Trump administration news: Lawmakers briefed on boat strikes as health care battle continues on Capitol Hill

Sen. Mark Kelly arrives for an all-Senate briefing at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

Sen. Mark Kelly said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continued his criticism of the six Democratic lawmakers who made a video encouraging service members to refuse illegal orders unprompted during the Senate briefing on the boat strikes.

“He actually brought it up in the in the brief, oddly, which I thought was, you know, just some reiterating his talking points on this. When I was specifically asking him questions about strikes, again shows that this is very performative for him, even in front of a group of senators,” Kelly said after the briefing Tuesday.

Kelly said he eventually responded to Hegseth and pointed out he shared the same view on refusing illegal orders in 2016, “Very eloquently, I said, like the way he expressed himself in 2016 about this, you know, same issue and I said, by the way, you were specifically speaking about this president.”

Kelly said “he didn’t really say anything” in response and was trying to avoid answering specific questions on the strikes.

“I think Pete Hegseth is a guy goes to work every day to try to figure out, how does he please the president. That’s a recipe for some major problems,” Kelly added.

Kelly called the threats of an investigation into him over the video “a bunch of bullsh*t.”

“This is just about sending a message to retired service members, active-duty service members, government employees: ‘do not speak out against this president, or there will be consequences.’ So, it’s a lot bigger than, you know, just dealing with me.

Kelly said he has received no notification from DOD about an investigation.

Kelly also said he believed the video of the strikes should be released to the entire Senate.

The Trump administration today expanded its list of countries with full or partial travel restrictions to 39, increasing from the previous list of 19 countries, according to a new White House proclamation.

CNN previously reported Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recommended the Trump administration expand the list to between 30 to 32 countries.

Nationals of countries on the list face restrictions on travel to the United States. The White House said the listed countries demonstrate “severe deficiencies in screening, vetting, and information-sharing.”

The proclamation also applies travel limitations on individuals holding Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents. The proclamation lifts a ban on nonimmigrant visas for citizens of Turkmenistan, “while still maintaining suspended entry for Turkmen nationals.”

Some context: The official expansion comes as President Donald Trump has ramped up his immigration crackdown citing the shooting in Washington, DC, that killed one National Guard member and critically wounded another.

The shooting suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who previously worked with the US in Afghanistan, resettling in Washington state under the Biden administration and then being granted asylum under the Trump administration.

House Speaker Mike Johnson holds a press conference in the US Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday.

House centrists directly confronted Speaker Mike Johnson during a closed-door meeting Tuesday on the fate of expiring Obamacare subsidies, with several GOP lawmakers raising their voices to vent their frustrations at the speaker, according to multiple attendees.

Several of these House centrists — including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York — used the meeting to make a last-ditch push for a floor vote on extending and reforming the Covid-era Obamacare tax credits that will expire December 31.

One member, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, described the meeting as “tense.” At multiple points during the meeting, the discussion was so heated that parts of it could be heard by reporters outside the room.

“I think it’s the frustration from members who feel that we have a good compromise solution here to address a real problem. And that leadership is shutting it down,” Malliotakis said.

Rep. Kevin Kiley of California added: “We want to see a vote, and not just a show vote but a vote that actually has an opportunity to become law. And you know, that was conveyed very clearly at this meeting, at other meetings, for weeks now.”

Several of those GOP centrists, including Malliotakis and Kiley, left the meeting with the impression that a deal was still possible. Centrists were quietly assembling a new amendment to present at the House Rules Committee in the coming hours that Johnson seemed to support in the meeting, those members said.

But the precise details of the latest proposal aren’t clear (even to members who attended the meeting). And it’s not clear if Johnson would be able to convince his Rules Committee to agree to tee up the amendment — when it is actually drafted — for floor action later this week.

But at least one GOP hardliner on that Rules panel sounded skeptical of the still-emerging proposal.

“I haven’t read it yet, so how the hell do I know?” Rep. Chip Roy said when asked if he could support the centrists’ amendment. “We had a discussion as a group last week. Those things sort of hit a wall. Now they’re throwing some kind of Hail Mary at it, we’ll see.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks with reporters on Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would not say how Senate Democrats will handle the looming government funding deadline next month, emphasizing that it will be too late to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies after they expire at the end of this year.

“The bottom line is very simple, and that is that the way to solve this problem, because the toothpaste is already out of the tube, is get it done by January 1. The Republicans, if they care so much and feel the heat, they should make sure we get…that they pass our bill,” he told CNN when asked if he would vote to shut the government down on January 30 if the ACA credits are not extended.

