Interview: Jesse Watters Holds a Town Hall Interview with JD Vance in Texas - October 29, 2026

JD Vance joins us now.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

Thank you all.

How are you feeling?

I feel better now.

Here we go. [Audience chants "USA"]

All right. So, tell us the stakes, Mr. Vance. If the Democrats win the House and the Senate, what really changes?

Well, a lot, man. All of the great victories that we've been able to win over the last two years, a lot of that stuff is going to stop or slow down or possibly even go in the other direction. We know the Democrats are obsessed with investigations and impeachments. And they're also obsessed with things like putting men into women's sports.

They're obsessed with all the white people in Texas owning their whiteness, grappling with their whiteness, as James Talarico has said. I think they're obsessed with racial hatred and actually pitting Americans against one another. And, of course, they're obsessed with all the fine people in this room paying much higher taxes.

So, if the Democrats win, they're going to try to accomplish all of that. Now, the good news is the president of the United States is still the president. That's still the most powerful office in the land. But the Democrats, like the idea that I think a lot of Americans would love, you know, where Republicans and Democrats sit down and we actually come to some bipartisan compromises that are good for the American people, that's only possible when you have Democrats who haven't lost their ever-loving minds.

And, unfortunately, that's exactly what we have in this Democratic Party. Like Talarico isn't running on some, oh, let's do something that we're going to do to lower energy prices for American citizens. His solution to higher energy prices is to build more windmills and to have all of us acknowledge our whiteness.

It's not going to work. And the fact that these people are so insane suggests that they're not going to be particularly effective at governing.

You guys have been going after Talarico a lot. Also, Abdul. Why is that?

Oh, you know, these are two fun guys that are easy to beat up on a little bit. Look, I think they're representative of something that is very real in the Democrat Party today, which is that, you know, when my grandparents who raised me were Democrats, they were like JFK-style Democrats. They maybe disagreed with Republicans over tax rates or regulatory policy, but they weren't people who would say that the American flag, as James Talarico has said, is a complicated symbol, or they wouldn't go campaigning around Texas, the capital of barbecue, and say that eating meat is actually bad.

So, in other words, the Democratic Party of today is represented, I think, by these young guys who have completely lost their connection with reality, who don't really love the United States of America and want to build upon it. They see it as something that has to be fundamentally transformed. America to these guys is broken.

It has to be torn down to its foundation and built back up. And if that's your attitude, then you're not going to be good for the people of Texas. But more importantly, you're not going to be good for the United States of America. And the fact that Talarico and Abdul El- Sayed, they lean into this stuff maybe a little bit more than the other candidates do.

Does everybody here like meat? Ohio, also very tight race. The president keeps saying that Jon Husted has a great ass. What's going on with that?

Well, first of all, I'm jealous. The president has never said that about me. Get back in the gym, maybe, and draw that particular piece of praise. I mean, look, I think it's one of my favorite. The president, as you know, is at heart a comedian, and he loves to get up there and shake things up a little bit.

And I just think it's a good example of a politician who is not, who doesn't take himself so seriously. You can get up there and have a good time. And it's having a good time in the service of saving the United States of America. Jon Husted, in addition to his very nice body, is more importantly going to make a much better senator for the people of the United States of America than the lunatic he's running against.

And that's true of all these races. I mean, there's something -- I kind of go back and forth on this, because there's a part of me that wants the Democrat Party to be rational and normal again, because they would be easier to work with. But it would be a lot less fun to run against rational and normal people.

It's much more fun to run against James Talarico.

Oh, it sure is. It sure is. You're not going to talk about Paxton's ass, are you?

We don't need to go there. I'm sure Paxton's doing great.

OK. Good. The former president, Barack Hussein Obama, as we call him respectfully, he's been saying that the White House looks like Saddam Hussein opened up a cheesecake factory. How did you take that?

Well, I mean, I guess I didn't fully get it. I kind of like the cheesecake factory. I don't know what the -- what how do we feel about the cheesecake factory?

Do we like the cheesecake factory?

So, I think it's like a good example of how Obama, without even trying to be, just can't help himself from being super elitist.

