Speech: JD Vance Discusses American Manufacturing in Kansas City, Missouri - May 18, 2026

[Audience chants "USA"] Thank you. Wow. Thank you, all. Thank you. What did they give this crowd to drink before they got here? Semper fidelis, sir. It's great to be here in Kansas City. We're so thrilled. I've got -- but before I get started, I got a few notes of appreciation. First of all, it is amazing to be in this great Milbank manufacturing facility.

Do we love our American workers and the people who make our stuff? So I was talking to the owners beforehand and they were telling me that COVID, you saw such a ramp up in business need and business use, and it reminds me that, you know, while a lot of us try to forget the craziness that was COVID five, six years ago, there were a lot of people who are sitting at home on a laptop, doing absolutely nothing and collecting a paycheck.

And there were a lot of people who had to come to work and build the things Americans need. They didn't get to sit at home and do nothing. You guys came to work, and we're proud of you for it, and we're grateful. So in addition, we have some of my favorite elected leaders in all of the United States here.

And so I want to make sure that each of them get a proper shout out. First of all, I think that you all have, maybe, in the great state of Missouri, the very best United States senator. I'm not going to get in trouble for saying that, am I, Eric? And -- and if -- and if you do not have the best senator in all the United States, you've got tied for the best Senator with Dr. Roger Marshall.

So let's give a shout out to Doc Marshall and to Eric Schmidt. But we're pretty close to your -- we're pretty close to where you would call home, right, doc?

Very close.

Very close. OK. Good, good. We love -- we love Doc Marshall; we love Eric Schmidt. Uh, Eric is a better baseball player, but if you need health care, count on Doc Marshall, not Eric Schmidt. All right. We got Congressman Jason Smith. Where is Jason Smith? Good to see you, Jason. Congressman Mark Alford. Where is Mark at? Mark, raise your hand.

Thank you. Good to see you, man. The great governor, Mike Kehoe. Where is Mike Kehoe? Governor, thank you. Now, when we had that great Supreme Court case that said a crazy thing, like maybe we shouldn't discriminate against people based on race, right, very common sense, maybe we should build our Congressional districts to represent people rather than representing racial groups.

Mike Kehoe -- Mike Kehoe jumped into action, and working with the Congressional leadership here in the state of Missouri, gave us a brand-new Congressional District five, which I believe we're sitting in right now. Is that right? OK. And I also want to give a word of gratitude to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins.

Where is Denny at? Denny, are you here? There we go. Denny, that is a nice blazer, man. [Laughter] If you -- Eric knows, if you wore that blazer into the Oval Office, the President of the United States would take special note of you. Um, I will tell you that the president, he will note if you're not wearing -- if you're wearing anything other than a solid navy blue jacket.

And I learned this the hard way, not just that, but, you know, he likes more conservative dress. I learned this the hard way last year, because it's tradition for the vice president to welcome the Irish Prime Minister every Saint Patrick's Day. So we do this -- we do this big thing at our house, at the Naval Observatory, and then we do a meeting at the Oval Office.

And I decided to wear my shamrock socks to welcome the Irish prime minister. And we're sitting down in front of God and everybody, and probably a hundred TV cameras, on a live press conference. And the president starts his remarks and he looks over and he says, what is going on with those socks? [Laughter] So I learned the hard way, dress conservatively around the president of the United States.

But thank you all for what you're doing and here's -- here's some good news. Ladies and gentlemen, we are bringing the United States of America back, and it's starting right here in the great state of Missouri. Now, I want to talk about just a few of the things that we've been doing to try to rebuild the United States of America.

Because I'm 41 years old, and for my entire life, the story of my hometown, the story of great manufacturers, like this one, is that they were shedding jobs instead of creating jobs, and that workers were suffering instead of thriving. And that we saw factories in our own hometowns and our own home states closing down instead of rebuilding and adding.

And what Donald Trump has done in just 18 months, with the support of the great Congressional leadership that's here today, is that we have made it great to build in the United States of America once again, we're investing in the United States of America once again, and we're investing in American workers.

Now, that is not an accident, my friends. It didn't happen through accident. It happened through the deliberate decisions of the President of the United States and some of these Congressional leaders here today. You ask yourself, how is it that we shocked economists' expectations, and we added 123,000 jobs just last month.