Pressed again on whether Senate Democrats would make health care demands in exchange for their votes to keep the government open, as they did this fall, Schumer responded, “you can’t do it after January 1,” referring to the expiration of subsidies that will lead to skyrocketing health insurance premium costs for millions of Americans next year.

“It’s expired already. It’s not the same as it was before. Once it expires, the toothpaste is out of the tube,” he explained.

Schumer cast doubt on the potential success of ongoing bipartisan efforts to reach a health care compromise, including a two-year extension of subsidies with some reforms, but made clear even if a deal materializes, passing it after the credits expire is too late.

“If the Republicans want to do something, they ought to pass something, our extension, by January 1,” he said.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February.

President Donald Trump defended his chief of staff Susie Wiles after Vanity Fair published her candid and at times unflattering assessments of the president and some of his closest allies, telling the New York Post she “has done a fantastic job.”

“I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided,” Trump told the Post. “If anybody knows the interviewer, and if they know Vanity Fair, Vanity Fair is a totally — it’s lost its way. It’s also lost its readers, as you know. No, she’s fantastic.”

In the articles published Tuesday, Wiles told Vanity Fair the president “has an alcoholic’s personality,” despite being known as a teetotaler.

But in his interview with the New York Post, Trump seemed to brush those comments aside.

“No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,” Trump said, according the Post.

Trump also told the outlet he hadn’t read the full Vanity Fair piece.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Vanity Fair for what she called “disingenuous reporting” and claimed the piece took Wiles’ “words wildly out of context.”

“The most egregious part of this article was the bias of omission that was clearly present,” Leavitt said.

CNN’s Kit Maher contributed to this post.

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks outside the United States District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, on October 24.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ comments that the prosecution of Trump political opponent Letitia James might be considered retribution is an “astonishing admission,” James’ attorney Abbe Lowell said today.

Mortgage fraud charges against James, the New York attorney general, alleged she made a few thousand dollars a year by representing a rental property as a second home in Norfolk, Virginia. James has argued she was wrongfully prosecuted because of President Donald Trump’s political animus, including defeating Trump in a major civil fraud lawsuit over the Trump Organization’s business practices.

When asked by Vanity Fair about the James mortgage fraud case, Wiles said “well, that might be the retribution one.” But Wiles also said she didn’t believe Trump was “on a retribution tour.”

“A governing principle for him is, ‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to somebody else.’ And so people that have done bad things need to get out of the government. In some cases, it may look like retribution. And there may be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me.”

The charges against James were dismissed shortly before Thanksgiving because the court gutted the authority of the prosecutor behind the case, Trump-appointee Lindsey Halligan. Since then, the Justice Department has tried and failed twice to re-indict James. She was never convicted and faces no charges at this time.

“The White House Chief of Staff admitting that President Trump turned the Justice Department into his weapon for political retribution against Attorney General Letitia James only confirms that this has been an improper vindictive prosecution,” Lowell said in a statement Tuesday. “When they admit it’s not justice they’re after but pure revenge, believe them.”

Dentists care for patients at a free dental and medical clinic in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 2.

House Republicans’ health care bill would lower the deficit by $35.6 billion over the next decade, but it would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 100,000, on average, per year, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released Tuesday.

The measure, which is expected to be voted on in the coming days, would also lower the gross premium for the benchmark Affordable Care Act plan by 11%, on average, through 2035.

The House bill would allow small businesses and the self-employed to band together across industries to buy coverage through association health plans in an effort to lower premiums. It would require pharmacy benefit managers, which act as middlemen between drugmakers and insurers or employers, to provide employers with more information on drug prices and rebates. And it would once again provide federal funding for the cost-sharing subsidies that lower-income Obamacare enrollees receive to reduce their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for care.

However, it would not extend the ACA’s enhanced premium subsidies, which are set to lapse at year’s end, or funnel more federal funds into health savings accounts, which some Senate Republicans are pushing.

The most consequential measure would be funding the cost-sharing subsidies, which would lower gross premiums for silver-level plans and reduce the federal government’s spending on Obamacare’s standard premium assistance, which is tied to the cost of those policies. The CBO projects enrollment would drop because the premium subsidies would cover a smaller share of consumers’ monthly costs for non-silver ACA plans, raising their premium payments. (Obamacare policies range from bronze to platinum.)

