Speech: JD Vance Discusses the Economy at a Factory in Des Moines, Iowa - May 5, 2026

All right. Thank you. We love you, too. Thank you all. Please, please take a seat. We're gonna be here. You gave a politician a microphone. We got about three hours to go, so I don't want anybody, [Laughs] no heat exhaustion. Uh, I wanna give, first of all, before we really get started here, I've got a, uh, a few, a few shout-outs here and a few words of gratitude.

First of all, I have to say thank you to Congressman Nunn for the kind introduction. That was an ama- -- it's probably the best introduction I think I've ever gotten in my life. But most importantly, for being a good fighter for the people of this district. Because when you send somebody to Congress, you're never ever gonna agree with every single thing that they do. But you deserve to know that when they're in the halls of power, and especially when the cameras are off, they're thinking about you, about your families, and about your future.

And a guy that you have serve in this district, Congressman Nunn, is one of those guys who does the right thing, not just when the cameras are on, but when the cameras are off, too. And remember, when the President of the United States at the State of the Union address asked everybody, "Please stand if you agree with the statement that America's government ought to be fighting for America citizens rather than illegal aliens," Congressman Nunn was standing up and fighting for you and none of the Congressional Democrats could raise their hands.

So along with Zach Nunn, we have got President Trump endorsed, and of course, endorsed by me, too, endorsed candidates for Congress, we have got Chris McGowan in the room. Where is Chris? Please stand up and be recognized. Chris, thank you for everything. I saw Chris backstage. He said he doesn't really have an opponent.

And I said, "That must be nice." Of course, we ran against Kamala Harris and Tim Walz last election so, not all that different, but that's okay. That's okay. We have got Joe Mitchell in the house. Where is Joe? Please stand up. Joe, thank you. I've got to give a special note of thanks to our incredible Agriculture Secretary in Washington, Brooke Rollins, my dear friend Brooke, thank you for everything that you do. We've got your great Governor here in Iowa, Kim Reynolds.

Kim, thank you so much for being here. We've got Iowa, Iowa GOP Chair, Jeff Kaufmann. Jeff, please stand up and say hello. Thank you, Jeff. I asked Jeff backstage, I said how these elections going, and Jeff said they're going great, so they better be. We have got Iowa AG, Brenna Bird, the great Brenda Bird.

Brenna, thank you. Iowa's Secretary of State, Paul Pate. Thank you, Paul. Congressman Randy Feenstra. Randy, thank you. And then I wanna recognize some of the great Iowa State lawmakers that we have. I will, uh, read their names here. We've got Senate President Amy Sinclair. President Pro Tem, Ken Rozenboom.

We've got Lynn Evans with us. Where's Lynn? Thank you, Lynn. And we got Cherielynn Westridge. Where's Cherielynn at? She, she, she took off sick, I guess, today. But she's doing a great job. We're grateful to her. And then we got some Iowa House members, too, and I promise this is the last group. We've got Brooks Boden, or Brooke Boden.

Where is Brooke at? Thank you, Brooke. We've got Heather Hora. Hey, Heather. We got Bill Gustoff. Bill, thank you so much. We got Charlie Thompson. Charlie, thank you. Derek Wulf, thank you for being here, Derek. Kevin Alons, where's Kevin? Okay. He's got the same cold that, uh, our other friend did. Steven Bradley.

Where is Steven Bradley? Thank you, Steven. And finally, Mark Cisneros. Mark, thank you so much for your leadership and thanks for being here. Look, I, I'm, I'm here today to talk a little bit about the stakes in November of 2026, because I think that we have done a lot in Washington, D.C. to be proud of. We're gonna talk about it. But the fundamental question for us in this election is actually not any specific question of, of public policy.

It's not any particular issue. It's fundamentally, do you want people in Washington, D.C. who fight for you, who fight for the people of this district, or who fight for corruption and fraud? Because I'm 41 years old, and for the first time in my entire life, I think we have seen a major political party in the United States of America completely go off the rails.

They're not just talking about different views on taxes, or on regulation, or on the Clean Water Act, as important as all those things are, they're talking about who does the government actually stand and fight for. When the President of the United States asked the entire Congress to stand for the simple principle that the people's government ought fight for the American people first, what did we see?