How is it that we've seen the biggest growth in manufacturing employment last quarter that we have seen in this country since Donald J. Trump was president the first time? How is it that we've seen our construction workers and our manufacturers benefit from this great American economic recovery? And it's simple.

We decided to put American businesses and most importantly, American workers first for a change. We decided to fight for you instead of fight against you, which is what way too many leaders have been doing. And let me just give you some examples. Unfortunately, because this is a new Congressional district, I do not have an incumbent Democrat where I can talk about all the terrible things they've been doing in Washington, DC. We've got a new -- we've got a new Congressional district and what that means is, I can't talk about the fact that last year, when we passed the Working Families Tax Cuts that Jason Smith authored, and these guys fought for, you know, every single Congressional Democrats, save, I believe one, voted against it. When we decided to put more money in your pocket, every single Congressional Democrat, except one, a guy in Maine, voted against it. When we voted to reinvest in Missouri's manufacturing workers, every single Congressional Democrat, save one, voted against it. Here's the simple fact, if you want Congressional leadership that fights to lower your taxes, that fights to put more money in your pockets and fights to protect your jobs, the only game in town is Donald J. Trump and Congressional Republicans.

We're fighting for you every single day. Now, that legislation provides the biggest tax cut for working-class Missourians that we have ever seen in the history of the United States of America. And Jason, it wasn't easy, was it? It should have been. It should have been simple to get Democrats to vote for more money in your pockets.

It should have been simple to get Democrats to vote for protecting rural health care. You know, we had $30 billion in that legislation to stop the closures that we saw under the Biden administration, of all of these rural health care clinics. But instead of fighting for you, they decided to fight against you.

And the simple reason is because the Democratic Party in Washington, DC, I hate to say it, ladies and gentlemen, it is not the Democratic Party that my mamaw and papa belonged to. It's not the Democratic Party that was patriotic and believed in supporting working people. It's the Democratic Party that has been given over, unfortunately, to a lot of crazy people. [Audience member calls out "You can say --"] You can say that.

I won't, ma'am. Because while I believe -- I'm fundamentally -- Eric Schmidt knows this, I'm fundamentally an optimist about the United States of America. I believe that we have dedicated and patriotic people, whether they've got a D next to their name, an R next to their name, or whether they're independent.

But as much as the historical Democrat Party, and I'm sure a lot of Missouri Democrats love this country, Congressional Democrats have lost their minds in Washington, DC. Everything that we do, everything that we try to do to make our streets safer, to close down the border, to try to give more money in your pocket, every time we try to do something, the Democratic leadership in Washington fights us every step of the way.

And you don't have to take my word for it. I'd like Ð I'd ask you to go back -- if you -- if you ever are confused about the priorities of Congressional Democrats, I invite you to go back and watch the state of the Union address of just a few months ago. It feels like a long time ago. But the cool thing about the State of the Union, being vice president of the United States, is I get the best seat in the House.

Now, the downside of it is you get the best leg workout, because for two hours, it's stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. But here's the thing, when we had some very simple things, some things that you would expect, every American, whether they're a Democrat or Republican to stand and cheer for, Democrats sat on their hands.

When we had a 6-year-old girl, a beautiful, little girl who had been wounded by an illegal alien criminal -- she was there. We were celebrating her. She was so happy, this beautiful, little girl. She was hugging her dad and proud to be in the United States Congress. And the president called her out, and what happened?

Congressional Democrats sat on their hands. [Audience boos] And when the president of the United States -- when the president of the United States said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to just restate a simple principle, if you believe the purpose of the American government is to stand up for American citizens rather than illegal alien criminals, I'd like you to stand up and cheer.

And what happened? Every single Congressional Democrat sat on their hands. [Audience boos] You got to ask yourself, what's wrong with a party that will not stand up and cheer for a 6-year-old little girl who's been wounded by an illegal alien criminal? What is wrong with a party that will not stand up and cheer for a closed border?

What party will not stand up and cheer for the simple principle that me and Eric Schmidt and Doc Marshall and Jason Smith and everybody else, Mark, we stand and we ought to fight for you, not illegal alien criminals? That's a simple principle that everybody should agree with. But I sit there. I'm behind the president of the United States.

