Remarks: JD Vance Holds a Political Rally in Sterling Heights, Michigan - August 31, 2026

Wow. There we are. We got a proud Michigan auto worker over here to the left. Look, we're here today to talk about everything that we need to do to save Michigan auto workers. To fight for Michiganders all over this state, to get Mike Rogers elected to the United States Senate. But please, before I get started, have a seat, ladies and gentlemen.

I've got a few thank yous here before we get into the meat of our remarks. I gotta, first of all, thank our incredible secretary of the transportation, Sean Duffy. Give it up for Sean. We're lucky to have him. He's an amazing guy. He has got an absolute firecracker of a wife who is the toughest woman I think I've ever seen on television.

You never, Rachel Campos-Duffy. But she gave a great interview to Usha over the weekend. And Usha said, "You know what? Unlike most reporters, she actually asked me really smart questions. So the best compliment we can get for Rachel and Sean, we have got an --" You talk about big upgrades. I like to think I'm a pretty big upgrade over Kamala Harris.

Good answer. But I think maybe we've got the very best upgrade at the Department of Transportation. We used to have Pete Buttigieg, and now we have Sean Duffy. So we sent Pete to the curb, and now Sean is doing an amazing job. He's keeping our roads safe and getting Americans on the move. I've also got to give a big shout out to our, my amazing co-chair of the Anti-Fraud Task Force, my very good friend, Andrew Ferguson.

Andrew's doing a great job. Now, Andrew told me that he had never actually given up a speech at a political rally like this, and he said there was a little bit of a kind of a Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights things. [Laughter] He wasn't totally sure what to do with his hands. And I said, "Andrew, just, just make it natural, man." Somebody on Fox News told me that he's one of the highest rated guests that they have on Fox News.

You know why? Because people hate fraud and they love that Andrew Ferguson is kicking the fraudsters to the curb and sending them to prison. So thank you, Andrew, for everything that you're doing. I got a lot of people to shout out here. I wanna shout out Michael Warren, who will make a fantastic judge on the Michigan Supreme Court.

Michael. I gotta give a great shout out to Lisa McClain, who's one of the great warriors that we have in Congress. We love you, Lisa. Without Lisa, we would not have no taxes on tips, we would not have no tax on overtime, we would not have no taxes on Social Security. And the same, of course, goes for your incredible congressman and the next governor of the state of Michigan, John James.

And second to last, but certainly not least, you've got an amazing guy running for Congress right here in this district, Michael Bouchard. Michael, stand up, please. Now, I didn't know this until today, actually. Michael actually earned a bronze star for serving this country with dignity and serving this country with bravery, fighting ISIS.

And he's gonna bring that legacy of courage and leadership when he fights for you in the United States Congress starting this November. And finally, finally, finally, I've gotta give a shout out to a guy who is not just a great Senate candidate and will not just make a great senator for the state of Michigan, but is just a good human being who loves this country and has served this country for decades.

And that's my good friend Mike Rogers. Mike, thank you, man. Now, we're here today for a very, very important announcement, and you all heard some of it earlier. For too long, under the last administration, the Biden administration allowed American workers and American drivers to be endangered and to have their jobs stolen by foreign fraudsters. [Audience boos]

Today is about restoring the [Inaudible], that if you wanna drive a big truck on America's roads, you ought to be able to speak English, you ought to be a legal resident of the United States of America, and you ought to have basic qualifications because trucking is too important to let it go to foreign fraudsters.

It belongs to Michiganders right here in this state. Now, we all know we have our truckers to thank for keeping our shelves stocked. We have our truckers to thank for keeping gasoline at the pump. We care about America's truckers because for generations, they have represented something much greater, the very best of this state's, the very best of this country's character, people who spend long hours away from their families, people who work their fingers to the bone so that your kids and my kids get the things that they need every single day.

You know, in some ways, truckers are, are the modern cowboys. 150 years ago, you had to drive cattle from Wyoming to California to deliver for the slaughter, but it's the truckers now who get our goods to market every single day. And they did it during COVID, they did it when nobody was really supporting them.

They do it sometimes for very long hours, and they do it sometimes for very little pay, but they do it because it has to be done. And for the entire time that I've been alive, 41 years, 42 years, that's the problem, you get a little older, you forget how old you are, 42. [Audience member calls out, inaudibly]

I'm doing the math in my head. And here's the thing, the truckers have been the ones who have kept this country running. And I've known so many truckers throughout my life, thank you. And what's amazing is that they just show up, they don't complain, they go to work and they get it done for the American people every single day.

