Speech: JD Vance Holds a Midterm Political Rally in Weatherford, Texas - October 29, 2026

[Audience chants "JD"] How are we doing, Weatherford? And I know we've got, obviously, a packed house in here. Let me give a shout out to all the people watching outside. Thank you for being here to get Ken Paxton elected to the Senate. Now, most of you cannot see this, but we have a patriotic and very brave gentleman up here holding an Ohio State Buckeye fans parking only.

And I would say that, unfortunately, we do not have bragging rights, my friend. But look, it's great to be back in Texas, it's great to be back in God's country, and it's great to fight with Ken Paxton. Now, let me give it up to a couple of legendary Texans who fight for you. I want to give a few shout outs here before we get started.

And every single day in the Trump administration, we have got two great cabinet secretaries who I'm proud to have with me as friends and as colleagues, Scott Turner and Brooke Rollins. I just met Brooke's mom, who is a Texas legislator. And I asked mom, I said, well, since you're a Texas legislator, you have the privilege of serving with James Talafreako. [Laughter] And you know, mom is -- she's Texas nice.

But let me just say, ladies and gentlemen, that she knows as much as all of us do that he is a weirdo and we've got to keep him out of the Senate. Besides our dear friend Ken, we've got some amazing candidates on the ballots, and we've got to give them a shout out -- your next comptroller, Don Huffines. Don, where are you?

Your next attorney general, Mayes Middleton. And the next Congressman from the 32nd district, Jace Yarbrough. And we've got to hear it for the Texans. Jace is already -- or is about to join the folks already in Congress, my very dear friend and the best interrogator of far-left idiots in Congress, Brandon Gill.

Baseball superstar and, of course, a great man, Roger Williams. The amazing Nathaniel Moran. And last but certainly not least, your very own Congressman -- excuse me, Craig Goldman. Craig. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are here for many reasons to support many amazing candidates, but I believe that Texas is one of the most important Senate races anywhere in the United States of America.

Let's give it up for Ken Paxton, your amazing attorney general. And when I look at the size of this crowd, the energy, even though it's a little hot, just a little bit. The headline from this event will not be the amazing crowd or the amazing, amazing energy for Ken Paxton. The New York Times will read tomorrow -- JD Vance sweats his balls off in Texas. [Laughter] But this crowd, this crowd is proof that everything from the enthusiasm, to the spirit, to the patriotism, everything is bigger in the state of Texas.

And what I love about Texas is that Texas is not ashamed of its way of life. Texas feels real pride in the United States of America. Texans feel pride in what we've built, Texans feel pride in our way of life, Texans feel pride in our history and everything that we inherited from our forefathers. But for a long time, ladies and gentlemen, that kind of pride and the communities that felt it got taken for granted by the people who are running the United States of America.

And I saw that even though I grew up far away from Texas, I grew up in a little town called Middletown, Ohio. But what I saw in Middletown is I know what Texans saw for very long -- Washington, DC had left our communities behind. They had left behind the people who grow our food, they had left behind the people who build our machinery, they had left behind the people who kept Texas and kept America running every single day.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, just a couple of short years ago, in 2024, you guys sent a message to DC, you sent a message to the bureaucrats, and you sent a message to the fraudsters that Texas is ready to put America first for a change. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am a big believer that our movement -- at its heart, our movement is about sovereignty.

It is about the fact that the People's government belongs to the people. It doesn't belong to the bureaucrats, it doesn't belong to the fraudsters, it doesn't belong to far-left politicians. It belongs to the people who built the United States of America. Our movement is about preserving the jobs and the communities and the families who grow our food, who fight our wars, and who build the things that keep the United States afloat.

And we've got to remember, ladies and gentlemen, just how much has changed over the last couple of years. We put, finally, American workers back at the center of our trade policy. We're fighting for American jobs. Our nation is building again. We're here at this amazing new facility because we brought in trillions of dollars to our shores in new investment, because if a company wants to grow, it should do so right here in the United States of America.