We said ev- -- we saw every single congressional Democrat sit on their hands. They didn't care about you. They didn't care about the people of this district. They didn't care about the farmers or the factory workers or the people who actually make this country run. Because now we have, in Washington DC, a Democrat party that is so focused on illegal immigration, that is so focused on people who don't have the legal right to be here, that is so focused on fraud because so many of their friends get rich from fraud that they forgot to look after you.

And whatever your political views, whether you're a, a sensible Republican, independent, or even a sensi- -- sensible Democrat, because I know we got a lot of those in Iowa, not in Washington, DC. [Laughter] I think that you deserve to have a President of the United States and a Congressman, like Zack Nunn, who fights for you every single day, and that's what he's been doing.

Now, let me just give you a very concrete example of what fighting for you looks like. This is not just, this is not abstract, this is not words written on a paper, this is real people's lives, and this is real dollars and cents. A few years ago, I talked to the, to o- -- the owners of this factory who told me the great products that they were making.

They were paying their workers a good wage. They were building a great business right here in Iowa. You know this company was started in 2009. The year that I graduated from college, sorry for anybody. [Laughter] Makes me kind of young. But here's the thing. To start a business in 2009 was a tough thing to do. It was the middle of the global financial crisis.

You had to take some real risk. And what did this business find. After building a great business, after paying hundreds of people a solid wage, what did this business find? That foreign countries, in particular the People's Republic of China, was dumping goods, undercutting the wages of the workers of this factory, and driving this place out of business.

They were using cheap labor, sometimes slave labor, to try to steal jobs from the hardworking people of this district and this factory floor. And for my entire life, we had presidents and politicians of both parties who didn't do a single thing to stop it. Say, "Oh, by the way, absolutely. Bring those cheap goods into our country.

Bring those things that were built by hands of slaves rather than the s- -- the hands of our own workers." And of course, we knew that when they drove those factories out of business, then they'd come in and jack up the price right after. So what happened for 41 years? We all know the story. The factories closed down.

My hometown, this is the story of my hometown where I grew up in a community that was proud, where people built things where new homes were being made. And by the time I graduated from high school, the manufacturers were laying people off. Those big, beautiful factories were shuttering their doors, and we never had a political movement that said, "Enough is enough," until Donald J. Trump and Zack Nunn came along.

And you know what we said? The Democrats, every day they will tell you they will fight against our policies to try to bring back American manufacturing. They will fight against our policies that try to fight back against those people who would dump that stuff into our communities. And you know what we say?

We say that our tax policy ought to be pretty simple and that's exactly what it has been. If you're building right here in Iowa, if you're making something right here in Iowa, if you're working every single day right here in Iowa, you deserve a tax cut and that's exactly what we delivered with Congressman Nunn.

But if you're a foreign country dumping that garbage into our country, if you're trying to undercut the wages of Iowa workers, if you're trying to steal the jobs from Iowa farmers and Iowa manufacturers, you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna pay a big fat tariff before you bring anything into our country, 'cause we're protecting the jobs of our workers and our people for a change.

And that's all this is about. When you hear the Democrats attack the Trump administration's tax policies, that's what they're attacking. They're attacking the policies that make it harder for people to steal your jobs, and they're attacking the policies that give you more money to keep in your own pocket.

Now, I talked to, again, the factory owners just, just a couple of hours ago, a couple minutes ago, I should say. You know what they told me? They told me that the working family's tax cuts, the tax cuts made possible by Congressman Nunn, that they meant that their business had a lot more money that they could give to workers and higher bonuses and higher salaries, that they could hire more people, that they could expand and create new jobs that didn't exist before.

Isn't it nice to have a government that finally is fighting for you instead of fighting against you? And that's what we're trying to have in Washington, D.C. Now, there is so much, so much I'm proud of, so much that is moving in the right direction. Do you know when I, when I was going around the campaign trail in 2024, one of the number one things that young people said to me, young Americans in particular, is that they couldn't afford to buy a home.

They couldn't afford their rent if that's what they wanted to do. And you know, for the first time we've seen in over five years, for eight months running, we have seen the costs of rent come down in the United States of America. Our young people are starting to get close. They're making progress. They're starting to get to the point where they could finally afford their slice of the American dream.