Yes.

Remember, this is the guy who said that people who wanted good jobs were clinging to their guns and their religion as if God and the Second Amendment were something to be ashamed of. And I just think that he's one of these guys, he gets out there, I'm sure that thought popped into his head. He thought it was brilliant or some speech writer gave it to him.

And in reality, it just drove home how divorced the Democrats are from actual America.

Yes. Now Barry's backpedaling. He's like, oh, I love the cheesecake factory all the time.

Wait. Did he really?

Yes. He says, it's my jam.

See, that's exactly the point, though, is because he realized, oh, a lot of the people we want to vote for us actually like the cheesecake factory. The thing is, OK, I know we're not supposed to talk about the cheesecake factory here, and I promise I'm not a paid sponsor for the cheesecake factory, but it's like the weirdest restaurant to hate on.

Yes.

I mean, you go to the cheesecake factory. First of all, the menu is like 75 pages long. So, there's something for everybody.

That's right.

So, I just -- I don't understand. Like there are restaurants I can imagine beating up on, not the cheesecake factory.

Now, you know, we should have done a town hall at a cheesecake factory. We'll do that next time. Corruption. Big issue in the midterms, according to all the polling. The New York Times is reporting that Obama officials had evidence that Omar did marry her brother. I mean, now it's looking like a cover up.

Yes. So, when the New York Times says that you maybe married your brother and you're a Democrat, maybe brother.

Yes.

I mean, look, what we've tried to do in this case and people always ask me, you know, what's going to happen? What's the result? And I say, I honestly don't know, because in the Trump administration, we don't prejudge. We let the facts and the law drive these decisions. But if you look at some of the people that we've gotten prosecutions of, I think you do see evidence that finally an American government is taking the corruption seriously.

And a lot of the public servants who have betrayed the public trust, they're being investigated. Some of them are being prosecuted and some of them are going to spend time in jail because if you violate the public trust, that's what you should do.

In Alaska, some of these Democrats were caught putting fake candidates on the ballot.

Cheating, I would say.

Trying to trick the voters.

Yes.

Do you think they should be prosecuted?

I think we should absolutely look into it. And I'm not a legal expert, Jesse. But I know that if you're trying as a candidate for office, quite literally to mislead and trick and defraud your voters. If it's not illegal, it should be. And the fact that Mary Peltola, again, she's -- I actually heard from a reporter friend of mine that she's not answering questions in the -- on the campaign trail these days because she's so terrified that somebody is going to ask her about the fact that they literally put a different Dan Sullivan on the ballot in order to trick voters.

And maybe if you're not willing to answer questions about this, and maybe if you defraud your own voters, you shouldn't be a United States Senator. So, for the people in Alaska, vote for Dan Sullivan.

There you go. The right Dan Sullivan.

The incumbent Dan. So, to be clear, vote for the incumbent Dan Sullivan, not the fraudulent Democrat Dan Sullivan.

Yes. Just to be clear. All right. Well, let's go to questions. You're tired of hearing from me.

I was having a good time.

I was too. We got Brock Genz, Fort Worth, Texas. What do you got, Brock?

Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I'm the president of College Republicans at TCU. And in 2024, I cast my first ever vote for you and President Trump because of your promises for real change on immigration affordability. Government accountability and foreign policy, particularly at the end of the costly foreign wars of the old Republican establishment.

Nearly two years later, while your administration likes to point to its accomplishments, many of us, myself included, feel like those promises have not been fully realized, especially now that we're in the middle of a conflict in the Middle East again. With the midterms just days away, where do you believe our administration has fallen short, and why should we trust the Republicans with two more years to deliver the change we voted for?

Yes. So, first, I appreciate the question, and I appreciate you voting for us. I think what I'd say is, first of all, that while I understand the frustration about foreign misadventures in the Middle East, I served in Iraq. That's one of the main reasons why I got involved politically is because I was so sick of this stuff.

We've been involved in Iran in some form for seven months. The United States has been dealing with Iran for 47 years, and I promise you that Donald Trump is not going to let Iran become a forever war, which is the criticism that's been made. I think there's a difference between criticizing foreign military misadventures and saying that you can never, ever use the American military.