And it's not just that they sit on their hands, it's that there's no courage and no leadership. Because when the president says, stand and cheer if you believe the purpose of our government should be to fight for the American citizenry, I look over and all these Democrats get very uncomfortable. You know, they're shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

And they're looking around and they're looking for approval from Nancy Pelosi to stand and cheer for a basic principle, or to stand and cheer for that innocent 6-year-old girl. And ladies and gentlemen, I think a very simple principle is that anybody who cannot stand for an innocent 6-year-old girl who survived a violent attack, anybody who cannot stand for you, for your rights and for your prosperity, we ought to send them the hell out of Washington, DC, and send people to actually represent us. And that's what's going to happen.

I don't know; do we know who's running yet in this open Congressional seat that we just created? [Audience member calls out "Taylor Burks"] Who is it? [Audience member calls out "Taylor Burks"] Taylor Burks. OK. Taylor Burts, we wish you the best of luck. We got somebody, Mike? [Audience member calls out "Micah Beebe"] Micah Beebe.

Mike, congratulations. We're -- we're rooting for any good Republican in this seat. But I don't know who the Democrat's going to be. We probably don't know who the Democrat's going to be. Who is it? OK. I don't know who that is. But here's the thing. Here's the thing about this, that person, I guarantee you -- I'm going to make a prediction.

I'm going to play JD Vance, the profit. [Laughter] Coming up, October, November, you're going to see television advertisements and you're going to see radio advertisements. You're going to hear them. And what they're going to tell you is that this person who's running, he's not like all the other Congressional Democrats in Washington, DC. He actually cares about you.

He's willing to work with President Trump and the Republicans to get things done. And I guarantee you, that person is going to run pretending that he fights for you and in reality, he's going to get there and fight for Nancy Pelosi, because that's what Congressional Democrats do. That's what they have to do in order to get their campaign contributions and the support from the interest groups.

They have to promise not to fight for you; they've got to promise to fall in line behind Nancy Pelosi. And that's why they sit on their hands. That's why they refuse to clap and cheer for the simple principle that your government ought to fight for you. And that's why we cannot let those people anywhere near Congressional leadership in Washington, DC. You know, at the State of the Union, the president gave me a very cool job.

He decided to make me in charge of the fraud task force that we've been going after in Washington. [Audience member calls out "Ilhan Omar"] And every -- we are. [Laughter] And every day -- and every day, people ask me, they'll say, is that a hard job? And the president of United States will say, you know, how are we doing finding fraud today?

And I'll say, you know, honestly, fighting fraud in Washington, DC, it's a little bit like fishing in a barrel with a nuclear weapon. It is the easiest thing to find. Every single day, my staff will bring me new reports of the ways that you're being defrauded. And there are all these -- look, there's a simple principle that I have, which is, if you are committing fraud against the American people, you ought to go to prison.

If you are a public official and you're not fighting against fraud, you ought to have your money taken away, because you should not be able to steal from all of you and give it to fraudsters. So -- and the thing I've learned about fighting fraud is that it is the ultimate non-victimless crime. There are at least two victims every time a fraudster takes advantage of our public programs.

Number one, you are the victims. When you pay your taxes, you ought to expect that it's going to go to the people that the law says it's going to go to. That's number one. But number two, when you pay into a program, let's say you pay -- you pay your taxes, and you know it's going to go to the food stamp program to ensure that low-income children actually have the ability to eat.

You expect that money to go to a child to keep that child from being hungry. You do not expect it to go to a Somali fraudster, because Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota is not doing his job. But -- But here's the thing, every single day, we are finding fraudsters all over this country who are getting rich off of your generosity and are taking food from the mouths of poor children.

And that is what must stop and that is what we're stopping with the fraud task force. Just -- just last week, we actually prosecuted a fraudster who was stealing people's check information, stealing their identity and writing bad checks. And that person was from Detroit. You know where we prosecuted him, right here in the Western District of Missouri, and that person's going to prison.

Let me tell you a story about a teacher, a teacher who went to an assisted living facility, a person who served children her entire life. She goes into an assisted living facility, and a fraudster manages to get a court to appoint him as her power of attorney. So this woman, over a lifetime of hard work and dedication, she saves $750,000. That's meant to go to her medical bills.

That's meant to go to pay her assisted living bills. And this guy slowly, over time, steals from her, lives large off of her generosity, and she doesn't even realize it until one day, she gets kicked out of her assisted living facility because a fraudster was paying himself instead of paying her bills. Ladies and gentlemen, this has happened thousands and thousands of times all over the United States of America.