And you know why we did that? And you know how we did it? It's actually not that complicated, a simple principle, American homes ought to belong to American families, not foreign investors, not foreign owners, and not Chinese investors who are buying up our farmland. Again, it's not rocket science. It's a simple principle that if you have a government that fights for you, it can make your life easier.

It can make it easier for you to start a business or to work at an amazing job. We didn't do anything that was particularly difficult. We did something that was simple and common sense. And I think that's what defines the Republican Party in Washington right now is it's simply about common sense. You want to lower the cost of homes for American families?

Here's due, here's a simple thing. Why don't you stop giving 30 million homes to illegal aliens? Why don't you seal the border and make sure those homes go to American families for a change? That's how you lower the cost of housing. If you wanna make it easier for young American to start a family or to get a good job, stop giving jobs to foreign companies and stop giving jobs to foreign countries and protect the good, well-paying jobs that exist right here in the United States of America, and that's what we did.

And here's the final thing. When we talk about standing for you, again, whatever your views on a specific policy, there is maybe no more important issue than how about when you pay your taxes to the federal government, we just had tax day just a couple of weeks ago. How about you have a government that actually takes those resources as what they are, your sweat, your tears, your time away from your family, and protects every single one of those dollars?

And that's what we're doing by going after fraud, finally, in the federal government. A- -- and, and, and let me just give you a couple of examples. We had let fraud become so rampant in this country that people were able to get rich, not by creating something amazing, not by employing something, not by building something beautiful with their hands.

They were able to get rich by defrauding every single person in this room. And they were taking money that should go to America's low income families, to America's elderly, to people who are struggling in our communities. They were stealing it out of their pocket and stealing it out of your pocket so they could get rich.

Let me give you just a couple of examples. There was a program in suburban Minneapolis. It's actually a, a national program, but it was taken advantage of in suburban Minneapolis, where what we do is that we make it possible, the American people and their generosity make it possible for the parents of young children who are autistic to get access to afterschool services.

And I think that's a cool thing because Americans, we take care of one another. But you know what happened? Th- -- that money wasn't going to the parents of autistic children. That money was going to Somalian fraudsters because somebody figured out in the, in the illegal immigrant community that if they went around and said that all of the children in a particular household had that particular problem, then they could collect a lot of money from the federal government.

And so what happened? You paid your taxes, those people got rich, and the families who needed those services never got to access those services. They were stolen from and you were stolen from, and your government didn't do a single thing about it until, until Donald J. Trump and Congressman Nunn came along.

What we did is very simple. We went to the state of Minnesota and said, "We want you to audit the people who are getting access to these funds. And if you're not willing to confirm that the people who are getting in, getting these benefits actually deserve these benefits, then you're not getting another dime of federal money.

We cut them off." And that's exactly what we gotta do. And it, ladies and gentlemen, people have asked me, you know, I'm, I'm the leader of the fraud task force in Washington, and people have asked me, "Is that a, a hard job?" And I say, "Well, let me think. Finding fraud in the federal government, it's kinda like fishing in a barrel with dynamite." [Laughter] Every, every week, I get a report from the task force.

You know, we have our weekly meeting, and I am shocked every single day by the things that we find. Just one of the, one of, one of the all stars on our fraud task force is our great agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins. And Brooke, and Brooke has found out that we've got 355,000 people on SNAP benefits receiving double benefits, that we've got 186,000 dead people getting SNAP benefits, 186,000 dead Americans getting food stamps right now.

Now, I know the fake news media is gonna say that the big headline from this speech is JD Vance proposes that we take away food stamps. [Laughter] That's what they're gonna say. I actually think that we should take food stamps away from dead people. I am guilty of that. I think that's a reasonable thing.

I also was talking to Brooke backstage and she said [Laughs] she said, "You know that there are people who are, who have Lamb, this is not a joke. There are people who have Lamborghinis who currently receive SNAP benefits." I said, "Huh, that's interesting." You know, I'm, I'm a pretty conservative guy, but I would think that, like, 95% of the United States of America would agree that if you are wealthy enough to afford a Lamborghini, then you are wealthy enough to not receive SNAP benefits from the American people.

