Press Gaggle: JD Vance Speaks to Reporters Before Air Force Two Departure - October 29, 2026

Hello. Good morning, everybody. Looking forward to campaigning with Ken Paxton, who's running against one of the oddest ducks I think the Democrats have put forward on their side, a person who has -- has talked about men in women's sports, a guy who's talked about, you know, just -- he's just a crazy person.

And I think Ken Paxton is a great patriot, has made an amazing attorney general in the state of Texas, so we're going to go and talk to some Texas voters and then do a little Texas town hall. So, I'm excited about it. I think the most interesting story this morning is actually the story about Mary Peltola, of course, actually backing the fraudulent Dan Sullivan getting on the ballot, of course hiding from that, lying about it to Alaska voters.

And I'm hearing some -- from some of my friends in the media that now Mary Peltola refuses to answer questions about the fact that she tried to commit election fraud against Alaska voters. So, we're excited about that. If you're in Alaska, vote for Dan Sullivan. If you're in Texas, vote for Ken Paxton. But we're going to have a good day.

Sir, do you agree with the president that she should be -- Mary Peltola should be criminally prosecuted?

Well, I think that we should certainly look into whether she committed election fraud. I mean, she is a person who, for months now, has pretended that she has had nothing to do with the fact that they have put a fraudulent person, a person explicitly designed to confuse Alaska voters on the ballot. She is trying to steal a Senate seat from the voters of Alaska, and it's disgraceful.

So, whether it's criminal or not, she certainly has committed, I think, a great moral failing. And hopefully the voters of Alaska punish her.

Now, what do you think that says about ranked choice voting in general? There's been some pushback to the whole system because of situations like this.

Yeah, I -- I've have heard the pushback to ranked choice voting. I don't understand it. It seems to me that you have an election, the person who wins the most votes should win. That seems to be not what happens with ranked choice voting, so I'm not a big fan of it. The fact that it's so confusing, to a person who pays close attention to politics, I think suggests we should do our -- our elections in, like, the normal way, which is, if you vote for a person and they get more votes than the other person, they -- they should win.

Now, what -- there's also talk of a lame duck session in Congress. Have you discussed with the president what some of the priorities might be in that timeframe?

Yeah, we certainly had some discussions. But obviously, the lame duck session is going to be somewhat contingent on what happens on Tuesday. And so, we've had some discussions about it. We've tried to lay some foundation for a successful legislative session. But I still think it's pretty preliminary, and we'll figure it out, of course, after the midterms.

So, we'll talk to you guys later. Take care.