Vice President JD Vance campaigned for GOP Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at the Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works facility in Middletown, Ohio, on Friday. Vance said, “We’re finally seeing that American dream of homeownership become accessible again to our young people.”
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded on social media: “Mortgage rates are way up. Home construction is down. Rents are astronomical. All of this is worse since Trump took power, because of the tariffs and the Iran War. It’s hard to know what planet, let alone what housing market, JD Vance is living in, to be able to make such out-of-touch claims with a straight face.”
Mortgage rates are way up. Home construction is down. Rents are astronomical. All of this is worse since Trump took power, because of the tariffs and the Iran War.
It’s hard to know what planet, let alone what housing market, JD Vance is living in, to be able to make such… https://t.co/vaqxJVe1j0
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) August 21, 2026
[NOTE: During a White House Cabinet meeting in January, President Trump said, “I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes, and they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen.”]
The President has been criticized for saying he would prefer to protect the wealth of existing homeowners rather than lower property values to make it easier for Millennials and Gen Z to buy homes.
Brent Buchanan, whose polling firm Cygnal advises Republicans, said: “The under-40 group is the most important right now — they are the ones who put Trump in the White House.”
Buchanan added: “Their desire to show up in an election or not is going to make the difference in this election. If they feel that Donald Trump is taking care of the boomers at their expense, that is going to hurt Republicans.”