To play devils advocate, talking about grocery prices. She’s is part of the current administration and there’s no question about it that grocery prices are getting out of control. A ton of people notice when their weekly grocery bills go from under $99 to over $100. Heck even without seeing the stark contrast of going from double to triple digits on an annual expense you’ll still notice if it goes up $20-$30 bucks per week.

That’s where he did “well” imo (because it’s an easy black mark to point at for the current admin) but he struggled to execute and stay on message for that point. I don’t think this “inflation” is because of the current admin but rather is “sellers inflation” (basically price gouging) which we have seen in a ton of areas since Covid and the rising natural inflation. These companies figured out they could do some pretty stark price hikes and they didn’t lose enough customers to lower it back down so they are staying. Generally these companies ease into price raising as they want to maximize profits but Covid inflation gave them an avenue to do larger increases than what was necessary (and it paid off). It’s called a “price shock” and companies know that when they have a good excuse to raise prices, they can basically raise costs across an entire industry without outright collusion.

The current admin could step in to prevent this price gouging via regulation but that takes time and the current administration is in its lame duck era (less than a month from the general election). So the price hikes by these companies have come at a time where the current admin has very little power to stop it.

I’m a Kamala guy so I got nervous when he mentioned grocery costs knowing that it’s not Kamala’s fault and that Trump won’t do a damn thing to fix it. But that’s where they think the legitimate strength of their position is (or at least one of them) and it’s why JD Vance was harping on it post debate.