We've seen an unbelievable, almost unfathomable $670 billion in new manufacturing investments, in new ports, in new refineries, in new factories, and more. Ladies and gentlemen, with our help and our support, the great state of Texas is leading the way for an American renaissance. Thanks to our friends in Congress here, we ended taxes on overtime, we ended taxes on tips, we ended taxes on Social Security, and we expanded benefits for families with young kids because we're fighting for you for a change.

Now, when I say our movement is about sovereignty, I mean something simple. I'm talking about an American government that works again for the American people. For too long, people like my grandmother paid sky-high prices for medicines, while Europeans freeloaded off of the innovation that was created in American labs.

And I happen to believe that sovereignty, a great example of it, is when Donald J. Trump hauled the pharma companies into the Oval Office and demanded that they quit screwing over Americans and drug prices are falling for the first time in 40 years. You know, sovereignty is about going after the visa fraud that we've been going after.

We're going after the CEOs and the foreign corporations who would dare lay off an American worker and replace them with a foreign indentured servant. Because sovereignty means American jobs got to go to American citizens. And we want our young people to be able to afford a home. We want everybody to be able to afford a home.

Which is why we leaned into the sovereignty of banning Wall Street and foreign investors from buying up our homes. As Scott Turner has made sure, American homes go to the American people and nobody else. And perhaps most importantly, we ended the practice of DEI in the United States of America. Because anybody, whether it's an employer or a judge or a university administrator, anybody who would divide us and against us -- our fellow citizens by the color of their skin, anybody who would say that you're more or less American because you're black or white, that person is a scumbag and we tore it out of American law.

And to our politicians, why don't you stop worrying about grappling with your whiteness, as James Talarico has said, and start building opportunity for every American, black or white, rich or poor. That's what you ought to be doing. Now, James Talarico has also said that he really has to grapple with his masculinity in addition to his whiteness.

And, you know, James, the good news is there ain't a whole lot to grapple with. [Laughter] So, stop worrying about your masculinity and start worrying about doing your damn job for the people of Texas. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to be here, but I'm particularly proud to announce a very, very important thing for the people of Texas and for the people of this area.

Because thanks to Ken's advocacy, and thanks importantly to Brooke Rollins hustle, the Department of Agriculture is devoting millions to the opening of a new beef processing facility right here in Texas. Now, this facility in Castro County is going to create hundreds of new jobs and process 400 head of cattle every single day.

And importantly -- Importantly, it's going to give ranchers and local producers a fair shake against the meat processing cartel. And here's the thing about Brooke and about Ken Paxton, they are obsessed with standing up for ordinary American people. They are obsessed with fighting for you. They're obsessed with helping the ranchers and the farmers.

Ladies and gentlemen, why do we have a meat processing cartel in the first place? The way to break it up is to build more and that's exactly what Ken Paxton's going to do. But that same fight, that same fight is why Ken sued the Biden administration more than 100 times to stop the open borders agenda. It's why Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration multiple times to stop the DEI and the Green New Scam.

You know, Ken has never been afraid to stand up to powerful interests, even when others -- even when others within the Republican Party, wouldn't have had the guts to do the same. He took on big insurance companies when they denied Texans important medical care, he sued the big tech firms and the social media giants when they exposed minors to disgusting and illegal content.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ken Paxton -- Ken Paxton took on Big Tech before it was cool. Remember when they were colluding to censor conservatives and to steal our own private data? And Ken Paxton went to court and won billions of dollars from big tech for you. Now Ken is up against a guy who, I hate to say it, is a joke.

I almost -- ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to have to talk to my priest here because I feel a little guilty at this point going after James Talarico. Should I lay off of James Talarico? [Audience responds "No"]

OK, well, I am at heart a person who listens to the people. So, what am I to do but to talk about a man who is hand-picked, hand-picked by Democrat donors in Washington, DC, because they thought that he looked electable. And I wonder if any of those donors got their money back when all the videos came out of him talking about his favorite drag queens, or how there are six genders, or about how whiteness is a disease. [Audience boos]

Or when Talarico got caught on tape saying parents who refuse to trans their kids are, quote, abusive. [Audience boos]

Now, I actually, at an earlier event, was talking to a mom who told me, and I was shocked by it -- we're actually going to have the Department of Justice investigate -- that her 11-year-old child got a letter encouraging that child to transition to a different gender. Now, Talafreako calls the kind of person that would send that letter an honest and decent trans person that he's fighting for.