I wanna give a special shout out to a particular trucking badass, a guy by the name of Monte Wiederhold. Monte, where are you? Now I made y'all clap for him before I told you that he's actually from my home state of Ohio. He's been involved in trucking, I believe, for a half of a century and has been a small fleet owner for more than three decades.

Now, Monte grew up hearing stories about the industry from his dad and his trucker buddies, who were heroes to him when he was a little boy. And he's seen the industry change dramatically in his own lifetime. And he's also seen how the Trump administration has worked nonstop to save it for qualified American drivers.

Is that fair, Monte?

Yes, sir.

Here we go. Now Monte decided to take a day off work today and drove four hours just to join us here today because he knows that our offer, our efforts to combat fraud, our efforts to save trucking for American workers are going to make the streets safer and it's gonna ensure that the next generation of American Montes can still drive a truck and still do the job that needs to be done.

And I wanna just talk about the fraud and, and give some proper context to it because under the last administration, under Joe Biden's leadership, it feels like forever ago, but remember it was only 18 short months ago that Joe Biden would let anybody on the road. His Secretary of Transportation actually made it harder for state governments to enforce the rules to ensure that if you were driving a big truck on America's roads, you had to actually read and write and understand the English language.

Not only about you, but with my kids driving around, I don't want a person who can't even read the road signs to have a CDL in the United States of America. It's basic commonsense. But under four years of Democrat rule, tens of millions of illegal aliens entered the United States of America and hundreds of thousands, it's hard to believe, flooded the trucking industry despite being here illegally, despite not being able to speak English and in far too many cases, not even knowing how to drive properly.

By the end of Joe Biden's first year in office, the number of commercial driver's license being issued around the United States of America had exploded by more than 60%. And they did that because Democrats turned a blind eye to the rules of who was licensed to drive on our roads. And because of that, 200,000 new licenses went out to unqualified and largely illegal aliens in the United States of America.

Now, what Monte will tell you is that in addition to that being terrible for the safety of our kids, it's also terrible for the jobs of the people who have been in trucking for generations. You cannot take an industry and bring in 200,000 low-wage foreigners and expect there to still be good jobs for the American citizens, who show up every day.

So I have a simple principle that I know Mike Rogers and Michael Beauchamp are gonna fight for every single day for you and Washington, that American jobs ought to go to American workers, not illegal foreigners. Now I wanna hear, I wanna talk a little bit about Mike's political race, but I wanna just give one more shout out because I believe that we are honored to have the amazing and beautiful Delilah here with us today.

Now, Delilah is a five-year-old little girl and she was actually nearly killed, thank God she wasn't, by an illegal alien truck driver, who was on the road despite not being properly qualified. Now, Delilah has been through a lot of surgeries and she's made an amazing comeback and she's gonna make a still more amazing comeback.

But she was in a coma for three weeks in the hospital because the last administration let a lowlife drive on the road who had no business being in this country and certainly no business being on the roadways with a semi-truck on the streets of our country. So let's give it up for Delilah, an amazing little girl of amazing bravery.

God bless you, ma'am. Just, just an amazing thing and an, an, an amazing miracle that Delilah is here with us today, and God love you to her family and to Delilah, thank you for being here. And thank you to all of you for helping us elect a generation of leaders that are gonna fight for the Delilahs of this state instead of against them.

This is, ladies and gentlemen, politics is not rocket science. Now I'm sure that people watching at home and, you know, people who, who pay attention to this race, they're starting to think about who they're gonna vote for. And they're gonna be able to point to this or that issue that they don't agree with me on, or they don't agree with the president or they may not even agree with Mike Rogers on. But that's not the issue.

Of course, you're gonna have disagreements with your elected officials because you're free thinking people who develop your own opinions. I'm not asking you to vote for Mike Rogers because you're gonna agree with him 100% of the time. I'm asking you to vote for Mike Rogers because he's gonna go to Washington, and he's gonna fight for you rather than the people trying to keep illegal drivers on the road.

Now I gotta be careful here because, you know, Mike Rogers' opponent, Abdul El-Sayed -- [Audience boos]

He, he is a content gold mine, ladies and gentlemen. We could spend the next three hours talking about Abdul El-Sayed, and we would not run out of stuff to talk to. I had a, an interview beforehand and I was talking to the reporter and I said, "Man, the good thing about Abdul El-Sayed is you're never gonna run out of things to report on." [Laughter] Because this guy is a gold mine of content.