Is that common sense? And I could go down and down the list. We just served 22, 22 investigatory procedures, the Department of Justice. We went from discovering what happened in Minneapolis to serving 22, you know, subpoenas so that we could go after the fraud that's happening in Minneapolis. And we did that in just three months.

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, when we find crime, those people are gonna go to prison for defrauding you because that's exactly how it should be. Now, the last thing I wanna talk about, my friends, is we know that under the Biden administration, Iowa farmers and farmers all over the United States of America were hit and they were hit hard.

What we've done using the president's trade authorities and using his incredible trade policies is that we have doubled the export market for Iowa farmers in just 18 months. And that is an amazing thing because what happened for years is that people would dump their agricultural products into the United States of America, but said, "You're not allowed to sell great Iowa product overseas." Well, we flipped that on its head.

We told all those countries, you're done dumping that crap into the United States of America, and if you don't wanna pay a higher tariff rate, you better let Iowa farmers sell into your country, and every single one of them have let Iowa farmers sell into their country. Again, it's amazing what happens when you got a president and a congressman who's fighting for you instead of fighting against you, and that is the record that we've had over the past 18 months. [Audience members call out, inaudibly] So, let me, let me, let, let me just say, let me say a couple more things here.

So, one, and I was flipping around in my notes here because I've been trying to find the name of the person that Zach is running against, because we're gonna, we're gonna make fun of her a little bit. Now, now here, here, here's the problem. You know, I'm sure, well, I don't know anything about her. What I do know is her voting record.

I know what she has chosen to prioritize, and it's not you, and it's not your families, and it's not this district. 'Cause here, here's the thing. There, there are problems and there are challenges.

You know, one of the things I'm proudest of is that under the president's leadership, we had American families about $1,300 richer from the day that he took office until today. That's between the work and families tax cuts, that's lowering the cost of rent, that's all that stuff combined. Now, that's, that's the good news.

Let me give you the bad news. The honest piece of this is that under the Biden administration, under the Biden administration, the average American family lost about $3,000. So on the one hand, we got a great record to brag on. On the other hand, because of the hole that the Biden administration and the Democrats put us in, we got a lot more work to do. Okay?

But we're, we recognize that work. We're excited about that work. That's why you sent us to Washington, D.C. That's why you sent Zach to Washington, D.C. was to work on these problems. We know right now that we've got a lot of Iowa farmers that would love to sell more E15 into the market and we're fighting every day to help 'em. Now, I said that.

I did not even see the E15 crew we got over here. I need one of those T-shirts. But the congressmen has got legislation that's working right now and we're working on it every single day because, number one, we want Iowa farmers to have access to more markets, but number two, we want everybody, all of our fellow citizens across our 50 great states, to benefit from what's made right here in Iowa.

That's why we're fighting for E15. We also know, we also know that a lot of our farmers are struggling with high fertilizer prices. I'm aware of that. As the President of the United States has said, we got a little, a little blip in the Middle East. We got to take care of some business on the foreign policy side.

But you know what we're doing simultaneously? We're working with a congressman and we're finding ways every single day to make sure that you guys and the farmers of this great state get access to the products that they need. We're working on it. We're working on it every single day. Now, when I see that, when I see Iowa farmers who need to get that E15 to market, what is, uh, this, what is, uh, Zach, you're gonna have to help me out with her name here.

I lost my page here. [Laughs]

Sarah Trone Garriott.

Okay. All right.

Sarah Trone Garriott.

Okay, there we go. Sarah Trone Garriott. There we is. I, I, I'm, I'm on the wrong page here. So while Zach is fighting to make sure for the benefit of Iowa, but frankly, for the benefit of the whole country, that we get more E15 into the market all over the United States of America, his opponent voted to push biological males and girls sports as early as kindergarten.

Okay. While he fought very hard for the working family's tax cut to make sure that you got to keep more of your hard-earned money and why you guys, in fact, are gonna have the biggest tax refund season, or starting to have the biggest tax refund season in American history, he was fighting for more money in your pocket.

