[The following is a transcript of Francesca Chambers' interview with JD Vance in Washington on August 27, 2025. Video courtesy and copyright USA Today. Source: https://cqrc.al/usa-today-20250828]
Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for --
Yeah.
-- sitting down today --
Of course. Good to see you.
-- with USA Today. And we'll be discussing the first 200 days of your vice presidency and your plans for the fall. Uh, but first, I do wanna get your response to some breaking news and current events, uh, including President Donald Trump's attempt to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal --
Sure.
-- Reserve's Board of Governors. He says it's over alleged mortgage fraud, but she has not been charged with a crime. Is this about forcing the Fed to cut interest rates?
Well, a couple things here. So first of all, I don't think anybody doubts that Lisa Cook committed some mortgage fraud, whether a local authority decides to prosecute, or federal authorities prosecute, or of course the president doesn't get involved in those decisions, but she made a mistake and she potentially made a criminal mistake.
And the question is do we want a person who makes a mistake like that to be a person who sits on the Federal Reserve Board, which makes important monetary policy for the entire country? I think that position should be held to the highest possible standard. So whether it's criminal, whether it's intentional or not, we know that this is a person I think who doesn't meet the standard that we should expect for the Federal Reserve, which is why the President fired her.
And he does have the legal right to fire her. And this goes into a second, I think, a much more fundamental question. Let's just say for the sake of argument that Lisa Cook had done absolutely nothing wrong. Isn't it a little preposterous to say that the president of the United States, the elected president of the United States working of course in concert with Congress, doesn't have the ability to make these determinations?
What people who are saying the president has no authority here, what they're effectively saying is that seven economists and lawyers should be able to make an incredibly critical decision for the American people with no democratic input. Like, I thought the people controlled this country, the people made the determinations in this country through their elected representatives, including the President of the United States.
I don't think that we allowed bureaucrats to sit from on high and make decisions about monetary policy and interest rates without any input from the people that were elected to serve the American people. And I -- And I think that's fundamentally what this is about. Who makes the decisions about this country?
Is it those the American people elect or is it unelected bureaucrats? And I feel very strongly that the President of the United States is much better able to make these determinations. And by the way, if the American people disagree with the President, they of course can throw out the president every four years and -- and throw in a new president.
But you can't say that the American people, that the Democratic decision-making process has no influence over monetary policy. That's really, really, I think a -- an anti-democratic principle.
John Bolton, John Brennan, James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, they're all among the current and former officials the administration is now investigating. Does the president have an enemies list?
No, not at all. I think the president has a view that we should enforce the law. And if people broke the law, then of course they should face some prosecution for doing so. You know, all the people that you named, they're at some level of investigation. But unlike the Biden Department of Justice, what the President of the United States has told his Department of Justice is let the facts and the law drive these decisions.
If you do these investigations and -- and it's determined that nobody broke the law, then of course you don't prosecute anybody. But if -- if you have people who broke the law, if you have people who violated the public trust, if you have people who mishandled critical information in a way that harmed the American people and they've committed a -- a -- a -- a violation of the law in pro- -- in the process, of course you've gotta prosecute people.
I think unless you prosecute people who broke the law, you don't have a real constitutional republic. So, no, uh, the President has been willing, frankly, to pardon people from the other side of the political aisle. In my hometown of Cincinnati, P.G. Sittenfeld was prosecuted by the last Department of Justice.
The president issued that pardon. He's sort of a famous democratic official. This is not about politics. This is about the law. And if the president thinks a person has been unfairly prosecuted, he'll pardon that person or commute their sentence. If he thinks a person has violated the law, whether they're a Republican or a Democrat, he's gonna encourage his Department of Justice to go after that person.
I wanna turn now to the National Guard.
Sure.
Are the deployments to cities such as Baltimore and Chicago how the White House plans to fight crime?
You know, it's -- it's an interesting question. I think the President has the legal authority to deploy the National Guard to fight crime. And obviously we're gonna do things that are in compliance with the legal processes of our country, but the President said a couple of times in the past couple of days that he really wants this process to be driven by the local authorities here, whether it's the state government or the local mayors.