The other thing that I'd say to you is that if you take the whole suite of promises, obviously I'm very biased, but I think we're doing a very good job. On immigration, we closed the border on day one, zero illegal border crossings. We prioritized fighting against visa fraud that big corporations were using to undercut the wages of American workers.

That's a big win. On housing, in part because of what we've done on immigration, but we've also banned Wall Street from buying up American homes. You actually see in the state of Texas, the list price of homes doubled during the four years of the Biden administration. It has cooled off in the State of Texas and elsewhere in the country too.

So, there's a lot that we're making good progress on. Obviously, there's a lot more we need to work on, but the one thing I'll tell you is if you're worried about another forever war, Donald Trump is never going to let this be a forever war. He's going to accomplish America's objectives, and then we're going to focus on the other things that we're doing, which of course the media doesn't talk as much about, but are the things that I'm really most proud of. Thank you.

All right. TCU. That's the Horned Frogs, right? Yes. There you go. All right. We have Rebekah Smith, Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr. Vice President. First, thank you. My 11-year-old daughter loved the second lady's summer reading program.

Oh, great.

As a mother of six ages four through 15, protecting my kids is the most important issue. A few weeks ago, my daughter received a letter addressed to her, not to me, explaining how to transition from female to male without her parents ever knowing. Here in Texas, James Talarico, who voted against banning gender procedures for minors, is promising to fight for trans kids in the Senate the same way he did in Austin.

If Republicans win, how are they going to keep the government out of my relationship with my own children?

Well, first of all, what an important question. And first of all, you said six kids from four to 15. God bless you. You're doing the Lord's work. So, we just had, as you probably know, our fourth baby. We have a we have a three-month-old at home. Little baby Alec. He's doing very, very well. He's actually sleeping through the night, Jesse, which is a big deal when you're a parent of a kid that age.

You look rested.

I -- Yes. Thank you. I look pretty good. But here's -- the crazy thing is, I would love to have six kids. And I was joking with Usha just a couple of days ago, and I was like, let's just have like a fifth baby, too. And she said, if you joke about having any more kids while this three- month-old is here, then I'm going to announce on Twitter that you're getting a vasectomy.

And so, not doing that. So, I'm praying for you. Proud of you. Want to support you. And let me let me let me get to this. Let me get to this question. So, when James Talarico, who does have a weird fascination with trans kids, when he says that he wants to support trans kids, what he's actually saying is that he wants to make it impossible for you to protect your children.

James Talarico has actually called it abusive when parents try to prevent their children from transitioning. And I don't know who sent that letter to your child, but I think the person who sends a letter to an 11-year-old about gender transition, what I call that in my family is a pervert, and that person ought to go to prison.

Yes.

And James Talarico. --

And to give a shout out to Ken Paxton, Ken Paxton has fought hard to prosecute those people, whereas James Talarico has fought hard to protect those people. He will probably defend the right of the person sending the letter, not the right of the parent who is rightfully creeped out by this. And the thing that -- Jesse, I just don't understand where this all came from.

I think I'm probably like most Americans, where I'm sort of a live and let live guy. I'm not particularly concerned about what other people do in their bedroom. Why are you going around and trying to convince children to transition their gender? That is sick and disgusting. None of us signed up for it, and we have got to fight back against it.

And, Rebekah, talk to our producers after the show. We're to investigate this perverted letter, OK?

Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

And, Rebekah, also, talk to our staff because I'd like the Department of Justice to investigate that as well. So --

Thank you.

There you go.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you guys so much. More of "Primetime"'s town hall with Vice President Vance right back.

[Commercial break]

All right, welcome back to our town hall with JD Vance. Let's go to John Poole from Colleyville, Texas. Take it away, John.

Colleyville. [Laughter]

Colleyville. He didn't know either. [Laughter]

I want to be clear, I knew it was Colleyville, and Ken Paxton does, but James Talarico and Jesse Watters do not.

Oh! [Laughter]

You know, I'm going to have to get a vasectomy now. [Laughter]

How about them Cowboys, Jesse?