The association health plan provision would draw an additional 700,000 people into such policies, though only about 200,000 of them are currently uninsured, the CBO estimates.

Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, left, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard.

President Donald Trump will travel to Delaware on Wednesday to attend the dignified transfer of remains for two US servicemen killed in Syria over the weekend.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president would meet with families and receive the remains at Dover Air Force Base.

The two US Army soldiers killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa, according to the Army. They were both members of the Iowa National Guard.

Trump has vowed to retaliate, declaring “there will be a lot of damage done to the people that did it” in front of a crowd at a White House Christmas reception Sunday.

Wednesday will mark the first time in his second term Trump attends a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base, the primary entry point for remains of fallen US troops.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pressed for Congress to rein in President Donald Trump’s war powers as the administration defends US strikes on alleged drug boats.

Meeks noted his resolution requiring congressional authorization of strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific is likely to come to the floor for a vote this week, and that he also has a separate war powers resolution related to military action in Venezuela, warning of Trump, “That’s what he wants to do.”

The congressman referenced a comment from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’s published in Vanity Fair that Trump will “keep on blowing boats up” until Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “cries uncle.”

Meeks called the day’s briefing from the defense secretary and secretary of state an “exercise in futility,” and said he had hoped there would be a “serious discussion” about Congress’ role.

He also expressed frustration, as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that he has not yet seen the full video of the September 2 strikes.

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on November 21.

President Donald Trump announced that he will deliver a live address from the White House on Wednesday night.

“My Fellow Americans: I will be giving an ADDRESS TO THE NATION tomorrow night, LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, at 9 P.M. EST. I look forward to ‘seeing’ you then. It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News later Tuesday the president will be addressing “the historic accomplishments that he has garnered for our country over the past year.”

Leavitt also said Trump may tease some policy actions coming in the new year.

“President Trump will be talking about what’s to come. The best is truly yet to come, as he often says,” Leavitt said.

CNN has reached out to the White House for more information.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office, on November 10.

Attorney General Pam Bondi defended her “dear friend,” White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, on Tuesday after Wiles told Vanity Fair that Bondi “whiffed” the handling of the release of the Epstein files.

“My dear friend @SusieWiles fights every day to advance President Trump’s agenda – and she does so with grace, loyalty, and historic effectiveness,” Bondi posted on X hours after the two-part article had published.

“Any attempt to undermine and downplay President Trump’s monumental achievements will fail,” Bondi continued, adding, “We are family. We are united.”

Other Cabinet officials have echoed Bondi’s comments, offering high praise for Wiles, though none have disputed Wiles’ comments critical of the presidents’ key allies.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez departs a classified briefing for all members of the House of Representatives with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Tuesday.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the House’s closed meeting with top Trump administration officials on Tuesday “one of the least professional classified briefings I have ever sat in on with the least amount of legal and intelligence justification for what is happening.”

She told CNN that Republican lawmakers, who hold majorities in both chambers, should vote to authorize strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean if they think they are legal. But she said, “there was not a single piece of intelligence that was shared in this briefing that or legal opinion that provided justification for what they are doing.”

Ocasio-Cortez said the briefing was “vague” and “opinion driven” and shot down the administration’s reasoning for not showing videos of the strikes to all lawmakers out of classification concerns, saying “Secretary Hegseth has a responsibility to demonstrate how what the conduct he engaged in is not a crime.”

Pressed by Raju on if she believes Hegseth has committed a war crime in the follow up strikes on an alleged drug boat, Ocasio-Cortez responded, “I believe so, and I believe that what he has engaged in, I mean be - , I think beyond a war crime, I think this is just a crime,” accusing the administration of “convoluted legal justification” rather that seeking congressional authorization for the strikes.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that the administration “need to have a real briefing, something that really gives us the substance of what the intelligence was to justify this.”

She said she wants to see more evidence before she weighs in on whether the strikes were a war crime, adding “the Constitution is clear in terms of coming to Congress, and we want more briefing on this. It was really, I thought, a disappointing, disappointing presentation.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks to reporters after a closed door meeting between lawmakers and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Tuesday.

We are hearing from Republican and Democratic senators on Capitol Hill as they depart a classified briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on US strikes on alleged boat strikes.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who has been sharply critical of the strikes, said the Trump officials did not provide evidence that there were weapons in the boats.

GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin defended the administration’s decision not to share the strike video with all senators, explaining that some senators on committees of jurisdiction have the appropriate clearance to view the classified material.

Pressed by CNN on why senators who have the right to vote to authorize war and on other key military policy areas shouldn’t be able to view the video, Mullin said that there are members that are “going to leak classified information, and there’s got to be certain ones that you hold accountable.”

He also claimed the decision not to share the video more widely has “nothing to do with over classifying it” to prevent the public from viewing what happened on September 2.

This screengrab from a video posted by the US Southern Command shows a strike on a vessel on November 15.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul told reporters Tuesday he has not seen evidence that people on the alleged drug trafficking boats struck by the Trump administration were armed.

“The administration has justified their attacks on these boats, and so far, no one’s presented any evidence that any of these people are armed. I’ve heard nothing to contradict that,” he said after the classified briefing.

GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt said he was satisfied with the briefing, repeating his belief that the administration was justified in its actions and calling Democratic criticism “disingenuous.”

“I thought they were very clear in articulating not only the position and the goal of taking out the narcoterrorists, which are 100% legally justified, but then also the decision tree, how they go about making the decision. And answered a lot of questions. So I thought it was a very good briefing,” he said.

GOP Sen. Jon Husted said he believes the administration’s strategy is “well thought out, well executed and legal.”

“We got a broader briefing on the scope of all that’s happened. It was a classified briefing, so I can’t share those things, but I’m confident, as I said, that this is well thought out, well executed and illegal, and that the administration is doing things consistent with how previous operations have occurred in this in our armed forces over the last 25 years.”

After initially expressing openness to releasing the double-tap strike to the public, Husted said he is satisfied with the Pentagon’s decision not to make it public.

“I would like to see it,” Husted said of the double-tap strike. “I’m not going to quarrel with them over it. If they feel that there are sound reasons they don’t want to do it, I will accept it because we received a briefing on the facts, and those facts were satisfactory.”

Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at Uline Inc., in Alburtis, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday acknowledged that he “sometimes” is a conspiracy theorist, following interviews that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles gave to Vanity Fair in which she described him as someone who has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade.”

“But,” he added while responding to a reporter’s question during an event in Pennsylvania, “I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.”

CNN has reported that the interviews, in which the typically press-shy Wiles delivered candid assessments about Trump’s tenure, has sent White House officials reeling. Trump administration officials have rushed to defend Wiles after the publication of the interviews, which included unflattering assessments of several key Cabinet members.

Wiles said her comments were taken out of context in a “hit piece” but did not deny making them.

During Vance’s remarks, the vice president referred to anti-masking positions and his belief that former President Joe Biden’s condition was covered up by the media and government as theories he believed were true.

He added: “And I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail, rather than win an argument against his political opponents.” (Trump’s Justice Department has pursued criminal cases against several of his own political opponents during his second term, something Wiles acknowledged in the interviews.)

Vance said he appreciated that Wiles is the same person in Trump’s presence as she is when the president isn’t around.

“And the last thing I’ll say is: If any of us have learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article, I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with the media following a briefing for all members of the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill, on Tuesday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the Trump administration’s legal rationale behind controversial follow up strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean that have garnered bipartisan scrutiny and demands for transparency.

Johnson said President Donald Trump has “authority, as commander in chief and as the chief executive to conduct foreign relations” and has determined that the US is in a “non-international armed conflict” with designated terrorist organizations trafficking illegal drugs that threaten the country.

“I want to make this point very clear. Over the last four years alone, America has lost more lives to drug overdoses and other drug related deaths than we did to the enemy actions in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined,” he added.

While many lawmakers clamor to view video of the September 2 strikes, Johnson argued the Trump administration has been “much more forthcoming with the legal rationale behind these strikes than prior administrations,” adding that the video will be shared with all members of the House Armed Services Committee this week.

“This is exquisite intelligence that supports these actions. It is certainly appropriate, it’s necessary to protect the United States and our interests. That’s what was presented today. Different members have different questions, I hope, and assume that all those are being answered,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives for a closed door briefing with senators at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

Senate Democrats left a briefing with top Trump administration officials on Tuesday frustrated that they were not shown the unedited video of controversial follow up strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat.

“This briefing left me with more questions than answers, both as to the rationale for non-disclosure and as to the operation itself,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after leaving the briefing that he had demanded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allow all senators to view the strike video in a classified setting, but the Pentagon chief refused.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the administration plans to let all lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee view the video, but, “think they’re trying to run out the clock in terms of holding off giving it to the rest of the senators so that the Senate doesn’t see it before we break for the holidays.”

