Vice President JD Vance told fellow Republicans Thursday that they share the blame if young Americans are drawn to socialism, arguing the party cannot dismiss the economic frustrations driving that trend.
Vance appeared on The Will Cain Show on Fox News to deliver the message. He defended young voters who have shown sympathy for socialist ideas, describing those voters as struggling to reach the kind of economic stability their parents achieved.
"My warning to my fellow Republicans would be: If we don't get this right, don't blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism. We've got to blame ourselves," he told Fox News host Will Cain.
Vance described socialism as dangerous and destructive, but said Republicans cannot ignore the economic concerns he believes are feeding young Americans' growing interest in the ideology. He said those concerns are real and deserve to be taken seriously rather than met with talking points.
"You don't stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market," he said.
The median price for a single-family home in the United States sits at over $430,000, according to data from Redfin analyzed by Forbes. Vance pointed to surging housing prices as a central reason younger generations feel shut out of a market that helped previous generations build wealth.
He spoke directly to young Americans who feel financially unable to reach the same economic security as their parents.
"I would say to that young person that you as an American citizen deserve to have a good life in this country, and you deserve to have a government that is making it easier for you to start a family, for you to afford to get a good education, for you to have a good job, for you to afford a home," the vice president said.
Vance's remarks came as socialist-aligned candidates have scored victories in recent Democratic primaries. Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed and Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan recently won Democratic U.S. Senate primary races. DSA member Francesca Hong fell short in Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Vance said the Trump administration's economic agenda is already producing results, pointing to what he called stabilized housing prices and new business investment.
"We're seeing trillions of dollars of new investment into this country, which means good, middle-class jobs for young people, middle-income people all across our country," he told Fox News.
He urged Republicans to listen to the economic concerns of Americans drawn to socialism rather than underestimate them.