OK, you win one game. [Laughter]

All right, hey, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for being here. I'm a retired Army colonel. And through my service, my family and I have sacrificed a lot for the country. And what we have seen is that people are taking advantage of that. In Minnesota, we have seen billions lost to fraud --

Yes.

-- under Governor Tim Walz, and to include questions now about the Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. We see fraud, health care fraud. We have seen welfare fraud. And even here in North Texas, we have seen fraud around visa applications. So, my question is, we appreciate what you're doing now, but really we know that that's more important than just a slogan.

When are we going to see people held accountable for that?

Sure.

Yes, I think one of the one of the most important questions -- and I will say that, though, it doesn't always fetch the same headlines. I think the accountability is already starting to come. We have already thrown multiple people in prison because of fraud in the Trump administration. We have prosecuted dozens of people that weren't even being looked at, people are were running immigration fraud schemes, people who are running visa fraud schemes, people who are stealing from the welfare system, from Medicaid, from Medicare, from Social Security, from everything, because we really have seen a level of fraud in this country that is -- that is completely out of control.

One of the things that I -- I take very seriously is this commitment to actually hold people accountable. And so one of the things that we have been very careful about is, when we bring a criminal case, we make sure that it's a good one. And we make sure that everything's fully developed, and we also make sure, importantly, that the president and the vice president, we're not putting our thumb on the scale, because one of the reasons why we saw so many of those Biden era prosecutions fall apart is because they were obviously politically motivated.

What we're trying to do is actually let the facts and the law drive this stuff, which is why I think we have a much higher rate of getting these prosecutions, because we're not going out there saying, we're going to prosecute these people because they have a D next to their name. We're going out there and prosecuting them because they are fraudsters and they deserve to go to prison.

And we're able to win a lot of these cases and we're going to win a lot more in the months and years to come. And the final point I want to make about that, man, is, the fraud is actually, to me, very closely connected to the affordability problem in the United States of America. If you're stealing hundreds of billions of dollars -- and that's what we have already uncovered in the anti-fraud effort.

If you're stealing hundreds of billions of dollars that should go to American citizens, or, at the very least, should be returned to Americans in the form of tax relief, and you're going out and spending that money buying a Mercedes-Benz as a fraudster, then you're actually contributing to the affordability crisis.

And so I think one of the biggest dividends that we're going to see from the anti-fraud effort is that we're going to give the American people more of their money back, less going to fraudsters, and that's how we make life more affordable.

And, John, thank you for your service. We have Kate White from Fort Worth, Texas.

Hi, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for being here. My name is Kate. I'm a senior at TCU, and I'm also the vice president of our TPUSA chapter there.

Great.

So. So, a constant message that my generation hears from the right is to get married young, have kids young, have as many kids as possible. And I think what the right doesn't acknowledge most of the time is how disincentivized we are currently because of the cost of owning a home and the general expenses of raising a family.

And so my question is, how does the right and yourself expect us to start families young, when the average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000, which just feels out of reach for us?

Sure. Sure. Well, first of all, again, thank you for the question and thanks for the support. I want to point out that I think that I have been asked four or maybe five questions by my count. I have only been asked one question about Jon Husted's ass. And it was by Jesse Watters. [Laughter]

It's what people are talking about.

Maybe you should run for Senate on the Democratic side here in Texas, Jesse.

I would probably win. [Laughter]

But, first of all, I think the premise of your question is, Republicans, I would say everybody, but certainly my side included, that we don't pay enough attention to the affordability problems that are affecting young people. And I would say, you're -- you're absolutely right. Most Republicans don't. I think that I'm an exception, but I think that our entire party, our entire movement, and certainly I think the president of the United States is very focused on, how do we make it possible for young people to afford the basic components of an American dream?

That means good health care. That means, if you work hard and play by the rules, you get a good job, you're able to buy a house and all those things. So this is like -- is going to be a little bit of a complicated answer, because I think we have to take stock of the fact that the reason why housing exploded in the United States of America is in part because we allowed 20 million illegal aliens into our country to buy homes that ought by right go to American citizens.