Warner also called it “disturbing” that he got no answers after requesting to view the execution order of the follow up strikes on September 2 and other documentation.

Sen. Adam Schiff told reporters he plans ask the Senate to unanimously agree to releasing the video to all of Congress and to the American public.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren scoffed at the briefers’ explanation for why they didn’t show the unedited video to all senators in a classified setting, telling CNN that “there was no explanation that made any sense.” The Massachusetts Democrat added that the administration was unable to show there were weapons on any of the alleged drug trafficking boats.

Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters that the briefing felt rushed. “They’re checking a box, but they clearly wanted to get out of there before they had to answer any actual, difficult questions.”

Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at Uline Inc. in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday promoted what he described as strong job and wage growth under the Trump administration while speaking in Pennsylvania, even as new federal data pointed to signs of weakness in the labor market.

“We’ve got real money, real jobs and real opportunity,” Vance said at the event. “What that means for the state of Pennsylvania is that in just the last 11 months, we’re creating 60,000 good-paying jobs for Pennsylvania families,” he added.

Vance also pointed to some figures as evidence of momentum. “61,000 jobs added in the month of November, and that’s not all,” he said. “We saw private-sector wage growth grow at a rate of 4.2%. You know what that means? That means we’re seeing the fastest private-sector wage growth that we have seen in this country in many, many years,” he added.

The vice president’s remarks came the same day the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment rose to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, while the economy added 64,000 jobs.

The November gains, which exceeded expectations, followed a revised loss of 105,000 jobs in October, according to a jobs report that economists have described as one of the most atypical in recent history.

Meanwhile, Americans’ average hourly earnings grew at an annual rate of 3.5% in November, whereas inflation grew at a 3% rate in September. The wedge between the two has significantly narrowed as inflation has been reaccelerating and the labor market has tightened.

Trump administration officials rushed to defend White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Tuesday after Vanity Fair published stories featuring months of remarkably candid interviews in which she gave unflattering assessments of several key members of the president’s Cabinet.

Wiles herself said the stories left out significant context, calling Vanity Fair’s work “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.”

Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought — who, according to Vanity Fair, Wiles called “a right-wing absolute zealot” — wrote on X that Wiles was “an exceptional chief of staff.” He added, “In my portfolio, she is always an ally in helping me deliver for the president. And this hit piece will not slow us down.”

FBI Director Kash Patel also leapt to Wiles’ defense Tuesday, writing, “Fake news comes after you when you’re effective … and there’s nobody in @realDonaldTrump’s team more effective than @SusieWiles.” In the interview, Wiles noted that Patel had long called for the government to release files from the Jeffrey Epstein case, adding, “And he’s been saying that with a view of what he thought was in these files that turns out not to be right.”

Even the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., waded into the fray, calling Wiles “by far the most effective and trustworthy Chief of Staff that my father has ever had.”

Other Cabinet Secretaries, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, all defended Wiles.

But no one disputed Wiles’ comments disparaging, among others, Vice President JD Vance, Vought or Attorney General Pam Bondi, who the chief of staff told Vanity Fair “whiffed” the initial release of the Epstein files.

Bondi had yet to respond publicly to Wiles’ comments by noon Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance sought to reassure Americans concerned about the rising cost of living, urging patience as the Trump administration works to address affordability.

Asked during an event in Pennsylvania whether affordability concerns could hurt the administration, Vance argued that voters will ultimately respond to what he described as progress on energy costs and wages.

The vice president expressed confidence that Americans understand progress takes time.

“We got to keep on working, on bringing good jobs and money back in the United States of America, and that … already has paid major dividends for the American people. It’s going to pay a lot more in the year to come,” he said.

Vance acknowledged the strain high prices have placed on households in states like Pennsylvania.

“We know exactly the consequences that it’s caused for so many of our great families all across Pennsylvania, and I promise you, there is no person more impatient to solve the affordability crisis than Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States,” he said.

Some context: Vance’s remarks in Pennsylvania marked the Trump administration’s latest attempt to address the affordability concerns dragging down the president’s standing.

Trump advisers workshopping the administration’s affordability rhetoric have emphasized the need to call for patience and instill hope that the economic tide will soon turn, rather than dismissing or downplaying Americans’ struggles.