Vance, Trump unleash on Democrats’ affordability ‘scam’: ‘Fixing what [they’ve] broken’

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance hit Democrats during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, saying that the current administration is working to fix the mess left by former President Joe Biden. 

“The word ‘affordability’ is a Democrat scam. They say it, and then they go into the next subject and everyone thinks they had lower prices. No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country,” Trump said during his opening remarks at the meeting. He also said affordability was a “con job by the Democrats.”

The president boasted that since he took office, his administration has “stopped inflation in its tracks,” but said their work is not over. He said that while inflation is at “a very good level” now, he would like to see it drop even further without putting the country at risk of seeing deflation.

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On Saturday, when boasting on Truth Social about lowering drug prices, Trump declared himself to be the “affordability president,” possibly signaling his administration’s focus on reclaiming the term.

Vance, who spoke later in Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, touted the administration’s work on the economy and predicted that “2026 is going to be the year when this economy really takes off.”

“I think for congressional Democrats in particular, if they want to talk about affordability, they ought to look in the mirror. We are fixing what [they’ve] broken,” Vance said.

The vice president also pointed out that under the Biden administration, the American family lost over $3,000 of household income, while they gained over $1,000 of household income under Trump.

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Several leading Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have increasingly centered their message on affordability in recent months, even pointing to the issue as a decisive factor in last month’s Democratic victories across the country.

“Republicans have failed the American people on the economy. The cost of living in the United States of America is completely and totally out of control,” Jeffries said during a news conference last month. “Republicans promised to lower the high cost of living on day one. Costs have not gone down, they’ve gone up.”

Jeffries’ remarks came one day after Schumer made similar comments about what Senate Democrats called the “Republican Affordability Crisis.” He said that affordability was “the most important issue keeping Americans up at night” and that Trump and Republicans made it worse.

“Donald Trump may think affordability is some kind of Democratic ‘con job,’ as he recently called it, but the opposite is true. Americans are fed up with high costs, and they need a lifeline, while Donald Trump is tossing them an anchor,” Schumer said.

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In November, the Democrats saw a string of major victories, including New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. All three candidates focused on affordability in their campaigns. After Sherrill and Spanberger’s victories, the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) said that they “ran and won on the economy.”

“With cost-of-living concerns top-of-mind for Americans nationwide, Sherrill and Spanberger were laser-focused on affordability, releasing their Affordability Agenda and Affordable Virginia Plan, respectively, as they ran on platforms centered around bringing down the costs of health care, housing, and energy costs,” the DGA statement read.

Mamdani’s campaign was focused on affordability in the city. 

After his meeting with Trump, Mamdani said he would work with the administration — not against it — to make life more affordable for New Yorkers, citing his and the president’s mutual love of the city.