And I -- I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, look, we -- we don't wanna go in where we're unwelcome. There's a political reason because what we -- what we -- what might very well happen is that these people, mayors or local governors, stand up and say, "We don't want the National Guard. This is a dictatorship.
Trump is a fascist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." We don't want people to stand up before a press conference and accuse the president of being a fascist, accuse the National Guard of being part of some dictatorial coup when in private, they're actually thanking us for bringing law and order back to these communities.
So there's a political reason not to do it. There's also just a basic cooperation reason to do it. I mean, look, if you look at Chicago, if you look at Baltimore, if you look at Los Angeles, these cities have murder rates that are totally unacceptable in the world's wealthiest country. We should want, whether you're Black or white or rich or poor, you should be able to walk down America's city streets in safety and in comfort.
You should not, if you're the mom or a dad of a young kid, have to cross the street when you're walking through San Francisco in broad daylight because there's a crazy person screaming at you on the street corner. We should have some basic level of comfort and security in our streets, and what the president has said is, if these, these, these local mayors, and if the local governors want help, he is more than willing to provide it. I think that he could provide it even without their request.
But fundamentally, the president, I, I think right now what he said is, "We wanna work together with these localities. We wanna bring law and order back to American streets. We wanna make America's cities safe again, but we wanna do it working in concert with local authorities." And that right now is where the president is.
Right. But would they be indefinite, how long?
You're saying if, if, if we deploy the National Guard, how long would they stay?
Mm-hmm.
Well, I think fundamentally that would be up to the local governors, the local authorities in concert with the president of the United States to make those determinations. I think you obviously have to make that determinba- --determination based on the local crime rates, what's happening with murder, what's happening with armed robberies, what's happening with carjackings.
I mean, we don't want indefinitely to put National Guardsmen on the streets of our cities. We just wanna make those streets more safe. And I think once we've accomplished that goal and created, you know, some local foundation for the local police to continue to police those streets successfully, then, then I, I think that would sort of accomplish the goal.
And that's what we would need to do. Uh, in D.C. in particular, which is of course the only place where we've done this, I think, yeah, the president's view is 30 days is probably not enough. Uh, if you look at how bad the crime problem has gotten here, how bad the armed robberies have gotten, how bad the carjackings have gotten, I don't think 30 days is enough.
But what we really want with Washington, D.C. is to put it on a sustainable footing where the local authorities and the local police could actually bring safety back to the streets of Washington, D.C. I think you may have been in the press conference yesterday. [Laughs] There were a couple of journalists who talked about being mugged on the streets of Washington, D.C. I mean, the f- -- the, wa- -- I, I, I have a dear friend of mine who used to live in Washington, his then-girlfriend, now they're married, but when they were dating, she came back home crying because she had been mugged at a CVS in the middle of Washington, D.C. This is crazy.
We don't have to accept this. I think our message to the American people is we don't have to live like this. All you need is the political leadership at the national and the local level that's willing to actually go after the bad guys and make American streets safe for Americans again.
Your critics say it's meant to be a distraction from Jeffrey Epstein. Now that you're in power, you say that there is no client list. Why do you think it is that so many of your own supporters don't believe you?
Well, I think what the president has said, fi- -- first of all, is he's told the Department of Justice to do full transparency here, to release what we have, to release the credible information. And I think you saw Todd Blanche just a couple of days ago actually released the nine-hour transcript of the interview that he did with Ghislaine Maxwell.
Um, what, what, what the president has also said is that we've got a whole host of things that we can focus on. You can both order the Department of Justice to do full transparency. You can also ask the Department of Justice to enforce the law. You can also ask the National Guard to make sure that D.C.'s streets are safe.
You can't, you don't have to do one of these things or the other. So I don't think that it's a distraction, especially when I think the president has ordered the administration to be more transparent about this, uh, than any other issue. Now, yes, I have, I'm certainly aware that there are folks, even some of our own supporters, who have criticized the response of the president, of the Department of Justice.
