Speech: JD Vance Holds a Midterm Political Rally in Tyler, Texas - October 13, 2026

[Audience chants "USA"] How are we doing, Tyler? It's great to be back in Texas. You know, ever since the Longhorns beat my Buckeyes, my punishment is that I've got to come back and relive it about once a week, to the great state of Texas. But I got to be honest with you, even though I'm sad about the game and Brooke Rollins knows.

We talk about football all the time. I'm sad about the game. I am proud to be in the freest and most prosperous and proudest state in the Union, the great state of Texas. Now, before we get started -- I love you too, sir, in a totally platonic way to be clear. I'm the vice president, not James Talarico. But I got to -- I got to give some shout outs here before we get started.

First of all, we are blessed to have an amazing Texan, an amazing woman, an amazing American as our Secretary of Agriculture. Give it up for Brooke Rollins, our amazing, amazing cabinet secretary. We had a crazy person, of course, waving the Mexican flag up here. That's OK. We'll kick her out. Get out of here, ma'ma. We're talking about how to save America.

Get the hell out of here. We are proud, of course, to be joined by Tyler's outstanding Congressman Nathaniel Moran, Congressman Moran. Thank you, man. We're also proud to be joined by not quite here, but close by, the great Congresswoman Beth Van Dyne. Beth, good to see you. We've got Chip Roy. Where is Chip at? Thank you, Chip.

Good to see you, man. We've got the amazing Congressman Brandon Gill. And we've got soon to be Congressman Trevor Nehls. Trevor, good to see you, man. We -- I got to tell you a story about Trevor. So a few weeks ago, I was speaking at a Congressional event in DC, and Trevor comes up to me and shakes my hand and says, nice to meet you.

And I kind of had an out out-of-body experience because he looks exactly like his brother Troy. They're twin brothers. So I'm thinking to myself, Troy, what the hell are you talking about? I met you like 12 times. And then he says, I'm really looking forward to serving alongside you in Washington, DC. And I'm like, oh my God, Troy Nehls has lost his mind.

He forgot that he's a Congressman for 20 years. But it turns out that Troy is being replaced by his amazing but also identical-looking brother, Trevor. Trevor, you're going to make a great Congressman and it's good to see you. Now, we also have a few amazing people. We have got Speaker Dustin Burrows, Comptroller Don Huffines, state Senator Mayes Middleton.

And Mayes Middleton is going to make an amazing attorney general for the state of Texas. Good to see you, Mayes. And last but certainly not least, I want to give it up to a man who needs no introduction because you know him as a fighter for the great state of Texas. And because of you, we're going to make him the next United States Senator representing Texas, Ken Paxton.

He fights for you, let's fight for him. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I may have to go off script a little bit, because this teleprompter is waving like a beautiful American flag in the wind. I cannot read a damn thing that it's saying. [Laughter] But luckily, I don't need a script to tell you how great Ken Paxton is, because this is a man who knows how to do two things for the state of Texas.

Number one, he fights for you every single day. And number two, he delivers. He's not just a talker, he's a guy who gets things done. Now, you know this and I know this, there are a lot of politicians out there. I've only been doing this three years, ladies and gentlemen, first as a Senator, now as your vice president.

But in that three years, I've seen, unfortunately, too many politicians who are afraid to take a stance. They're afraid to tell you what they actually believe in. You know exactly the kind that I'm talking about. Ask them a simple question, and before they answer it, they've got to take a dozen polls and talk to a half dozen consultants.

They'll tell you it's complicated. And after a few weeks of thinking about it and sticking their finger in the wind, they'll tell you an answer that actually doesn't mean anything. They'll offend nobody, but in the process, they won't say anything of meaning. Now we all know that is not Ken Paxton. You ask him a simple question and you will get a direct answer.

And Texas, that's why you keep on reelecting him. You know where he stands and you know who he fights for. He fights for the state of Texas. And one of the things I've learned about politics is you don't just judge people by what they say and, of course, you most importantly have got to judge them by what they do. You also can judge a man in politics by the enemies he has made.

And Ken Paxton has made a lot of enemies fighting for the people of Texas. Some of the biggest corporations in the world have all the money, all the lawyers and all the power, but Ken Paxton decided to take them on to fight for Texas. They thought they could push Ken Paxton and they thought they could push Texas around, but Ken Paxton showed them something different.

Across three separate cases, Ken Paxton has taken on the big technology industry in this country and around the world, and he has won $3 billion of judgments for the state of Texas against Silicon Valley. He's made them -- he's made them do more to protect your privacy. He's made them do more to give you the tools to protect your children.

He's done more to make sure that children are safe on the internet than any public official in the United States of America. That's who Ken Paxton is. Now, you all in Texas have suffered from this, my home state of Ohio suffered from it a great deal, the opioid problem. We know what happens, the cartels bringing this poison into our country and people die almost the second they take it. Now, we know that it's the Mexican drug cartels, but it was also a lot of pharmaceutical companies who set this opioid problem loose on our communities.