She was voting against banning gender transition surgeries for minors. She was voting against schools giving parental notification if students start changing their pronouns. Now, we all hear that and we all think that's pretty crazy. But recognize that not everybody agrees with us. Here's the thing. Even if you don't think that's crazy, why is that the priority of a woman who wants to represent you in Washington, D.C.? Why, why isn't she working to increase your take-home pay?

Why isn't she fighting for the farmers to get more of that E15 all over the United States of America? Why isn't she fighting to lower housing costs for the people of this district, the people of the state, and the people of the United States of America? And it goes back to the question that I asked at the very beginning of this discussion.

We have two parties in Washington, D.C., And I hate to say this, 'cause I was, you know, raised by, by blue collar union Democrats. My mamaw and papaw, they said that, you know, when, back, back when they were voting in the '80s and '90s, the, the man and woman who raised me, mamaw and papaw said, "We're for Democrats because Democrats are for working people." And I don't think that's true anymore, my friends.

And it's a heartbreaking thing. It's heartbreaking for a kid who came from a union Democrat family to realize that Democrats these days, they seem to care more about gender transition than they do about you keeping more of your hard-earned money. And I, and I really do believe this, that there are Democrats like my mama and papa all over the great state of Iowa, but I hate to say it and I hate to break it to you, but there are none left in Washington, D.C. The Democrats in Washington, D.C., they wanna, they wanna trade stocks, insider trading for money, just like Nancy Pelosi did.

The best part, the best part of the State of the Union address is when the President of the United States called out Nancy Pelosi for stock trading, and I look over at her and she has got the sourest look I have ever seen on a human being's face. [Laughter] Turns out Nancy Pelosi likes nothing less than being called out for her insider stock trading.

You know, just talking about that, uh, the State of the Union. You have this beautiful six-year-old girl. You may remember this, it was a few months ago, but it was a very revealing moment about who our respective political parties stand for because this little girl had been shot by an illegal alien, but she had survived.

Miraculously, she was in amazing condition. She was a sweet, just a really cute kid. And, um, you know, I'm the father of a six-year-old boy. He's actually here, here with me. He's backstage. And, uh, this girl was so proud. She was proud to be there in the chamber, and she gives her dad a big hug, and the Republicans all stand and cheer, and the Democrats all sit on their hands.

And, and I remember thinking to myself, "What is wrong with you that you cannot stand up and cheer for a six-year-old girl who survived an assassin's bullet? What is wrong with you that you cannot vote to give more money in the pockets of Iowa farmers and if- -- Iowa factory workers? What is wrong with you when you cannot stand up for the Americans who, some of whom literally have taken bullets in the United States of America, but you fight every single day for illegal immigrants who have no right to be in the United States in the first place.

And what does it say about a political party that they have fought more against our anti-fraud efforts than they ever did to protect your dollars and to protect the benefits of the people who use those use those benefits? My friends, this is not a normal election. This is not a normal political environment.

This is a contest between a party that wants to take all of your money and give it to illegal aliens, and a contest between gentlemen like Zach Nunn, who fight every single day for you. And I have a simple question here, which is, do you want somebody who votes to give your money to illegal aliens? [Audience responds "No"]

Do you want somebody who votes to raise your taxes? [Audience responds "No"]

Do you want somebody who supports defrauding you and taking money away from poor kids so they can give it to the fraudsters? [Audience responds "No"]

Then do we want crazy far-left Democrats in Washington, D.C.? [Audience responds "No"]

Here's what we do want. Do we want somebody who fights for you every single day? [Audience responds affirmatively]

Do we want somebody who has put more money in your pocket? [Audience responds affirmatively]

Do we want somebody who gives E-15 all over the United States of America so Iowa farmers can profit from it? [Audience responds affirmatively]

So what do we want? We want Congressman Zach Nunn, and you gotta get him to Washington, D.C. So, so, so let me just say one, one more thing, my friends, and then I, I will hit the road. You know, I, I, uh, like I said, I've got my, my six-year-old son back there. And, uh, this, the backstory of why, by the way, I started in Washington, D.C. We flew from Washington to Ohio.