But I, but I think if you look at this in full and you give this the proper amount of time, what you're gonna find is that the administration has been far more open and transparent about this issue and many others than any other administration. We have to remember this entire thing happened. This entire story blew up during the Biden administration.
The Biden administration had four years to release this information. They did absolutely nothing. The president has actually directed his Department of Justice to release whatever information that we can, and also to go further, I mean, to talk to Ghislaine Maxwell for nine hours to see if there are any other leads that we can uncover, uh, to, to actually identify some crimes that we can prosecute.
But again, as the president has always said, we're gonna let the Department of Justice be driven by the facts and the law. We're not gonna prosecute people just because other people want us to. We're only gonna prosecute people if they committed a crime. That's true in the Epstein situation, and that's true in a lot of other issues as well.
That's why the president's focus on credibility here and the real evidence.
I wasn't in there then, but I was in there for your most recent --
Okay.
-- meeting with the Ukrainian leader of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Yep.
Your moment in February, it was contentious. In retrospect --
That's putting it mildly. [Laughs]
-- in retrospect, do you wish that that had went differently? And has anything changed between you since then?
I --
Has your opinion changed?
You mean between my relationship with President Zelenskyy?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And look, we, we've had a number of conversations. They've always been positive conversations. And look, so- -- sometimes people disagree. So you ask, would I change anything? I mean, do I wish that we had had a blow up in the Oval Office in public? Not necessarily. But do I think that it actually elucidated some of the real issues of disagreement between the United States side and the Ukrainian side?
Yes. And I think that was useful for the American people to see, and I think we'll continue to have these conversations. And look, there are a lot of issues of, of agreement between the United States and Ukraine. There are occasionally some issues of disagreement between the United States and Ukraine. And, you know, what always really bothered me about this relationship was not the Ukrainians as much as it was the American side, specifically the Democratic administration of Joe Biden.
I mean, you know, Zelenskyy would come to Washington, he'd leave with $50 million, or sorry, $50 billion or $100 billion without any real goal, any real diplomacy, any real sense of what we were going to buy with that a $100 billion. And that was always what frustrated me far more than Zelenskyy was asking for help from Washington, it was that the Biden administration had no plan for how to end the war, no real credible theory for how giving another $100 billion would solve the problem.
And it just felt like this weird money pit where we'd throw money after the problem without any real plan to solve the problem. That always really frustrated me. But look, we've had a number of good conversations, both me and the president of the United States with President Zelenskyy. We're gonna keep on working for peace.
And our, our goal, I think just to step back a little bit, is very clear. And I think on this issue, we're, we're pretty aligned with President Zelenskyy, even though we have some disagreements. We of course wanna protect Ukraine's territorial integrity. We don't want Russia to, to conquer the entire country.
We also want the killing to stop and think the war has reached a point where the Russians aren't really accomplishing anything by continuing to fight. The Ukrainians aren't really accomplishing anything. What's best for everybody, including the United States, would be to stop the killing and bring this thing to a peaceful settlement.
I wanna turn to the rare mid-decade change to the Congressional maps.
Sure.
Have you spoken about this with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or Missouri's Mike Kehoe or Ohio's Mike DeWine? And what if the GOP doesn't end up e- -- netting any seats at all because of Governor Newsom?
Well, I haven't talked to Governor DeSantis about it, though. I think that he's doing a good job and he's doing the right thing in Florida, not just on the redistricting question, but he's been a very effective governor in a whole host of ways. Um, I, I haven't talked to Mike DeWine recently about the redistricting fight.
And you, you mentioned another governor.
Kehoe of Missouri.
Okay. No, I, I haven't talked to Governor Kehoe either. But look, all, all these guys, we've talked to officials in all of these places, and I think everybody understands pretty much where the White House is, which there's a fundamental question of fairness. For 10, 20, 30 years, the Democrats have aggressively gerrymandered their states.
I mean, look to Massachusetts. Every year in Massachusetts, yes, it's a blue state, but about one-third of voters in Massachusetts vote for a Republican co- -- congressional candidate. Massachusetts has zero Republicans. Illinois, by some measures, a very massive state, yes, a Democrat state, is the most gerrymandered state in the entire country.