And as Attorney General, Ken Paxton launched lawsuit after lawsuit against some of the biggest companies in the industry, winning billions of dollars for affected communities all across the state of Texas. The pharmaceutical industry told Ken Paxton that he would pay a price if he fought for Texas. You know what Ken Paxton did?

He gave a big middle finger and said, I'm going to fight for Texas because you brought this poison into our state and you shouldn't have. And we all remember when Joe Biden was president, a terrible time. [Audience boos] Remember when Joe Biden opened the southern border, flooding communities like Tyler, Texas, with a lot of drugs and a lot of illegal cartel activity?

Ken Paxton led the fight, by the way, with my dear friend, the great Senator from Missouri, Eric Schmitt. He led the fight to bring back Remain in Mexico, and he won for the people of Texas. Now, this is a statistic that I almost didn't believe. I had to -- I had to double check it. But did you know that Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration over 100 times for the people of Texas, and he won?

Now, you all know the saying better than I do, you don't mess with Texas. And you know why you don't mess with Texas? Because if you do, Ken Paxton is going to kick your ass. That's why. We've got so many institutions in this country who have tried to do harm to the United States, to the state of Texas, and to the people who live here.

We've got hospitals performing trans surgeries on kids. [Audience boos] We've had criminals defrauding Texas Medicaid. [Audience boos] We've had bureaucrats in Washington and all over our country trying to destroy oil and gas production in the state of Texas. [Audience boos] But all those people have learned that if you are making life worse for the people of this state, Ken Paxton is going to find you, he's going to sue you, he's going to do everything he can to fight for the people of Texas and fight against you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's what's standing for Texas really means. It's not well-produced TV advertisements where, by the way, Talarico is running against everything he stood for, for his entire career. What standing for Texas means, it means standing up to the people who would make your life worse because it brings them more money or more powerful.

It also means standing up for the people who get up every single day, they go to work, they pay their taxes, they keep this state, and they keep the United States of America running. And on that note, I want to introduce a couple of people who are proud to represent this state and proud to represent the incredible energy economy that we have right here in this region of our country.

One of them is a man by the name of Austin Davis. Austin, where are you at? Give a shout out to Austin. Now, Austin works at the Delek refinery right here in Tyler. And what's amazing is he has spent 20 years at that refinery. Not at the job he's at now; he started his career as an hourly process technician.

And over time, he worked his way up to supervising the teams that keep that plant operating around the clock. Today, Austin leads the health, safety and environmental team for the entire operation here in Tyler, Texas. And Austin's story, for all -- like all of us, it's about more than just his work. He's also a proud family man.

His wife is a teacher and both of their daughters are in school. His father-in-law spent more than 40 years working at the same Delek refinery that Austin works at. He retired in 2019. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the kind of story we want to see more of in Texas. We want Texas, like Texans like Austin Davis to thrive.

We want them to get up and go to work. We want them to do something they're proud of and be able to give their families a good life in the process. We believe in our movement, that there is dignity in honest work, there's dignity in showing up every single day, mastering a skill, taking responsibility for your fellow workers, and providing for your family.

And we believe there's dignity in knowing that what you do matters, that the work you put in makes life better for the people around you. And while I'm on the subject, I've got an announcement today, because just as we believe there's great dignity and great promise in the oil and gas industry here in Texas, as you know, Donald J. Trump, our great president, has called -- That will make him very happy, ladies and gentlemen.

But he's called on refineries across our country to find ways to boost production and bring energy prices down for American families. So today, I am pleased to announce that the Trump administration, working with the refinery at Delek, has used the Defense Production Act, and we are going to expand the refinery right here in Tyler, Texas.

We're announcing that today. And here's what we want to do, ladies and gentlemen. We want millions of gallons of commercial grade and military spec fuel to come out of this refinery in addition to what it's already producing. And what that means for you and your families is lower costs to fly from one place to another.

It means lower costs to drive your car into work every single day. It means a more reliable energy supply, but also, a stronger national defense. And it will also mean hundreds of good paying new jobs, just like Austin's, right here in Smith County. And what it really means and what I care most about, is that it means more opportunities for Texans, for your kids and your grandkids to build a life without having to leave the community that they love.

The message -- think about this, the message the Democrats sent, and the kind of economy that they were trying to build, is one where if your kids had any future of all, they had to leave their homes and leave their communities in order to make it. But I like stories like Austin's. I like stories where people build a generational wealth right here in Texas.

I like stories where people put down roots, where grandparents can show up at their grandkids school, but in order to do that, we've got to invest more in Tyler, Texas, and that's exactly what the Trump administration is doing. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what I care about. I care about a future where Texas keeps growing, where more Americans can find good jobs, raise happy families, and put down roots and build a life in this community.

