Just one month after his disastrous doughnut-shop visit, J.D. Vance is going viral again over a video that highlights his inability to behave like someone who regularly purchases food for himself.
On September 21, Vance stopped into King Food Supermarket in Reading, Pennsylvania, picked up some eggs, and complained about price increases under the Biden-Harris administration. Sounds pretty straightforward. So why is the clip going viral? Basically, because Vance complained that “a dozen eggs will cost you around $4 thanks to Kamala Harris’s inflationary policies” while standing in front of two clearly visible signs that said eggs cost $2.99 a dozen.
No one caught this before the video was circulated on Trump campaign social-media feeds.
Various outlets accused Vance of blatantly lying about the price of eggs. Clearly, Donald Trump’s running mate misstated the prices in this particular grocery store and the current national average cost of eggs. But his comments were vague enough that you could argue they are sort of accurate.
“Eggs when Kamala Harris took office were short of $1.50 a dozen,” Vance began. “Now, a dozen eggs will cost you around $4 thanks to Kamala Harris’s inflationary policies.”
The first sentence is correct: The average cost of a dozen Grade-A large eggs was $1.47 in January 2021, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But in August of this year, the average cost of eggs was $3.20, which is not really “around $4.” (The average cost of eggs peaked at $4.82 in January 2023.)
Vance’s broader point that grocery prices shot up during the Biden-Harris administration is true. While food prices have not drastically increased in the last year, Americans are still feeling the strain from a huge jump in grocery costs since the start of the pandemic. Per USA Today:
Between July 2023 and July 2024, food prices rose 2.2% — down from 4.9% the previous 12-month period, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But even with cooling food inflation, grocery prices are up about 25% compared to 2019, according to the bureau.
Is this all due, as Vance claims, to Harris casting the deciding vote on 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act? (In the clip, he refers to the 2022 law as the “Inflation Explosion Act.”) That’s a far more dubious argument, and if you’re going to make it, eggs are not the best example. Egg prices have been particularly volatile in recent years due to a widespread outbreak of H5N1, which “started in early 2022 and has grown into the largest bird flu outbreak in U.S. history,” per NerdWallet.
This video did not go viral solely because Vance picked the wrong food and misstated its average cost by 80 cents. As with the doughnut-shop incident, the full video contains plenty of other awkward moments from the potential VP. Vance asks fellow shoppers, “Are you guys here shopping?” He claims his two young sons “eat about 14 eggs every single morning.” And he asks the owners of this very typical grocery store, “What are you guys known for? Is there, like, a particular customer who comes in here?” (People who require sustenance to live?)
Though Vance shouldn’t say this publicly (again), his staff is largely to blame here. A campaign staffer is seen directing him to the egg display, so presumably, members of his team failed to notice the $2.99 signs and fed him an outdated average egg price when they were preparing for the visit. Worst of all, they expected Vance to corral two of his children, Ewan and Vivek, while making small talk with shoppers and reciting attack lines on inflation. It does not appear that there was anyone tasked with managing the boys, so Vance has to awkwardly warn his 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, “All right, guys, I’m going to talk for like three minutes. Can you guys act like normal kids for three minutes without going crazy?”
The only reason Vance is holding a carton of 24 eggs — making his cost estimate look even more ridiculous — is that one of his sons grabbed the larger package off the shelf and interrupted him. So Vance then had to keep his son from dropping the most notoriously breakable item in the store while pivoting back to his remarks on the economy — and he couldn’t lose his cool in front of the press. It’s a working parent’s nightmare!
Perhaps the Vance team deserves credit for not ambushing employees this time or focusing the stunt on Vance’s hunt for affordable crudités. But that’s a low bar, and this video is still uncomfortable to watch.
