Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance got a brutal fact-check on live television earlier today when he attempted to lie about job creation and tariffs on imports during an appearance on Face the Nation.
Vance, who is also a leading contender to be former president Donald Trump’s running mate in this year’s election, was asked by host Margaret Brennan how more tariffs would make American products less expensive.
“So how is the Trump-Vance idea here going to help make things more affordable for people if you’re putting taxes on goods they’re purchasing from overseas?” she inquired.
“Well, I don’t necessarily buy the premise there, Margaret,” Vance responded. “If you apply tariffs, really what it is is you’re saying that we’re going to penalize you for using slave labor in China and importing that stuff in the United States.”
“What you end up doing is you end up making more stuff in America, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, and in Michigan,” he insisted.
“That did not happen in the Trump administration, though,” Brennan noted.
“Well, it actually did happen in the Trump administration, Margaret,” Vance claimed. “Manufacturing jobs came back.”
Nope. That’s not even remotely true.
As a matter of fact, manufacturing jobs have just begun to come back in large numbers since President Joe Biden was elected, with PolitiFact noting that some 800,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since he took office:
- Official federal data shows President Joe Biden, in office 45 months, is right on the number of manufacturing jobs created, although presidents do not control the economy single-handedly.
- The first three-quarters of those job gains represented a return to pre-recession levels.
- Comparing historical patterns 45 months out from a recession’s onset reveals Biden-era manufacturing employment to be the strongest in 72 years, and the second strongest since the end of World War II.
Trump, on the other hand, saw massive losses in the manufacturing sector, due in large part to the tariffs he imposed on China, Politico reported in September 2020.
Four years after he won the Midwest by vowing to revitalize the U.S. manufacturing workforce, President Donald Trump is campaigning for reelection on a job well done. The numbers tell a different story.
Trump’s anti-trade agenda and a pandemic-induced recession have combined to shutter factories and accelerate decades-old trends toward automation, eliminating hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, many for good, including in the Rust Belt states he needs to win in November.
The Biden-Harris campaign also joined in fact-checking Sen. Vance, who is willing to kiss Trump’s fat ass 24/7 if he thinks it will secure him a spot on the 2024 GOP ticket.
Nice try, senator, but you’re just as full of shit as the lying rapist you’re praying will choose you to be his VP.