And ladies and gentlemen, the only thing that can screw it up, you've got incredible resources, the best people in the world, but the only thing that could screw it up is to elect Tali-freako to the United States Senate. So let's send a man with a backbone. Let's send a man who fights for Texas. Let's send Ken Paxton to the United States Senate.

Now, I've talked a lot about Ken and how much I appreciate his fighting spirit, but ladies and gentlemen, he's running against a guy whose judgment and ideas -- I can't say his name without laughing. You almost have to hear Talarico in his own words to believe that anybody would actually say that stuff. Now, fortunately for us, James Talarico has been very generous with the material, ladies and gentlemen.

There is not a lot nice, I would say, about James Talarico, but man, the guy is a content machine. Let's start with religion. I'll warn you, Talarico has some very complicated ideas about theology. He has declared that God, our heavenly father, is non-binary. [Audience boos] He calls himself, and you cannot make this up, quote, a Christian who hates Christianity. [Audience boos] Now, you'd think maybe that a guy who's got some unconventional ideas about gender and religion might be a little cautious about judging everybody else's faith, but not James Talarico.

He's made himself the referee of what you believe in your heart, declaring it, quote, unchristian to celebrate the end of Supreme Court decisions that we don't like. Meanwhile, here on earth, James Talarico refers to women as, quote, neighbors with uteruses. I'm done, ladies and gentlemen. What -- what do you even say about a man who says there are, quote, six biological sexes?

And again, you have to actually see him say it to believe it. But he says that it is abusive, abusive, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't support your kid medically transitioning from one of those genders to, I guess, the other five. Now, I've got to ask the -- you know, I'm sure we've got some good Texas reporters back there, along with some fake news.

There's always a mixture. But here is just an honest to God curiosity that I have. What are the other four genders? There's men, there's women, there's the person who was here yelling at me the other -- earlier in the rally. What's the other three genders? I just want Talarico to explain to the good people of Texas what he actually means when he says this crazy stuff.

Now, the best part about this guy is, you know, he was asked what he loves in life besides his own family and friends and he responded without skipping a beat, and I quote, trans children. Now, you got to wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't want to find out.

Neither do I. But think about this, you're a good Texan, what do you love beside your friends and your family? You might say your neighborhood, you might say your church, you might say a good meal, barbecue. He doesn't like that either. He says trans children. Ladies and gentlemen, this guy is a freak. Don't elect him.

Elect Ken Paxton. That's who we got to get elected. But I'm not done. There's so much material. He said, and I quote, racism is a virus that White people spread simply by virtue of their skin color. [Audience boos] You know, I come from a political movement, I know Ken Paxton agrees with me, where we believe that everybody, rich or poor, Black or White, is welcome, you just got to love this country.

And while we're on the subject of barbecue, sir. Somebody just shouted out barbecue, is that guy with the American flag shirt? Talarico, sir, his views on barbecue are that it is, quote, existential that Texans stop eating so much meat. [Audience boos] And he -- he proudly announced -- I can't believe this is real.

His campaign was, in his words, about, quote, buying vegan products from local vegan businesses. [Audience boos] Now, our wonderful Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke, I'm sure you love that one. Now, Talarico has a lot to say on education as well, ladies and gentlemen. Austin's got two beautiful daughters in school but Talarico says that sex ed is maybe the most important topic for kids to learn at school. [Audience boos] You know what Ken Paxton thinks the most important topics for kids to learn at school, reading, writing and arithmetic.

Keep Talarico -- we want Talarico to keep his freaky paws out of our schools. Elect Ken Paxton so that our kids learn how to read at school. That's all they need to be doing. But because Talarico wants the teachers to do all this dirty work for him, he thinks that they need a little reeducation of their own.

He says, White teachers need to, quote, learn how White supremacy, heteropatriarchy, economic exploitation, have colonized their own minds. All the teachers out there, don't worry about reading, writing, arithmetic, we have a few teachers with us today. How much do we love our teachers, ladies and gentlemen?

And ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sure how, as Talarico says, a brain gets colonized, but what I do know is that James Talarico needs to take a week or two to get his own head examined, because he's lost his damn mind. Now, I want to say, my friends, look, this sounds goofy, the things that James Talarico has said, but I want each of you to understand what we're dealing with in this guy.

It's not just funny, crazy lines. This is not some yahoo you see on a street corner yelling at you. This is a guy who wants to be your next United States Senator. [Audience boos] And taken together, these statements, these ideas, the voting history of James Talarico, they paint a picture of who this man is. This is a man who owes his entire political career to the far left.

