Vance says 'affordability crisis' is real but it's Biden's fault

TOLEDO, Ohio — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged in a speech here Thursday that there is an "affordability crisis" in the United States, but said it was caused entirely by former President Joe Biden's policies.

"You don't turn the Titanic around overnight," he told a crowd gathered at an industrial facility near the Maumee River. "It takes time to fix what was broken."

Vance argued that a mix of tax cuts, aggressive trade policies forcing companies to invest in the United States, deals aimed at cutting home and prescription drug prices, and even the administration's aggressive immigration crackdown would eventually all help address the country's cost-of-living crisis and create more opportunities for workers. He claimed the country was "on the cusp of the greatest economic year" in its history.

Democrats say it is President Donald Trump and Vance's leadership fueling the affordability problem: "Ohio families are paying thousands more for the basics because of Donald Trump and JD Vance and losing their health care," Democratic National Committee spokesperson Albert Fujii said in statement about the vice president's trip. The organization pointed to inflation that remained elevated and contributed to higher costs last year, Trump's first of his second term, as well as health care costs on the rise after federal premium tax credits expired.

After the Toledo stop Thursday morning, Vance was next scheduled to visit Minneapolis and host a roundtable amid heightened tensions between the administration, local officials and residents due to the recent surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents there.

Local leaders in Minnesota have called for ICE agents to leave following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good in her car earlier this month. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors this week subpoenaed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other officials in the state, alleging they are impeding the immigration crackdown.

"We're going to talk with some of our ICE agents, talk with local officials about how we can turn down the chaos," Vance said of his trip. "And my simple piece of advice to them is going to be, look, if you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have order in this country, it's not that hard."

He questioned why many other cities and parts of the country haven't been similarly inflamed by the ICE crackdown and suggested it was because "most people are cooperating with the simple principle that we ought to be able to enforce our immigration laws and get illegal criminals the hell out of the United States of America." Vance said that the administration was "not going to let a few left-wing radicals stop us."

Vance gave the 20-minute speech at an industrial dock facility along the Maumee River in East Toledo where iron ore pellets and other bulk products are moved between ships, trains and trucks. The Ironville facility, run by the company Midwest Terminals, also serves a large adjacent plant making hot-briquetted iron operated by steel producer Cleveland Cliffs Inc., and a number of employees of the plant were in the crowd.

The event, according to the White House, was scheduled to highlight the administration's "commitment to lower prices, bigger paychecks, and creating more good-paying jobs in Ohio and across the Midwest."

Vance sought to portray an economic situation that was improving and seeing wage growth in the past year, while also acknowledging there is a ways to go, due to what he said were "failed policies" of the past administration.

Flanked by a locomotive, a forklift and banners reading "Lower prices, Bigger Paychecks," he mentioned Trump policies to stop Wall Street investors from scooping up single-family homes, deals seeking to keep drug prices down, and also claimed that the immigration crackdown would help affordability by freeing up more homes and giving more jobs to American workers.

Trump and other senior administration officials have also visited the region several times in recent weeks to make their case about the economy and discuss affordability issues as competitive midterm races take shape.

Voter concerns over rising prices and tariffs are looming over this election year, with 64% of Michigan voters in a recent poll commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV stating that their household costs had increased over the past year.

Trump last week visited a Ford Motor Co. plant in Dearborn and addressed supporters at MotorCity Casino Hotel, where he, like Vance, blamed Democrats for causing high prices and claimed that a "Trump economic boom" was underway.

Meanwhile, three Trump Cabinet officials also last week toured car plants in northeast Ohio and Toledo, and then the Detroit Auto Show, as they made the case that the president's policies are helping the U.S. auto industry and manufacturing.

The recent messaging push on affordability has been at least partly overshadowed by Trump's efforts to obtain Greenland. Vance joked in his speech that it was so cold in Toledo on Thursday, he forgot where he was going and "thought the president had sent me to Greenland" and he later answered reporter questions about the Danish territory. The vice president said negotiations with NATO to come to a resolution on the fate of Greenland were "going fine."

"Fundamentally, NATO and the Danes and everybody else have to recognize the simple fact that this matters not just to America's security, but to world security," he said. "So we're to keep on trying to make sure that we secure that land mass so that we can protect the American people."

Vance, who grew up in Middletown, Ohio, north of Cincinnati, had earlier represented the state for two years in the U.S. Senate. His last visit to Toledo came as a senator when he stopped to see United Auto Workers on strike outside the Jeep factory in 2023.

This week's trip comes as several competitive elections crank up in Ohio and Republicans seek to hold their control of both chambers in Congress. A special Ohio election will be held in November to fill the rest of Vance's six-year term after he vacated the position.

The leading candidates are Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican and the state's former lieutenant governor, who was appointed on an interim basis to fill the seat after Vance departed, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who served three terms in the Senate before losing in 2024 to Bernie Moreno. Husted, in a speech before Vance took the stage, said Trump's "Made-in-America" focus was good for Ohio, noting recent investments at local Stellantis NV and Whirlpool Corp. plants. Brown this week, meanwhile, posted that "prices are just out of control."

The U.S. House race for the district representing Toledo is also shaping up to be competitive. Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur has held onto the district for 22 terms, but it has become redder after redistricting, and she only narrowly won in 2024. Trump carried the district by seven points in his race against then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Several notable Republicans are competing to face Kaptur, including Madison Sheahan, a 28-year-old former deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Derek Merrin, a former state lawmaker who she narrowly beat last time. At least three of those Republican challengers were in the audience watching Vance on Thursday.

And an Ohio governor's race is also underway. Vivek Ramaswamy is the leading Republican candidate, likely to take on Democrat and former Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton. Ramaswamy warmed up the crowd for Vance on Thursday. He acknowledged that "a lot of people are struggling" with affording a home or with other costs, and that some are "skeptical of the American dream," but promised more aggressive tax cuts could help, including rollbacks of the state's property taxes.

The DNC in a statement tied to Vance's Ohio trip described the visit as an attempt to "sell Trump's disastrous economic policies" and "gaslight" voters, while pointing out that Trump has recently called affordability a "hoax."

It noted that many are facing higher health care premiums and grappling with other rising costs including groceries due to inflation, and pointed to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that indicated Trump hasn't convinced Americans that the economy is in good shape. In that poll, just 37% of U.S. adults approved of how the president is handling the economy.

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