But unfortunately, it's a goldmine of content of him fighting against the interests of the people in this room and fighting for the most terrible ideas and terrible policies and the craziest ideas out there. Now I try not to pay too much attention to him. Unfortunately, you guys have to, right? You see his TV commercials on, on the air all the time, and I think what you'll find is that Abdul El-Sayed pretends to be now a reasonable moderate.

He'll talk about all the things that he wants to do for you that by the way, he hasn't done thus far in his tenure in public service. [Audience member calls out "Run away"]

But you know what he won't do? He won't talk about the fact that every time he's given an opportunity, he apologizes for the worst people in the world and America's enemies all over the globe. What kind of a man who, by the way, I, I, I'm, I'm, we're honored to be joined by the rabbi and some of the security guards of Temple Israel.

And I don't know if they're backstage or they're standing up here, but if you're here, the Temple Israel folks, please stand up and be recognized. And when this terrible antisemitic terrorist attack happened in this community, and by the way, it could have been so much worse, ladies and gentlemen. That guy showed up at that synagogue, at that school with a desire to kill a lot of children, and he killed precisely zero children because of the brave security guards who did their job and did it very well.

But you know, what he said about that attack is that, "Troubled people cause trouble." I believe that's the exact quote. He said, "Troubled people cause trouble." He made an apology. Abdul El-Sayed made an apology for the very people who would perpetrate violence against hundreds of innocent American school children.

But you've got to ask yourself, if he's willing to empathize not with the children who almost had their lives destroyed at the most innocent and what should be the safest place in the world, their school, what is he going to do when he goes to Washington DC when the cameras aren't on? He campaigns with a guy who says that 9/11, we're about to celebrate the 25th year or commemorate the 25th year of those terrible terrorist attacks and celebrate all the brave heroes who made it frankly as terrible as it was, it could have been so much worse.

We're about to celebrate those heroes and commemorate those that we lost. And he campaigned. Abdul El-Sayed, one of his main campaign surrogates suggested that America deserves 9/11. [Audience boos]

And you know, I, I was trying to understand what would motivate a person to say these things? What would made a, motivate a person to do these things? And I realized that there's something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today. And it's people who see themselves not as citizens of a combination, fighting for every single person, whether they're Jewish or Christian, whether they're white or black or brown, but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others.

And that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America. I see in this crowd people from all walks of life. I see white people, I see black people. I see Jews and Christians. I see people who are united by their love of the United States of America and their desire to give all of our children a better life.

But when you have people who start to say, "My ethnic group deserves something and yours doesn't," or "That ethnic group is good and this other ethnic group is bad," that is how you erode the very foundations of commonality and common citizenship that we need to continue to have the United States be the most powerful and prosperous nation anywhere in the world.

So when I see Abdul El-Sayed talk about white supremacy being the root of opposition to Sharia law, when I see a guy like Abdul El-Sayed empathize, not with the innocent children at Temple Israel or the security guards, but empathize with the person who committed that atrocious crime, when I see Abdul El-Sayed campan- -- campaign around this state with somebody who said that America deserved 9/11, what I see is a man who has sympathy and compassion for people who share his religion, but have nothing for people who don't. A person who will apologize for a murderer so long as he looks the right way, but will not understand the plight of an innocent child if that person has the wrong faith.

And that is the root of this terrible evil, I believe, in the United States of America that is on the rise. And what I'd ask all of you to do is to reject it in November. Reject the people that try to divide us, one race against the other, one religion against the, the other. Reject the people who would defend the killer rather than the school children.

Reject the people who would cast aspersion on the heroes of 9/11 and say that those attacks were justified or defensible. Ladies and gentlemen, today you have an opportunity to speak loudly. And in November, you have an opportunity to speak much more loudly against the hatred that is on the rise in the United States of America.

Reject Abdul Sa- -- El-Sayed and send Mike Rogers to the US Senate. And let me say just, just a couple more things. You know, what you have in Mike is not just a guy who's a good man, who's gonna fight for this country, you have a guy who's gonna fight to make your life better every single day. I looked up a statistic and this pains me to say as a Buckeye because I know you all, how y'all feel about Ohio State, but I heard you say, "Go blue." I heard it. Here's the thing.

As much as it may hurt me to say this, I know that the University of Michigan is one of the finest educational establishments anywhere in the world, right here in Michigan. Again, you, you, you have no idea how much my staff had to give me to drink before I was willing to come on stage and say that. But here's the thing.

I looked up a statistic that less than a half of the people who go to the University of Michigan are actually from the state of Michigan. That is a scandal. If you're the mother of a child who's applied to the University of Michigan and you know that his SAT score or her SAT score was 200 points higher than the foreign national who got in above them, Mike Rogers is gonna fight for you, not Abdul El-Sayed.