Another reason why housing got too expensive in this country is because we allowed homes to be bought up by Wall Street and foreign investors, when those homes ought to go to American citizens.

And part of the reason I'm so proud of our work in the Trump administration is that, on both of those issues, getting illegal aliens out, stopping the housing benefits that were going to illegal aliens, but also banning the practice of Wall Street buying up American homes, we have done all of that in the last 18 months.

Now --

But I will be honest with you. The statistics -- I actually looked this up because I knew I was going to be in Texas. So, in the last year, the list price for a home in the state of Texas has gone down about 2.5 percent, OK? That's good. Under Joe Biden's administration, it went up by literally 100 percent, completely, to your point, pricing young Americans out of the housing market.

But there's still a lot more work to do. And what I would ask you is to understand that we're working on this problem very hard, and we're going to have to keep on working at it and keep on working at it. Thank you.

And sometimes, you know, when you're in love, you just get pregnant and you figure it out. [Laughter]

That's not a great political answer, but it usually works.

Well, I mean, look, I will -- I will say that my generation, I think, is the first generation that started this, where it's like you had to have everything checked.

Right.

You had to do everything. And you would get married and you would have kids at the very end of it. The one thing that I'd say is, my job is to make it easier for you guys to be able to afford a good life, but, as a pure personal advice, I would say it's never the right time. And the one regret, the one regret that I have my life -- Usha and I talk about this all the time -- is, I wish we had gotten married earlier and I wish we'd start having kids earlier.

Because you can't go back and make that decision differently.

So, my -- in other words, my job as your vice president is to make it easier for you to afford those things. My personal advice, as one guy talking to a person who has been in similar shoes, is, it's never the right time so go ahead and do it because you're never going to regret getting married and having kids.

Dating advice from JD Vance. [Laughter]

Who knew? All right. Let's --

Unless you're going to get married to James Talarico, then don't. Find somebody else. [Laughter]

That's right. All right. We have Jordan Agee from Las Colinas, Texas. Jordan.

Thank you, Mr. President -- or vice president, sorry --

Oh, oh, oh, oh!

Oh!

We're going to get there, maybe.

[Crosstalk]

You just -- you just got me in a ton of trouble, thank you, sir. [Laughter]

Well, sorry about that, my friend. So I'm a small business owner. I have a collector car club. And I'm an independent but I'm really worried about the -- the identity of the country. I look at France, for example, and the policies that have allowed, like, mass migration and everything have really changed the identity of France where basically now there's riots, there's violence in the streets, looting.

You know, our Democratic Socialists are running on those very same ideas that Europe kind of embraces that caused these problems. So I just wanted to hear your thoughts on how we can protect kind of American identity.

Thank you, sir, it's great question. And here's -- here's the thing. Part of my job as vice president is to recognize that social solidarity, the sense that we're all part of the same American family, we're all on the same American team, that is a precious thing, a thing that too many of our leaders have taken for granted and a thing that mass migration will destroy if we let it destroy the United States of America.

We've seen it before and we certainly saw some early signs of it during the Biden administration. I think what we have to do is, first of all, yes, America has welcomed people from past generations who have come in and contributed to the United States of America, but they came into the United States of America when our leadership was self-confident enough to say that if you want to become an American, then become an American.

Learn our language. Learn our culture. Learn our values. Assimilate into American culture. That is the bare minimum that we expect of a newcomer in the United States of America.

Yeah.

That's a great question.

And -- and, sir, one of -- again, when I talk about Democrats being so weird these days, Abdul El-Sayed, James Talarico, the various people who are running all over the country, is, they actually reject the idea of assimilation. And I -- you know, I had some of this conversation with -- with Usha a couple of years ago where, you know, we had a -- one of our kids had a problem.

We took him to the emergency room. It was like totally fine. It was young parents being panicky, as young parents sometimes are. And I'm sitting there in the emergency room, and there are, like, nine different translators for nine different languages, while I'm worried about a medical problem that my son has.

And I'm just thinking to myself, how about if everybody spoke English and we could hire more doctors and less translators in our country?