This is a man who bends the knee to radical activists and those radical activists have hand-picked him for a reason, because they know that he will never fight for Texas, he will fight for them. So let's kick him to the curb, not send him to Washington, DC. Now, the whole idea of James Talarico is that he can run a well-produced TV advertisement, pretending that he hasn't said all the crazy stuff that he said.

But, ladies and gentlemen, Talarico cannot outrun his record. And as Texas knows, normal people simply do not use words like heteropatriarchy. In fact, I am almost 100 percent certain that the first time I ever said heteropatriarchy was today. I think I did an OK job. I only mispronounced it once. But if you call a parent abusive because you don't want them to trans -- or they don't want to trans their kids, then you are not a good public servant.

You are a radical. You are a wolf in sheep's clothing. So while we may laugh at James Talarico for all the goofy stuff that he says, the simple fact is he is dead serious, he is crazy and we cannot elect Tali-freako to the United States Senate. Because you have to ask yourself, if he gets his way, if he goes to the United States Senate, he's going to spend every single day trying to shove left wing ideology down the throats of this country.

Talarico may pretend to be a moderate in his TV advertisements, but, ladies and gentlemen, we know from his record that he is a fake and he is a fraud. On no issue will he ever dissent from AOC or Rashida Tlaib or Chuck Schumer and the rest of the crazies. He is plotting to seize power and he needs your vote to do it. Texas, are we going to give it to him? [Audience responds "No"]

He is a threat to your way of life. He is a threat to your livelihood. And what is existential is not whether Texas eats less meat, but that a guy who thinks you're evil for eating meat could ever represent the great state of Texas in the United States Senate. We are not going to let him. Now, we got to ask, what is the agenda of a man who thinks that you're evil for eating too much meat?

What does his agenda mean for your community, for the people in this state? Start with law enforcement. Talarico said not too long ago that our system of police is deeply broken and must be completely replaced with something new and something better. He said that defunding our great law enforcement should be on the table, and he wants America's cops to be brought to heel.

Well, I don't know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I'd like America's criminals to be brought to heel and we need a Senator who's going to fight for our cops. Let's go to border security. On three different occasions, Talarico said that he supported and voted for rejecting a 10-year minimum sentence for human smugglers.

This is a guy who, when a cartel member smuggles an innocent little girl into your communities, he does not want them to go to jail for even 10 years. [Audience boos] He wants ICE to be torn down. [Audience boos] And he said that he wants the southern border to have a, quote, giant welcome mat for the drug cartels. [Audience boos] And ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to energy, his contempt for the industry that built this state, and let's be honest, built the United States of America, his contempt is just as clear.

Talarico says Texas energy dominance is like being the leader in cassette tapes in the 1980s. He says jobs like the ones at the Texas refinery in Tyler aren't going to last. My friends, that tells you a lot about how James Talarico sees this country. If we elect Ken Paxton and we continue to support an energy dominance agenda, ladies and gentlemen, Texas oil and gas jobs are going to be safe, and we're going to build more of them and create more wealth in the process.

But this is who the guy is, he sees an energy that built the prosperity of the United States of America, and he sees it as a thing of the past, something to tear down rather than something to build upon. Well, let me tell you something James Talarico, in the Trump administration working with Ken Paxton, we will never abandon the men and women of the oil and gas industry of Texas.

We believe Texans ought to be proud of their heritage. We believe Texans ought to be proud of the work our parents and grandparents put into this amazing state and the amazing industries that built it. We believe that Texans ought to be proud of the communities they built, proud of the industries they pioneered, and proud of the country they left to us. And we don't need to look to the future with fear or apprehension, we ought to have confidence in what comes next, because the same people who built this country are capable of building an even better future right here in Texas for their children.

They don't need lectures from mentally deranged politicians telling them their best days are behind them. They need leaders who believe in them, who stand up for them and give them every single chance to succeed by fighting for Texas first. Ladies and gentlemen, what we want is not rocket science, it's simple, it's an America where ordinary people can take pride in their past, where they can look to the future with confidence.

And that's a future that James Talarico will never understand, but Ken Paxton will always fight for. He's done it before and he'll do it again. And that's what's on the ballot, ladies and gentlemen, on November 3rd, whether ordinary Texans, whether the people who keep this country running, will have a Senator who has their backs.

Ken Paxton will. He's proven it in court and we got to elect him to the Senate to prove it in Washington, DC. So I'd like to close with a few very simple questions. This Election Day, will you vote for the people who keep Texas moving? [Audience responds affirmatively]

Will you vote for the future we want to leave for our children here in Texas? [Audience responds affirmatively]

Are we going to vote to send Ken Paxton to the United States Senate? [Audience responds affirmatively]

My friend, Texas has never voted for somebody else to fight its battles so this November, let's , end Ken Paxton to Washington and let's get back to work for the United States of America. God bless you, Texas, and thank you for having me.