Press Gaggle: JD Vance Speaks to Reporters Before Air Force Two Departure - October 22, 2026

Good morning, everybody. Excited about a good day we had yesterday in Ohio, both personally and politically. I think we had a great rally for Jon Husted and Vivek Ramaswamy, but also my six-year-old was extremely excited that Jamaar Chase told them that he had nice gloves. So, big day for little six-year-old Vivek, and we're looking forward to going to Nebraska and campaigning with some of our great candidates out there.

Questions.

Mr. Vice President, people have caught me saying that there are peace talks that are underway, resumed with Russia. Ukraine now has agreed multiple times to come to the table, Russia has not. So, what gives you confidence that this time will be different?

Well, I think both countries have agreed to come to the table. The reason why we haven't struck a peace deal is because they've just been two apart on some of the details of that negotiation. So, I think Steve reengaged the process, obviously spoke with both the Russian and Ukrainian leadership over the past couple of days.

He feels optimistic. I mean, the nature of these things is you take a swing at it, you see how much progress you can make, and then you go back at it. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But one of the things I really admire about Steve, but also the entire diplomatic team of the president's, is we try to do the hard things, knowing that we have a very tall mountain to climb, we still try to do them anyway.

Mr. Vice President, you mentioned yesterday that there are some polls that you don't think are accurate, and especially in Ohio, a lot of Republicans seem to be underrepresented. Do you want members of your own party answering polls more?

That's an interesting question. I mean, I guess I don't really care one way or the other, because the only poll that matters is the one in early November. I'm just saying, you know, for example, I think I saw a Morris poll that had Vivek or Jon down by something like 6 or 8 points in the state of Ohio. I can say with nearly 100 percent confidence that poll is going to be proven to be inaccurate.

Obviously, you never know what the final outcome is going to be, but I do think it's important for everybody to remember that sometimes these polls actually have this demotivating effect on our voters. I remember in the 2020 campaign, I want to say, there was a Wisconsin poll that had Donald Trump down by 17 points in Wisconsin, or, of course, during the 2024 campaign, there was the famous poll that had us down in Iowa by 3 points, which if we lose Iowa by 3 points, or even if we only win Iowa by 3 points, we were in for a long night.

Those polls all proved to be false. But I talk to people, and I do think they have the effect of demotivating our voters, which is why I encourage people to ignore the polls, run like we're down and try to make the best case that we can. And eventually, of course, the American people make the decision in, I guess, 12 days.

Mr. Vice President, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the issues with Starlink that Ukraine has been having. Elon Musk said any -- excuse me, Starshield -- said any decision on Starshield would come from the Pentagon or the president. The Wall Street Journal said that it was discussed with him.

Do you agree with some Republicans that there should be an investigation?

Well, I think that fundamentally, Elon Musk runs a private corporation, and I think it's completely understandable that he doesn't want to get in the middle of what is a war between two state actors without the United States government effectively directing him on what to do? So, I don't think this is about Elon.

I think it's fundamentally what is America's policy in Ukraine and Russia going to be? As I just said earlier, I think we're working on some renewed negotiations. But I do find it a little ironic that the European countries, who, of course, have nothing like the technology that Elon has developed in Starlink and Stargaze and just all of the internet service technologies that he's developed at SpaceX.

These countries have almost universally decided to wage a regulatory and licensing war against SpaceX. And now they're all running to SpaceX saying, please do what we need you to do. I think this drives home one of the things the president has talked about for years, which is that European countries depend on American technology, American businesses and the American military, while at the same time, European political leaders love to bash the United States allies that they depend upon so much.

Thank you all. We'll see you in Nebraska.

Thank you.