according to an AP poll<\/a>, just 31% of adults surveyed are satisfied with Trump\u2019s economic leadership.<\/p>\nAsked by a reporter whether he thought that affordability could be a \u201cliability\u201d for Republicans during the 2026 midterm election, Vance said he thinks voters will understand that it will take time for Americans to feel the effects of their economic policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very confident that if we keep wages high, we keep energy prices low, we keep on chipping away at the affordability crisis created by Joe Biden\u2019s administration, yes, I believe the American people are going to reward us because the American people are smart,\u201d Vance said. \u201cThey know Rome wasn\u2019t built in a day. They know what Joe Biden broke is not going to get fixed in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance agrees with Trump\u2019s assessment in an interview last week that the U.S. economy deserves a grade of \u201cA+++,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n
He also shared his reaction to an indepth Vanity Fair interview with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, in which she criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi, said Trump has the personality of an alcoholic and called Vance a \u201cconspiracy theorist.\u201d Wiles in a statement Tuesday criticized the Vanity Fair article but did not deny any of the statements attributed to her.<\/p>\n
Vance said that he has not read the Vanity Fair article but he respects Wiles and did not condemn her comments, though he added that White House staff should learn a lesson to give \u201cfewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSusie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree, but I\u2019ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States,\u201d Vance said. \u201cAnd that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president can ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance was joined by Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who represents the Lehigh Valley in Congress, U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Pennsylvania Treasurer and Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garritty, who gave remarks before his address.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what happens when you have a Congress and an administration that puts America first,\u201d Mackenzie said. \u201cWhen we put workers, families and small businesses first, we know that we can succeed. This is the alternative to the last administration that was America last, funding their special interests, and making sure that nobody could actually get ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several local Republicans, including Bethlehem police officer Sam Elias, former Republican candidate for Lehigh County Commissioner Jackie Rivera and Rick Reppert, owner of commercial contractor R L Reppert, spoke before Vance, lauding the Trump administration\u2019s tax cuts and crackdown on immigration.<\/p>\n
Susan Cowell, a retired teacher from Bangor who attended Vance\u2019s address, said more Americans should \u201ctrust\u201d that the Trump administration will address lingering economic issues like high grocery prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe economy is fine, this guy knows what he\u2019s doing. Trust the man,\u201d Cowell said. \u201cEverything the man is doing, he\u2019s lowering taxes, he\u2019s giving us rebates of money that\u2019s really ours. He\u2019s attacking the people who are ripping America off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around 4 miles away, a group of 30 protesters stood with signs protesting Vance and the Trump administration. \u201cYour economy sucks\u201d and \u201cHigh prices are real\u201d were written on some of their signs.<\/p>\n
Brooke McDermitt, the head organizer of Indivisible Lehigh Valley, a left-leaning organizing that helped organize the protest, said it is hard to claim that the affordability is a \u201choax,\u201d which Trump claimed last week during an address at in Mount Pocono, Monroe County, when everyone can see the prices at the register.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Americans] know that prices aren\u2019t going down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The rate of inflation in the United States is 3%, higher than a low of 2.3% this year but far below rates of inflation in 2021, which were as high as 7%.<\/p>\n
Following his remarks at Uline, Vance visited the Allentown Rescue Mission, an organization that serves homeless men in downtown Allentown, and served food to a group of the nonprofit\u2019s clients, according to a White House pool report.<\/p>\n
Reporter Chris Dornblaser contributed to this report. Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vice President JD Vance touted the Trump administration\u2019s economic record Tuesday at an address in the Lehigh Valley,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[18296,119,121,120,836,433,182,139,434,28,50,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-65497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-alburtis","9":"tag-allentown","10":"tag-allentown-headlines","11":"tag-allentown-news","12":"tag-election","13":"tag-lehigh-county","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-northampton-county","17":"tag-pennsylvania","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-top-stories-dtd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}