Vice President JD Vance conceded that lowering consumer prices will likely “take a little bit of time” while boasting about President Donald Trump’s accomplishments in his first week in office during a tense interview with Face the Nation host Margaret Brennen over the weekend.
Trump and Vance have only been in office seven days and yet the president has signed approximately 33 executive orders re-shaping the federal workforce, ending diversity programs, restricting immigration, reversing Biden administration initiatives and more.
But among those executive orders, none directly tackle consumer prices – an issue among the top concerns for Americans and a promise Trump made on the campaign trail.
Brennan confronted Vance about it during an interview on Sunday, suggesting grocery prices will not come down under the new administration.
“Prices are going to come down but it’s going to take a little bit of time, right?” Vance responded.
“The president has been president for all of five days. I think in those five days he’s accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years. It’s been an incredible breakneck pace of activity.”
The vice president assured Brennan that through executive orders and collaboration with Congress, the new administration will drive down prices, raise wages and increase job opportunities – all of which will contribute to affordability.
Vance also asserted that increasing oil and gas production will bring down energy prices, which will then impact consumer prices – a claim Trump has made as well.
But Brennan continued to push Vance about consumer prices and invoked Trump’s campaign talking point about bacon prices being too high.
BRENNAN: You campaigned on lowering prices. Which executive order lowers prices?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2025
VANCE: We have done a lot.
BRENNAN: So grocery prices aren't going to come down?
VANCE: No Margaret, prices are gonna come down. But it's gonna take a little bit of time. pic.twitter.com/7lki2eIqRM
“But all the things you experience at the grocery store...you were talking about bacon the campaign trail. Those things, when do consumers get to touch and feel a difference in their lives,” Brennan pressed.
Vance, not straying from Trump’s agenda, said that energy production would help by making it cheaper to transmit bacon from farms to the grocery store, thus reducing costs.
But economists are wary of that assertion. Some raised skepticism about Trump’s ability to influence energy costs telling the New York Times it relies on global supply-and-demand. At the moment, there is no oil and gas shortage.
Meanwhile other exeuctive orders, like deporting undocumented immigrants and increasing tariffs are policies that could raise prices by reducing the labor force and making foreign imports more expensive for consumers.