But I -- I'll just say, this is why we have the immigration policy that we do. And this is why Mike Rogers in Michigan and Ken Paxton in Texas support these guys, support that immigration policy that protects American identity, don't support James Talarico who wants to destroy it.

All right. Well said. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Don't go anywhere. More Primetime Town Hall with Vice President Vance, that's next.

[Commercial break]

And we're in Texas with Vice President JD Vance for a Primetime Town Hall. Let's talk to some voters.

Christian Waller, from Dallas, Texas.

Mr. Vice President, you and President Trump have spent years blaming Joe Biden for inflation, and a big reason why prices exploded is that Washington flooded the economy with stimulus money. Now the president is promising every adult, like myself, a $5,000 check, but only if Republicans keep the House and the Senate.

That's a lot of money. How is this any different than from what Biden did?

Well, I'd say it's -- it's different for a couple of big reasons. First of all, what we're talking about doing is not green energy boondoggles. What the president has said is that Americans ought to be able to keep more of their money. So I think it's much different to just tell Americans, you can keen more of your own tax dollars, than we're going to give billions and billions of dollars to a green energy scam that's going to drive up prices, bankrupt a lot of people, and fundamentally not actually help that many Americans, if -- if any at all.

I think that's -- that's number one. I think the -- the second thing I'd say is, look, we certainly recognize that the -- the effect of the Donald Trump economy, I think fundamentally, has been to bring a lot of new investment into the United States of America, about $11 trillion of new investment into the United States of America.

Now you see the evidence of that in the construction jobs. We're building beautiful new factories. Of course, those construction jobs will turn into manufacturing jobs, after the factories are already built. And I think the president was just sort of looking around and saying, you know what? One of the ways we've been able to do this is by penalizing foreign corporations and foreign countries and basically making them pay a penalty unless they build in the the United States of America.

And if we're going to force them to pay a big penalty, why shouldn't the American people share in some of that benefit that's been created? So it's really fundamentally a different idea. It's, you have created this wealth. You should benefit from this wealth. And that attitude is what motivates the president of the United States.

And I think that's just much different than writing fat checks to green energy lobbyists. Thank you.

And as long as we're doing this life advice thing, you know, if you do get the $5,000 check, you have a baby and you put it in a Trump account. [Laughter]

That's right.

All right. Traci Destena from Fort Worth, Texas. Traci.

Mr. President, I love --

[Crosstalk]

They did it again! [Laughter]

I did it too!

Now you're in real trouble.

Mr. Vice President, I love super intelligence --

I'm just going to stay in Texas and not go back to Washington. [Laughter]

I love Texas, anyway. I'm sorry, ma'am, go ahead.

I love super intelligence and I understand we need places to do all that computing. But here in Texas, our grid failed us during stormageddon. My home runs on a well, so when power goes out, so does our water. Our lakes are at historic lows and these massive data centers need huge amounts of power and water.

You and the president are all-in on super intelligence, but do you truly understand what it means for families like mine? And will you make these data centers bring their own power and water so we aren't the ones left in the dark?

Yes, ma'am. And that is the simple and -- and easiest answer, is that when the president says that he wants America to win in super intelligence against China, we, of course, mean that. And we think that there can be great benefits for the American economy. But in order for any of these data centers to be built, first of all, they have to get your buy- in in order to do it. And that's one of the things that we have really doubled down on in the Trump administration is local control of these decisions.

Now, whether the president thinks it's a good idea to build a particular data center, I -- I'm sure it depends a lot on the circumstances, but his view is, local communities should make that decision. And, by the way, the data centers should be good corporate citizens in the first place. Let -- let me give you an example of what I mean by this, ma'am. So you have a data center that's being built, I believe in Louisiana, where the people who are building that data center are going to, first of all, feed electricity back into the grid, and they're also going to give the local school teachers about a $50,000 bonus because the local community liked this thing, they chose to build it, but they also demanded that the data center put some money back into their local community.

And what the president has said is, if you're building a data center and you're taking electricity out of the grid, do not do that. And we actually have a great piece of legislation that might actually get some bipartisan support that would require data centers to feed power back into the grid rather than take it out.