If you're angry that people have neglected Michigan auto workers, politicians have neglected Michigan Auto Workers for 40 years, then stand with the guy who's gonna fight for Michigan Auto Workers, stand with Mike Rogers. Who has been the candidate who's been out there, not just in this election, but in, in his, his time in public service in the last election as well, who's been out there saying, "We do not want hundreds of thousands of foreign automobiles in the United States of America.

We want hundreds of thousands of additional Michigan automobiles made by Michigan workers." That's Mike Rogers. And on every issue, this is a guy who has fought for you. He's fought against the people who want to import cheap labor and import cheap automobiles. He's fought for you and for your kids to get a good education in this state.

He's fought for America's national security. And every time Abdul El-Sayed has had an opportunity to fight for you, he's actually taken the opportunity to fight for someone else. Let me just give you a very concrete example. Again, we're here to talk about protecting Michigan truck drivers, but also protecting the safety of every single person who drives on the road with a semi-truck, which is all of us. Here's the crazy thing.

Just a few years ago, Abdul El-Sayed said that we need to make sure that illegal aliens have driver's license in this country. [Audience boos]

He would love to undercut the wages of American truckers, he'd love to give their jobs to illegal aliens, and he'd love to make the streets less safe again. Not because I think that he's ever thought seriously about this, but if you look at his politics, if you look at his policy, it is all about saying, "This group of people is good, this ethnicity is bad, and I'm gonna fight to give from the bad group of people to the good group of people." And I think that's a despicable way to think about your fellow Americans.

And so, while Mike and I don't agree on every issue, we agree on most issues, I think, I stand here with a message from the President of the United States, from Mike Rogers, from every Republican in this room. In this party and in this election, we are running people who love and fight for and defend all Americans.

We don't care who you are, so long as you belong in this country, we're gonna fight for you. Now, the last thing I'll say about Abdul, Mr. El-Sayed, is he has a weird habit of talking about my family. Have you noticed this? You know, look, I don't know who his wife is. I'm sure she's a lovely person, but I would never come to this state and disrespect you or disrespect somebody's family by talking about another person's wife, a person who isn't on the ballot.

And yet, Abdul El-Sayed, every time they put a microphone in front of his face, he wants to talk about my wife or my grandfather. [Audience boos]

You know, my message to Abdul El-Sayed, and I'm feeling especially protective, of course, because we have a five, five-week-old baby at home and the second lady's doing great and taking great care of him, my message to Abdul El-Sayed is you can pal around with terrorist sympathizers and you can say that America deserved nine eleven or you could empathize not with the children who were targeted at Temple Israel or, but with the attacker.

These are all despicable things, but they're all things that the people of Michigan will judge you on based on your record. But I actually think that the people of Michigan think it's kind of weird when you talk about another guy's wife. I think the people of Michigan would like you to talk about the public policy ideas you have to make their ideas better.

I think the people of Michigan would like you to talk about how you're gonna protect auto workers when you're supporting every single policy that has undercut the wages and jobs of Michigan auto workers your entire life and public service. But whatever you wanna talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league.

And my last and closing though to the great people of this state, and of course the great people in this audience is whether it's talking about a guy's wife or whether it's talking about the, the, you know, the sympathy that he has with the attackers at Temple Israel, or whether it's talking about paddling around with a guy who says that America may have deserved 9/11, this is such an amazing state.

Again, I'm a Buckeye. It's hard for me to say that. It's got beautiful people, the proudest tradition of craftsmanship in the auto industry that exists anywhere in the world. I'm not asking you to agree with every single policy that's in the Republican Party platform. I'm not asking you to check your free thought and your opinions at the door.

In fact, we welcome them. We're a big tent party. We welcome people with differences of opinions and differences of backgrounds. But what I am asking you is to remember that the same guy who defends literal terrorism is maybe not gonna have your best interest at heart when he gets to Washington DC. What I'd ask you to remember is that whoever you send to Washington, whatever policy views you have or you don't have, send people of good heart who focus on the right issues, who fight for the right people and who love the United States of America. [Audience chants "USA"]

So I'm asking you to send the crazy people to the curb, send a message to the elected leadership of the Democrat Party that if you want us to vote for you, you've gotta stop sending us crazy people to represent your party and help us elect some common sense, some principle. Help us elect Michael Bouchard and Mike Rogers.

Keep fighting for this state. Keep fighting for this country. God love you everybody and thank you for having me.