And then California, where Governor Newsom is threatening to gerrymander it even more, actually is already one of the worst gerrymandered states in the country. California is massive. California has millions upon millions of Republican voters every single cycle. Something like 40% of Californians vote for Republicans, 18% of California federal legislators are Republicans.
So our basic contention is that Democrats have rigged the game. They've made it so that even when the American people vote for Republicans, they don't necessarily get Republican congressional majorities. And so we're encouraging states like Indiana, like Missouri, like Florida, to go in the other direction and to actually counterbalance that democratic unfairness with Republicans playing a little bit of hardball.
We think a lot of Republicans are gonna, are gonna do what we think is right. And we do think that on balance this is ultimately gonna make American elections much more fair and much more credible to the American voter.
You and the president have now rebranded the One Big Beautiful Bill, because as he admitted, Americans just aren't buying it. How is changing the name gonna convince the roughly 10 million Americans who will be losing healthcare as a result of this?
Well, what the President said yesterday is that One Big Beautiful Bill is a great name for it when it's a bill, but now it's the law. And now we have to actually explain to the American people, we've gotta do the job of politics and actually talk to the American people, what's in the bill? And the reality is it's the biggest working family's tax cut in a generation.
It increases the child tax credit. It eliminates, uh, taxes on tips. I knew a lot of folks who depended on tips, uh, when, when I was growing up, a lot of single moms who waited tables who are now gonna get a big tax cut because of this legislation. It eliminates taxes on overtimes. I know a lot of people who work those extra 10, those extra 20 hours a week.
And our view is that if you're gonna work all those extra hours, the federal government ought to keep its money outta your pocket. And there's a lot of other good pieces of, of, of good tax news for the American people that we just gotta talk about. We gotta make sure that people are aware what's actually in this legislation. 'Cause I think when they realize what's in it, they're gonna be very gratified that their federal government is working for them.
And the most important thing is we're making it easier to build a business, to create a job, to work a job in the United States of America, while simultaneously punishing people for building businesses overseas. We wanna invest and save and build things in America and reward people for doing so. But if you're gonna build a factory in some foreign country, that's what the tariffs do. The tariffs actually penalize you for building overseas while, um, the working family's tax cut rewards you for building something here in the United States of America.
And I think it's part of, of, of a, of a whole economic agenda that finally puts the federal government back on the side of American workers and back on the side of American businesses. So I don't think it's, it's, it's, you know -- You know, you asked about the healthcare question. So if you actually look at what we've done on rural healthcare, uh, we inherited a country where rural, the rural healthcare system in this country was completely falling apart because the Biden administration had chronically under-invested in it. Thanks to the, the, the working families tax bill, we put billions of dollars into rural healthcare that's gonna solidify some of these rural healthcare systems.
And the only people, the only people who are gonna lose access to federal healthcare benefits are two groups. Number one, people who refuse to even look for a job. And number two, people who don't have the legal right to be in this country, illegal aliens. I happen to think that if you won't even look for a job and you're in this country illegally, you should not receive federal healthcare benefits.
That is a principle disagreement with our democratic friends, but it's a disagreement and it's something I think the American people support. And I think they're on our side again, especially when they learn what's in this legislation that's gonna help 'em out.
As vice president, you're a heartbeat away from the presidency, and your boss is one of the oldest people to ever be sworn into office. You're one of the youngest people to ever be second in line. Are you ready to assume the role of Commander-in-Chief, and why should Americans trust you to lead the country?
Well, I've gotten a lot of good on-the-job training over the last 200 days, but I'll also say that the President is an incredibly good health. He's got incredible energy. And while most of the people who work around the President of the United States are younger than he is, I, I think that we find that he actually is the last person who goes to sleep, he's the last person making phone calls at night.
And he's the first person who wakes up in the first person making phone calls in the morning. So, uh, yes, things can always happen. Yes, terrible tragedies happen. But I feel very confident the President of the United States is in good shape, is gonna serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people.
And if, God forbid, there's a terrible tragedy, I can't think of better on-the-job training than what I've gotten over the last 200 days.