I think that's one of the most important principles. You've got to be a net contributor as a data center, not a taker from the electricity grid. There are other issues, too, but I think that so long as we follow that principle, that if you're building a data center, you've got to get back into the grid, not take out of it. And two, local communities determine whether a data center goes in or not.

We follow those principles and I think that we'll get this right. Thank you, ma'am.

Does the -- does the president ever get angry if you forget to call it super intelligence? [Laughter]

If you say, oh, artificial intelligence, I mean, super intelligence?

I'm pretty good at it. I'm pretty good at it. He definitely -- like, and I think he's right about this. I talked to Elon Musk about this, who says super intelligence is actually a better term. So I think that if six months from now people are sort of saying artificial intelligence around the president, he'll probably correct them.

But right now he's --

We're in a grace period.

He's -- we're in a grace period.

OK, good.

We're in a grace period with SI.

All right. Christopher Spikes, Dallas, Texas.

All right, good afternoon, Mr. Vice President. So, when Joe Rogan asked you about UFOs, you told him --

Oh. [Laughter]

-- "There are supernatural things that are happening." What did you mean by that? And you have had two years of top secret security clearance. So just tell us already. [Laughter]

Oh.

When are we going to see real actual aliens?

Well, OK, so one thing I will say about this is, I have spent some more time actually since the Rogan podcast trying to look into this stuff, and I won't have all of the answers. I won't pretend to have them all yet, because there's a lot of information out there. But one thing, Jesse, we did find actually is that there was an extraterrestrial who landed in the United States of America about 50 years ago, and then -- and then moved to Texas and ran for Senate by the name of James Talarico. [Laughter]

And --

Oh, boy.

Just kidding. But here -- so, first of all, you asked the question. Look, I'm a devout Christian, and I do believe that there are things that happen out there that we cannot explain purely with the laws of physics. That is just something that I actually believe. I believe that there are both good spirits out there, call them angels, and I think there are bad spirits out there.

What I have said about the UFO program is, I just don't know. And I have started to look into it. We have started to put some resources behind trying to understand it. And I will tell you, when I -- when I have the answer, I will certainly tell you. But the Joe Rogan interview was a good motivating factor for it, because I have always been interested in this stuff.

I haven't really spent the time to try to understand it. Now that I do have a top secret security clearance, that has changed. I'm actually reading a book right now by a guy, I think his name is Jay Patterson.

Yes.

And he was -- you may have heard about this book. I think it's even been featured on FOX News a little bit.

It's famous.

And I'm just trying to understand it, and I'm going to use my top secret security clearance to get to the bottom of it. And I may have a really good answer, or I may have a really terrible answer, or I may find out that Talarico is actually an alien. [Laughter]

Regardless, I will keep you posted.

All right, yes.

Just, if you do find something, I want the alien exclusive on FOX News. [Laughter]

All right?

You will get it, man.

You promise?

You will get it.

Thank you very much. All right, more questions with Vice President JD Vance, "Primetime" town hall, straight ahead.

[Commercial break]

Primetime is live in Texas for a town hall with Vice President JD Vance.

Let's go to Kathi Arocha from Arlington, Texas. What's up, Kathi?

I'm the president of the Arlington Republican Club.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

OK. Mr. Vice President, President Trump has met with Zohran Mamdani three times. He's praised him at Gracie Mansion and is now talking about $21 billion in federal money for New York housing. Is the president going a little soft on the mayor? [Laughter]

Would you take a meeting with a man who wants to take our money to expand his communist empire?

Well, that's a -- that's a tough question. I will say, the president really does believe this, and I think that this is an admirable trait, that, even though obviously not everybody voted for him, he is the president of all Americans. And New York City has a very special place in his heart. Obviously, it's where he raised his family.

It's where he called home for many, many years. And so I think, look, he is as aware of the dangers of communism, and certainly, he recognizes Mamdani is really far out there. But I also think the president is a strong-willed enough person to sit down with a person, meet with him. You can say some complimentary things, but the president is under no illusions that this guy is dangerous, and he's bad for the United States of America, he's bad for our country.