And for four years, you had a president and an administration who encouraged the fraudsters to take advantage of you. Well, now you've got a president and an administration who encourages those fraudsters to go to prison, which is exactly where they belong. When somebody steals $1.4 billion from the Medicaid program, that is theft from you, and that's theft from people who deserve to be able to go see a doctor.

When people steal billions of dollars from the Medicare program, that is theft from you and it's also theft from the people who use the Medicare program to pay their bills. When somebody steals money from a program that's meant to benefit autistic school children, that's theft from you and it's also theft from those children who depend on those services.

One of the things I love about our country is that we're a generous people. We look after one another. If we see a kid who's starving, we don't say, you're on your own, we say, we're going to help you out. But that American generosity of spirit depends on having leaders who take care of those kids and who protect your money.

And what we had for four years was leaders who promoted the fraud. Ladies and gentlemen, now we have leaders who promote you, who fight for you, who fight for your tax dollars and fight for the kids who need those programs. And ladies and gentlemen, the only way to do that is to send the fraudsters to prison, and that's where they belong.

Now, I want to leave you with one final thought before we -- you know, we have to hit the road I got to head back to Washington. As much as I'd like to stay for some Kansas City barbecue, duty calls. You know, the two places where I'd say -- they always say they have the best barbecue, are Kansas City and Memphis, Tennessee. [Audience boos] So who has the best barbecue, Kansas City or Memphis?

All right. I'll tell that to our -- I'll tell that to our Tennessee friends, but I think you're a little biased. If I'm being honest, you're just a little biased. [Laughter] But here's the thought I want to leave you with. I think, like a lot of you, I didn't grow up with a silver spoon, I didn't grow up with everything handled -- handed to me. I was raised by a mamaw and papa.

My papa was a union steelworker for 40 years, and my mamaw was the person who kept -- who took care of me when -- when drug addiction made it hard for -- for my own mom to take care of me herself. And one of the things that I always remember is that mamaw would often struggle, and she would often try to, you know, penny-pinch, like a lot of people do. She would she would decide sometimes, you know, this month I'm going to have to cut back on medications in order to afford groceries, or the next month, she'd do the opposite.

A lot of these debates, a lot of these conversations that people have to have when things get tight. And I remember as I was growing up in Middletown, Ohio, I'd read the newspaper, or I'd just drive down the street, and I'd see another factory that employed one of my friends' dads was closing down. Instead of adding jobs, they were shedding jobs.

And I remember thinking to myself, why is it like this? Why is it that we have leaders who allow our jobs to get shipped to Mexico and China? Why is it that we have leaders who don't fight for hard-working taxpayers like my grandmother, but fight for the people who are getting rich by defrauding the system?

And I realized it was a simple question of political leadership. The reason why those people were not fighting for you, the reason why they were sending jobs overseas, the reason why China and Mexico were building while the United States was shrinking, it was a simple, simple question of political leadership.

You had people in Washington who weren't fighting for you. And what I aim to do, and what the president of United States aims to do every single day, is to be a president who fights for you, who fights for your jobs, who fights for your tax dollars, who fights for your money and fights for your safety. Now, I happen to believe that one of the things that really made America great, and that we got away from the last few years, is that whether you were rich or poor, you had public safety.

We had security in our neighborhood. We didn't grow up with a lot of money. We didn't grow up with a lot of extra benefits but you know what we had, because the police were empowered to do their job and my little town in southwestern Ohio, is that we had safety. I felt like I could walk down the street without getting mugged or robbed.

That was a good thing. And what happened under the Biden administration is that we allowed, not rich people, because rich people can afford private security, we allowed normal Americans to feel less safe and less secure in their communities. We saw murder rates, rapes, violence, armed robberies at historic levels.

And in just 18 months under Donald Trump's leadership, by empowering our local law enforcement and empowering the police officers who keep us safe, we have the murder rate at the lowest level in 127 years. But, my friends, the thing that I realize is all these issues, they're policy issues that matter. Of course, we care about giving you more of your tax money back.

Of course we care about everybody rich, poor, or in the middle, being able to walk down their neighborhood streets and safety. We care about adding jobs rather than subtracting jobs. But all of these things are policy issues. They are symptoms of a deeper cause. And that cause is that Donald J. Trump loves this country.