What does Usha think about your running for president in 2028?
[Laughs]? Uh, I think she, she thinks what I think, which is let's focus on the job that we have right now. Let's do as good a job as possible. And if that door opens later on, we'll figure it out then.
Well, you have young children.
We do.
And you've talked about the privacy that the Naval Observatory affords you. I mean, is that one of the things on your mind, the public scrutiny that would come along with that?
Oh, sure. I mean, with any job, you have to ask yourself what effect is it gonna have on your family? And I think that there, this job, you know, it does have its challenges for, for family life, but it also has a lot of upsides and a lot of benefits for our kids. I think they've gotten to see, uh, the country through a totally different perspective.
They get to meet a lot of new people. They, of course, get a Secret Service detail, which I think puts their, their father's mind at, uh, at ease when they, they go out and see a lot of people, some of whom don't like their dad or don't like, uh, what I do. So I, I, I think that it, it, it's on balance. It's been a great thing for the family.
And we'll just keep on doing as good of a job as we can for the American people. And Usha and I will keep on doing as good a job as we can at being, uh, a mom and a dad. And I -- I think again, it's -- it does have its challenges, but it's worked out for the kids. They're happy, they're healthy. Our kindergartener, or our -- I should say our five-year-old became a kindergartener yesterday, had his first day at kindergarten, and, um, yeah, we -- we showed up to the car line with a few more cars than is normal for most families.
But on balance, I think this job has been a great blessing, both for me personally, but for the family. And what I -- what I hope is that it's been a good thing for the American people. And I work every day to make sure that it is.
Well, you say you're not measuring the drapes.
Yes.
But there's quite a bit of gold over in the Oval Office these days.
[Laughs].
Is that your aesthetic? Is that? How that -- how does that fit in with the Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance of Ohio?
Well, the President obviously has his very distinctive style, and he is made billions of dollars, uh, building beautiful buildings all over the world. What I really like about the Oval Office is that it's brighter. Um, the first time that I ever walked in the Oval Office was January 21st of this year. I was of course the new Vice President of the United States.
It was an amazing thing. I was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the office, all of the incredible history that had been made. But if I was being honest, you know, it was the middle of winter. Um, the drapes were closed. It was very dark. It had kind of a dark and gloomy feeling. This is the workplace of the leader of the free world.
It should be a little brighter. I like what the president has done to. And it -- it's funny, you know, we have three kids. We have an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, a three-year-old. Our eight-year-old, I -- you know what, it's funny. I think he would probably say his favorite color is blue. Our three-year-old, her favorite color, a hundred percent is red.
But our five-year-old, his favorite color is gold. And whenever he walks into the Oval Office, he's just blown away by it because it does have this bright, lively feel. And I think it's fitting for the, uh, the, again, the place where the leader of the free world comes to work every day.
I know we're outta time. The final question I have to ask you. The biggest news of the last 24 hours, Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift, getting engaged. She endorsed your opponent in the last election.
She did?
Do you think that Americans just want celebrities to butt out of politics?
You know, I think by and large people want politicians to focus on politics, and they want celebrities to focus on whatever it is that made them famous, whether it's singing or dancing or acting. But, you know, I -- I -- I'm -- I'm a romantic. Uh, when I see two people who are in love getting married, I just wish them the best and I congratulate them, and I hope they have a very long and healthy and happy life, uh, together.
I will say as a football fan, as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, I hope that the NFL does not put a thumb on the scale for the Kansas City Chiefs. Just because Travis Kelce is now getting married to maybe the most famous woman in the world, you -- you -- you guys can't sort of have this, I'm worried they're gonna have like a Super Bowl wedding thing this season.
Can't do it. The Kansas City Chiefs have to follow the same rules as everybody else. So if we see the refs being particularly friendly to Kansas City Chiefs players, then I think all football fans should be willing to push back on the NFL and say, "Look, you guys gotta be fair. Just because Travis is getting married to Taylor, you still can't put your thumb on the scale for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Thank you so much for your time. Mr. Vice President. Thank you.
Of course. Good to see you.