Vance tells CBS town hall it will take more than 18 months to fix the economy

Vice President JD Vance told a woman whose small business is struggling that the turnaround will not be quick.

"It's going to take more than 18 months to fix things and turn 'em around," Vance said at a CBS News "Things That Matter" town hall with Tony Dokoupil, in a clip released Oct. 17. The full one-hour special is set to air Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.

The administration took office in January 2025. Vance's answer left open whether the 18 months is counted from now or from Inauguration Day.

The midterm clock

Vance has been the party's lead voice heading into November. Three weeks ago at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, he gave the main speech. He said he wants "American businesses to hire American workers, to rely on American people and to ensure that we build the next generation of great American products with American hands."

That is a reshoring pitch. It is also a long-term pitch, and the voters hearing it are on a short-term calendar.

The A+ question

On Oct. 8, CNN's Kaitlan Collins pressed Vance on President Trump's claim that the administration deserves an "A+" on the economy. Trump made the claim in a Fox News interview. "I inherited very, very high costs, and they're all coming down now," he said. "The food, the groceries."

Collins put it to Vance directly: "Given inflation, mortgage rates and gas prices are all higher than when you took office, why does this administration deserve an A+ on the economy?"

Vance gave two answers. First, he said the administration "inherited the worst inflation crisis in 48 years" and has seen "$19 trillion of new investment come." Second, he said the payoff is slow. "It takes time to build a factory, it takes time to hire the people who are gonna work in the factory," he said.

He also said the administration deserves the grade "from the American worker" because it is "cutting down on the fraud that's depriving them of good wages and good jobs." That day he was announcing the suspension of Microsoft from a green card program. He accused the company of giving jobs to non-Americans that Americans could have filled.

Collins closed the exchange with CNN's polling: only 27% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy.

What the inflation numbers show

Vance has pointed to the Biden-era inflation peak, which he has put at about 9.5 percent, and argued prices are stabilizing under Trump.

A recent fact check of those claims found inflation stood at 2.9 percent in December 2024 and 3.4 percent in July 2026. That is higher now than at the start of the term. Vance's case is that the peak was far worse and the direction since then is what counts. Voters comparing their grocery bills and mortgage payments to two years ago may weigh it differently.

The $19 trillion investment figure is Vance's own. No independent accounting of it has been offered. Investment announcements also differ from factories built and workers hired, which is the gap Vance himself concedes when he says it takes time.

Main Street, up close

The reshoring argument is aimed at towns like St. Cloud, Minnesota, a city of about 80,000. Fox News columnist David Marcus visited and found a mixed picture. Restaurants were packed at lunch on a Tuesday, and volunteers were painting downtown planters.

But almost half of the available commercial space downtown is empty, Marcus wrote. Residents told him the town has "plateaued." One longtime resident, a real estate agent named Janice, dated the decline to 2018, when the Herberger's department store closed. It opened in 1927. Several area factories shut around the same time.

That is the political terrain. Residents describe a town that is not collapsing but not recovering, and a factory-and-hiring strategy that, by Vance's own account, takes years to show up.

What comes next

Vance has now said on the record that the fix is longer than 18 months. Voters will render their verdict in November, well inside that window. Whether they accept a timeline that runs past Election Day is the open question for Republicans on the ballot.