Fox News’ Shannon Bream confronted Vice President-elect JD Vance with President Joe Biden‘s “good” recent job numbers in an interview that aired Sunday morning, but Vance doubled down on his view that Biden left him and President-elect Donald Trump a “dumpster fire” of an economy.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump-Vance transition team and the White House via email for comment on Sunday.

Why It Matters

Trump and Vance have vehemently criticized Biden’s economic policies, with Trump being widely seen to have won the November 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris largely because of economic concerns from voters.

The president-elect promised to end inflation and “make America affordable again,” on his campaign platform called Agenda 47 at a time when Americans were feeling the effects of high inflation, which hit both the United States and countries around the world after the COVID-19 pandemic.

What To Know

Bream mentioned some good economic news during her interview with Vance on Fox News Sunday.

U.S. employers defied expectations by adding 256,000 jobs in December 2024 from 212,000 in November 2024, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released Friday. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate slightly decreased to 4.1 percent in December 2024 from 4.2 percent in November 2024.

“The December numbers were good. What kind of credit do you give him?” Bream asked Vance about Biden.

The vice president-elect said that he wished Biden “all the best, but the fact is he has left us a dumpster fire.”

Vance said that prices are “way too high for many Americans,” that Biden added “trillions and trillions of dollars to the federal debt” and that oil prices have skyrocketed during Biden’s last two months in office.

“He actually hasn’t left the American people in good economic condition, that’s why they made Donald J. Trump president-elect of the United States,” Vance said.

According to an article by USA Today‘s Blueprint, which focuses on finance and health topics, Trump contributed $8.18 trillion to the national debt during his first term and Biden had spent $6.66 trillion as of early August 2024.

Crude oil prices did increase from November to January. The US Oil WTI (West Texas Intermediate) jumped from $69.49 per barrel on November 1, 2024, to $76.57 on January 10, 2025.

While it’s true that many Americans are still feeling the effects of high prices, inflation has cooled down from pandemic-era highs. This led the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates three times last year to between 4.25 and 4.5 percent after raising it 11 times in 2022 and 2023 to curb inflation.

What People Are Saying

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters last month after the central bank cut interest rates for a third time: “The economy is strong overall and has made significant progress toward our goals over the past two years.”

President Joe Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday: “After decades of trickle-down economics that primarily benefitted those at the very top, Kamala [Harris] and I and our administration have written a new playbook that’s growing the economy from the middle-out and the bottom-up that benefits everyone.”

President-elect Donald Trump said during a presidential debate with Harris in September, “I had no inflation, virtually no inflation, [the Biden administration] had the highest inflation, perhaps in the history of our country because I’ve never seen a worse period of time. People can’t go out and buy cereal bacon or eggs or anything else. These the people of our country are absolutely dying with what they’ve done. They’ve destroyed the economy.”

Inflation rates were far worse in the 1970s and 1980s than today. The average year-over-year inflation rate under former President Jimmy Carter was 9.9 percent, according to Investopedia. As of August 2024, the average year-over-year inflation rate under Biden is 5.2 percent, Investopedia reported.

What Happens Next

The Fed signaled last month that it would be making fewer interest rate cuts this year after cutting rates three times in 2024 amid concerns that Trump’s policies, including his promise to impose tariffs on imports from other countries, could increase inflation.

In late November 2024, Trump vowed to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods imported from Mexico and Canada until those countries take sufficient action to stop illegal immigration and the flow of drugs like fentanyl into the U.S. He also said Chinese imports would face “an additional 10 percent tariff, above any additional tariffs” until Beijing cracks down on the production of fentanyl.