I call a person who would send a letter like that to an 11-year-old, a pervert who deserves a prison sentence. So, you've got to ask yourself, Texas, when a guy talks about abusing -- abusing children, because that's exactly what it is, and he calls the parents who would protect their kids from that abuse, he calls them abusive.

That is a man who has no morals, that is a man who has no center, and that is a man who can never be in the United States Senate for the great state of Texas. But if we're being honest, the real problem with Talarico is that he is an empty suit. He is the exact opposite of sovereignty. If he makes it to the Senate, his definition of leadership will be whatever Chuck Schumer tells him it is. [Audience boos]

Remember, when James Talarico started adopting the language of his far-left activists, he said he wanted us to stop saying women, and he wanted us to start saying, and I quote, neighbors with uteruses. [Audience boos]

When those same activists told him they didn't like white men either, he started calling them the greatest domestic terror threat in our country. [Audience boos]

By the way, what a disgusting thing to say about your fellow citizens. Ladies and gentlemen, I am, as you probably noticed, a white man. [Laughter] I don't worry about grappling with my whiteness; I just try to raise my kids and live a normal life. But I would never, whether you're black or Latino or white, I would never talk about my fellow citizens as if there was something wrong with them because they have the wrong skin color.

It's disgusting and James Talarico should be ashamed of himself. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm 42 years old, I grew up in an America where we said to everybody, judge people by the content of their character. But James Talarico has apparently decided that he's going to judge Texans by the color of their skin and you ought to reject him for that reason, and many others.

Now when the far left said to stop talking about the Biden invasion, the border invasion, and to say that illegal immigration was good, in fact, Talafreako called for a, quote, giant welcome mat at the border. [Audience boos]

This is what this election comes down to. Ken Paxton believes that the people of Texas ought to decide the future of Texas. And Talafreako believes that the future of Texas ought to be decided by Chuck Schumer. We say hell no to that. And I think part of the reason the far left wants to win is because of what his victory would symbolize.

Texas, more than any state in the Union, is the backbone of the traditional American spirit. It represents something, even in the mind of a kid who grew up in Ohio, it embodies patriotism, grit, it embodies duty to neighbor and to country, the very things that make us Americans. But this guy who's running to represent you all, he makes a mockery of all of it. And if he wins next week, they get to say they beat Texas. [Audience responds "No"]

They get to say that Texas is now the state of men in women's sports. [Audience responds "No"]

Ladies and gentlemen, they don't just want to beat you, they want to rub this victory of theirs in your face. They want to humiliate us by sending a guy who says things like, men should belong in women's sports, they want to make that guy your Representative in the United States Senate. [Audience responds "No"]

They want to send a message to the entire country that even Texas surrendered. [Audience responds "No"]

Well, I have news for everybody who wants that, and I can see it in the crowd today. Ladies and gentlemen, Texas ain't surrendering. Texas is not becoming California, it's going to stay Texas, ain't that right? And that's why on Tuesday we need to say hell no to Talarico. Hell no to the crazies. We're electing Ken Paxton and sending him to Washington.

Now, I'd just like to remind you all that in 18 months, a lot of good has happened. We closed the border, we cut taxes, there's a lot that we could talk about, but we could do so much more, ladies and gentlemen. With fighters like Ken Paxton, we could further cut your taxes. We can further tear down that bureaucracy of DEI and racial hatred.

We can build more, we can build more factories, we can build more homes. We can create more of the good paying jobs that support our families and sustain our nation. And most importantly of all, right here in Texas, we can make more of our own energy, drill more of our own energy, and build more energy dominance.

Now, you all -- you all, I think it's fair to say, are true believers. Who else would stand out in 115 degree heat in the middle of this warehouse, packed as close as you could to see me rant and rave. [Audience member calls out "We love you"]

Thank you. I love you, too. But I want to I want to say something specifically to the TV cameras, to anybody who's watching, or anybody who might be here who isn't yet convinced of where they're going to place their trust on November the 3rd. I want to talk to the swing voters because there is something you will hear.