And our movement, if it's about anything, it's about beating communists like Mamdani from ever having power at a national office, which is why, by the way, vote against El-Sayed and vote against Talarico, because, while they have these sleek TV commercials where they pretend to be moderates, the reality is that El-Sayed and Talarico are as radical as Mamdani.

They just are better at hiding it. So I -- and on the question about money, I think the president's attitude -- it's funny. I have never talked to him about this specific issue, but I know him very well. And I think his attitude is, you have got to make these decisions based purely on what's in the best interest of the country.

And if there's a project, and that project is properly funded and there's no corruption, et cetera. et cetera, it's a good project for the country, you can't say no just because New York elected a communist. You have to actually do as good of a job as you can for all Americans. Thank you.

Looks like Kathi liked that answer.

Good.

All right, we have Tycom Wright from Haltom City, Texas. Now what? Now what? Haltom?

Haltom.

Haltom?

Mr. Vice President, thank you for taking my question. It is truly a blessing to be here in front of you. When I was in high school, my father walked out on me, and that was something that I really had to deal with, with trauma-wise. That taught me early on to lean on my community and the people around me. And that's why today I mentor young black, Hispanic, and white males without father -- without fathers.

Sorry. What I see every day is that there's a lot of resources out there for young women to succeed, but there's not too many for young men to succeed. Without someone in their corner, they end up caught in gun violence or saddled with criminal records before their life even gets started. So what I would like to know is, what is your plan to invest in the young men in America, especially in the indigent community?

Well, let me just say first, sir, thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing. I really do believe that is the lord's work. And kids, teenagers, in particular, have a way of never saying thank you, but I guarantee those boys know that without you they would be lost in the world, and eventually they're going to realize it, and eventually they're going to say thank you.

And I just hope you know you have transformed lives, and that's the very, very best thing that you can do. And so I'm proud of you and I'm rooting for you. But let me just say that the -- there was this thing in our country for a long time, and there was a recognition that obviously a lot of our young girls, a lot of our young women were being left behind, things were unfair.

But if you look statistically today, who is more likely to go to prison, who is less likely to graduate from high school, who is less likely to graduate, whether it's a trade school or college beyond that, who is more likely to suffer from the effects of violence in their community, it's our young boys. And I do think that something happened weird with American leadership, where, justifiably, they wanted to make sure that our young girls had an equal playing field, but, in the process, so many of them completely ignored our young men.

And I think that one of the most important things that we can do is just give young boys the resources, young men the resources in order to overcome those disadvantages. And part of that's going to be a grandfather stepping up in their life. Let's support those grandfathers. Part of it's going to be somebody like you stepping up in their life.

Let's support them. Thank you, sir.

Thank you so much. All right, we have Justin Mansholt from Dallas, Texas. What do we got, Justin?

Mr. Vice President, Halloween is this Saturday. Last year, you dressed up as Fat JD So I have to ask, if you and President Trump went trick-or-treating together this year, what would you two dress up as? Like you told us in that video, remember to say thank you. So thank you for taking my question. [Laughter]

So, I -- me and my kids get really into Halloween. And if the -- it's funny. If the president and I went together, the president doesn't strike me as somebody who loves to dress up. [Laughter]

But if he really wanted to scare the neighborhood children, he would dress up as Abdul El-Sayed, the far left Democrat from Michigan. [Laughter]

I actually already have my costume. You know, my kids are really into Harry Potter. And so I'm going -- I'm going as Dumbledore, which, if you think about it, with the beard, the white hair, it's kind of like fat old JD [Laughter]

So I feel very comfortable, very comfortable in my Dumbledore costume. But we're really excited about it. When you have four little kids, Halloween is a lot of fun.

Thank you.

Great.

JD Vance, thank you so much.

It's good to see you, Jesse.

We really appreciate you. And good luck out there. And good luck to Ken Paxton and everybody running in this midterm election.

And thank you guys. Thank all of you guys who showed up to this town hall. Couldn't have done it without you. So that's all for us tonight. Sean Hannity is next. And, always remember, I'm Watters, and this is my world.