He loves the people who make this country great, and he wants you all to thrive. Here's the problem with today's Democratic Party in Washington, DC. It's not just that they want higher taxes, though they do. It's not just that they voted against the Working Families Tax Cut, though they did. It's not just that they empowered the criminals, which is why we saw such high murder rates under Joe Biden's leadership.

The problem is that they don't think that they fight for you. What makes them passionate, what really gets them fired up, listen to them talk. Do they get fired up about putting more money in your pocket, no. Do they get fired up about supporting our local law enforcement to keep you safe, no. What brings them to tears, what makes them angry, what makes them yell and scream and holler is illegal aliens.

If you actually ask, you actually look -- judge them not by what they say, but by what they do and their emotions, what they reveal to you is that they believe they exist on this earth, they believe their jobs exist in Washington, DC not to fight for you and for your jobs, but to fight for illegal immigrants and the fraudsters who get rich from the system.

That is not a policy difference, that's a difference in who you represent and who you fight for. Now, here's what I'm never going to promise you. You know, just these four leaders who had to step away because they're going to fly back with me to Washington, DC. They're going to disagree about policy issues.

Even the four of them are not going to vote the right way or the wrong way on every single issue. They're going to have disagreements, even among themselves. I'm not asking you to support Congressional Republican leadership because you agree with everything Republicans do in Congress. I get frustrated with them from time to time.

By the way, pass the SAVE Act. That's something they need to do. But even I'm not going to tell you I'm right about everything, except maybe I am, but I'm not. You're going to disagree with me from time to time. Of course you are. You're going to disagree with the president of the United States from time to time.

That is the nature of living in a society with this big and diverse a population as we have. So I'm not asking you to vote for Republicans because we're right about everything. I'm asking you to vote for Republicans because at least we know who we fight for, and we fight for you. And I'm asking you -- And I'm asking you -- and I'm asking you to vote against Democrats because they don't know who they fight for.

Or if they do know, they're fighting for illegal aliens and they're fighting for fraudsters. You know, we've gotten no help from Congressional Democrat leadership on this anti-fraud task force. And with the exception, we actually have, to their credit, a few of the blue states have been helpful in fighting against fraud.

A few of the blue state governors and their leaders have been helpful, but by and large, most of the big city states, excuse me, the big city mayors and the big state governors, they have fought tooth and nail against our anti-fraud efforts. You ask yourself, how does -- how do we get there? How do we get to a political party that promotes fraud and illegal immigration?

And the simple fact is that this is not my grandparents' Democrat party. Something has changed. Something is profoundly different about the modern leadership of today's Democrat Party. And so I'm not going to ask you to agree with us on every issue, because that would be impossible. What I will ask you is, if you want to make America great, if you want to protect your jobs and hopefully build jobs in this beautiful factory, if you want to make our streets even safer, if you want to rebuild the American dream for the next generation, vote against the crazy leadership in Washington, DC. Vote for -- Vote against the Congressional leadership that will stand up and say, we care more about illegal aliens than we do American citizens, and vote for the leaders in Congress who have promised that they're going to fight for you.

Because I'll tell you, as much as I sometimes am frustrated with what happens in Washington, DC, the difference could not be more clear. There is one set of leaders who fight for you; that's the Congressional Republicans. And there is one set of leaders who seems to relish fighting for illegal aliens over the people who built this country.

So let me -- let me leave you with just one final thought. I remember -- and I think a lot of you are probably like this. I remember driving through my hometown and thinking to myself, why is it that -- that we struggle while other people seem to thrive? Why is it that if you try to work the system, you seem to make a lot of money, but if you work hard and play by the rules, the leadership seems to punish you?

What I promise you every single day is that the president and the vice president of the United States, the president and vice president of this administration, we wake up trying to see this country through the eyes of a kid like me. We wake up trying to protect your job. We wake up trying to make your community safer.

We wake up every single day recognizing that we have the coolest jobs anywhere in the world, because this is the greatest country anywhere in the world. So what I'm going to tell you, is because you come up and every day you work hard and play by the rules, we're going to fight for your tax dollars. Because you just want to raise your children in safety and security, we're going to fight for local law enforcement.

Because you want to build great things at this beautiful factory, we're going to fight for great American manufacturers and the workers that they employ. Ladies and gentlemen, you make America great and we will not stop fighting for you. God bless you and thank you for having me.