I voted in Ohio's primary today. From Ohio, that's right. The media asked me who I voted for, none of your business. [Laughter] Went from, uh, Ohio to Oklahoma City to do a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee. And then I came here to be with all of you this evening. And, you know, my, my, [Laughs] I can't wait to tell my wife when we get home that we've watched about nine episodes of X-Men, and my son has eaten four chocolate chip cookies.

She's gonna be very pleased, gonna be very pleased with the Vice President. But, but here, here's, here's the thing. I, I, it kinda just worked out. I wasn't planning this, but I've got my six, six-year-old because last week I took his little sister on a trip and he was feeling a little jealous and, you know, when he's a kindergartner, it's not like missing school's, no offense, but one day of kindergarten's not gonna cause him any problems. [Laughter] So he came out with me today, and we've had such a good day, and it, it's just been an amazing thing.

I, I always enjoy coming out and doing events like this, but to do it with your six-year-old son by your side is really an amazing, an amazing thing. But as it happened, when we landed here in Des Moines, um, or, or at the, at, at the airport there in Des Moines, we met a couple of gold star families from Iowa.

And a, a couple of you probably know this, maybe all of you know this, that in, you know, what's going on in the Middle East, this, this operation in Iran, Iowa has borne a heavier burden maybe than any other state in the Union. This, this great state has lost about half of our KIA. And I know that you all will join me in saying that we love them and we're proud of them and we're praying for them every single day.

Thank you. But, but, but also on the tarmac, a couple of Gold Star families met me. A couple of families who've lost people just in the last, you know, nine or so months, uh, one in Iran and then, and then one in Syria about nine or so months ago. And I, I was, I was talking to them and one of them told me I had no idea.

I didn't, you know, I didn't plan to, to see them, but they, they were here. And of course, I was honored to see them. It's an amazing thing as the Vice President of the United States to meet the parents and the families of the people who put on a uniform and sacrifice their life for this country. And so I'm always happy to do it, always honored to do it. But one family, and I won't use their name, I don't know how political they are, if they're political at all, but they told me that their son's birthday was today.

And so I get in the car with my little six-year-old, you know, and I, and I look into those, those big eyes, his eyes remind me of his mother's eyes, and I think to myself, "What an amazing blessing it is to be able to be a father in the freest and most prosperous country anywhere in the history of the world." And, and I, I thought to myself, "What would I say?

What would I say if this beautiful six-year-old boy got older and decided like his dad to put on the uniform of his country, and like so many of you here, decided to put on the uniform of his country." And I thought to myself, on the one hand, I'd be so proud of him. I'd be so proud of him, but on the other hand, I'd be so terrified that what happened to those two families would happen to this boy.

And it hit me that every time we lose somebody, every time somebody goes overseas and sacrifices their life, every time that a person gives the ultimate sacrifice to the United States of America, we often read about it as a line on a newspaper or online, but there's a father and there's a mother and there's a grandma and aunts and uncles and a whole crew of people who love them the same way that we all love every single member of our family.

And you take that love and you set that on one side and you consider the balance that all of us owe, because on the other side is we have to meet their sacrifice by carrying something forward that they can't f- -- carry forward. We have to make this country worthy of that sacrifice. You remember that movie, Saving Private Ryan?

It's one of my favorite movies. And at the very end, right before one of the soldiers takes his last breath, he looks up and he says, "Earn this." And what he means is all that love, all that was taken away from those families, all that was taken away from so many of the people who have put on the uniform and sacrificed for this country, we have to earn it. Now, so much of that is how you live your life.

So much of that is, you know, Congressman Zach Nunn being a good husband and father and his beautiful family here, I think what, you guys have six or seven? Six. She is a saint, Zach. She is a saint. Part of that is, is how we go to work and treat our employees and, and what we build and make with our hands and with our minds.

Part of it is how we go to church and give back to our community, but part of how we earn that incredible sacrifice given to all of us is by making this country's politics and government worthy of the people who put on the uniform and will never see their loved ones again. And part of what we have to do, my friends, is every single day we have to send people to Washington.

I'm not saying you have to agree with every single issue, I'm saying that you gotta send people to Washington who wake up every single day and recognize that they fight for you. That's how we honor this sacrifice. That's how we make this country great again, and that's how we make 250 years of American history and American patriots proud.

God bless you guys, and thank you for having me in Iowa.