Vice President J.D. Vance said Thursday that Democrats have no plans to combat inflation while President Trump is looking for ways to cut costs, shifting the blame for high prices that are angering voters.
Mr. Vance, speaking from the White House briefing podium, said Mr. Trump is deploying several tools to combat the high cost of living in the U.S., including tax cuts passed by GOP majorities in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and prescription-drug discounts on the TrumpRx website.
“We’re doing everything we can to bring down prices,” the vice president said.
He said Democrats, by contrast, want to undo Trump policies that reduced taxes.
“How is the Democrats’ tax increase going to make things more affordable?” he said.
Mr. Vance, like the president, said high prices are mostly a holdover from the Biden era, when inflation soared to over 9%.
However, voters tend to blame the party in the White House for economic woes. Mr. Trump also campaigned on lowering prices, but inflation is still running above 3% — higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
Central bankers might raise interest rates at their next meeting to rein in inflation, a development that Mr. Trump does not want.
In the meantime, the administration is fighting a political battle ahead of the November midterms. Affordability and the cost of living are key topics for voters heading into the contests, which could hand congressional majorities back to Democrats.
Gas prices are a particular worry. The average price per gallon is pinned above $4 per gallon, on average, up from around $3 at the start of the war.
“The reason gas prices are so high right now is because the Iranians are shooting at commercial shipping,” Mr. Vance said, referring to Tehran’s clampdown in the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr. Vance declined to predict when gas would return to $3 per gallon but pointed to administration efforts to ease oil markets, including a massive deal to tap into Venezuelan reserves.
“Gas, frankly, could have been much, much higher, were it not for our efforts,” Mr. Vance said.
The Strait of Hormuz was open to maritime traffic before the war, which Mr. Trump started alongside Israel on Feb. 28 to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Vance credited the president and U.S. troops with easing the current situation, in which Iran harasses ships to agitate the U.S. and its allies and gain leverage in the conflict.
“We would have had an energy crisis because the Iranians refused to stop acting like terrorists in the Strait of Hormuz,” the vice president said. “The Iranians would like zero million barrels to come out of the Strait of Hormuz. Last night, 15 million barrels came out of the Strait of Hormuz. That’s because of the United States of America.”
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