Donald Trump’s VP Pick JD Vance Epically Fails to Understand How Inflation Works

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Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance gave a very JD Vance explanation of America’s inflation rates when he was asked about a policy to address the problem on the campaign trail in Wisconsin.

Vance quickly brushed off a Democratic talking point that placed the blame for higher prices on essentials such as groceries, gas, and housing on corporate greed. Instead, Vance proceeded to blame Vice President Kamala Harris and bungled his way through connecting inflation to energy production.

“[Corporate greed] may very well be a factor, but the simple fact is the way to tamp down on that is to make sure we have competitive markets and low prices, right?” the Ohio senator said. “You don’t have to believe that corporations are angels. Some of them are doing great jobs and some of them aren’t. But that is not what is driving the most of the inflation in this country right now. What we are seeing consistently is energy prices are too high, food prices are too high, housing prices are too high. The story there is Kamala Harris supported the ‘Inflation Explosion Act,’ and they’ve made it harder to produce American energy. When you do those two things, you’re necessarily going to have inflation.”

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The patchy response has The New Abnormal hosts convinced that Vance—like his running mate, former President Donald Trump—lives on another planet.

“So he’s an idiot, right?” said co-host Danielle Moodie. “Corporate greed is the reason for all of the things he just said.”

Co-host Andy Levy said Vance should be focused on the profits of grocery chains instead of food prices.

“Operating profits grew apparently from 2019 to 2023, they grew from $14 billion to $25 billion. That’s a 79 percent increase,” said Levy. “They’re making a lot more money than they used to, and they’re charging a lot more for their food.”

Levy added, “This is not even a question of him being stupid. This is a question of him being willfully ignorant.”

Plus! Author Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who wrote the children’s book Love in the Library, joins the podcast to talk about the history of Banned Books Week and why the importance of this year’s celebration (Sept. 22-28).

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.