m still going to be vice president two years and 11 months — or however long I have.”
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