You know, James Talarico, he hides from who he is. He doesn't run TV commercials talking about what he's actually done; he runs TV commercials pretending that he's going to be just like Ken Paxton. So, if you watch a James Talarico commercial, I would understand why you would think that he's actually going to fight for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's been in public life for a while, and he hasn't done a damn thing for the state of Texas. But, you know, one of the things that James Talarico will say, to be fair, and I think a lot of people are hearing this message, is he'll say, you know, gas prices are too high. And I understand that, it's true.

It's also true that the reason gas prices are too high is that they go up every time a foreign leader in the Middle East throws a tantrum. And that's been true, ladies and gentlemen, before I was alive. That was true back in the 1970s . Now, the reason why that's true is because every time Democrats get power, what do they do? They shut down oil drilling, they shut down refineries, they shut down the very thing that makes us energy independent.

And what Ken Paxton wants to do, and has fought for for his entire life, is to drill, baby, drill and build more energy right here in Texas. What James Talarico won't tell you in his TV advertisements about gas prices is that he supported Joe Biden's green energy scam. What he won't tell you about gas prices is that he has supported the very policies that have made this country more vulnerable to those Middle Eastern dictators in the first place.

Remember, the Biden administration tried to kill Texas Energy, and James Talarico was standing right there with him. He was standing right there with him when Joe Biden shut down 20 percent of America's refining capacity in just four years. [Audience boos]

But when you shut down that refining capacity, you make us more reliant on those foreign producers. This is simple, ladies and gentlemen, more Democrat policies on green energy scams mean higher energy prices and more reliance on the Middle East. But under Donald Trump, just last week, we announced a nationwide expansion of American refinery capacity, starting right here in the state of Texas.

So, when we talk about energy dominance, the kind of independence that leads us to rely on nobody but our workers, we're talking about the policies that are going to make us less reliant on anybody except for -- So, it takes a certain kind of audacity for Democrats like James Talarico to say that Texas energy jobs are immoral, which is what he has said.

And then to run talking about the price of gas. Ladies and gentlemen, anybody who says that Texas energy jobs is immoral, first of all, they're a scumbag and a liar. But second of all, they are trying to trick you. They are trying to lie to you, and they are trying to make you forget that, while Ken Paxton has fought his entire career to lower your energy prices, James Talarico has fought to increase them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to close here by just trying to paint a little bit of a picture of what we want in our country. I do not -- I trust you, I love this country. I don't want to tell you how to live your lives. I don't want to tell you what kind of business to build or what kind of job to take. My job as your vice president is to fight every day for you to have the Texas freedom to create a business, to have a good job, to send your kids to schools that educate them instead of indoctrinate them.

I want -- A lot of you know my story, ladies and gentlemen. I came from a broken home. I was raised by a grandmother who very often had to choose between whether to buy medicine or whether to buy food. And I stand here, a product of the American dream as your vice president of the United States, it's a great country.

But because the American dream was there for me, I want it to be there for you and your children. I want your kids to dream big. I want your kids to be able to fall in love and buy a home and build a beautiful and amazing family. I want them to be able to have a decent career not a thousand miles away, but right here in Texas if they so choose to do it. I want you to be able to send your kid to school or send your kid to a park and know that public safety is the birthright of every American child and not worry about what's going to happen to them.

What I want for you, ladies and gentlemen, is, in other words, exactly what I want for my own kids. I want them to have a future in this country that all of us love. But the only way that we can screw that up is by sending politicians who don't give a damn about you but give a damn about the far-left interest groups who have tried to tear this country up to its very foundation.

So, I'm asking you a question, Texas, because I need you. I need you to get out there for my family and for yours. I need you to get out there and vote for Ken Paxton. Are we ready to do it? I need you to send a message on November the 3rd that America belongs to those who love it, not those who hate it. I need you to tell James Talarico that his weird obsession with trans kids is not good for the state of Texas.

And I need you to send a message to every far-left activist, to everybody who expects Texas to surrender, that in five days Texas is not surrendering a damn thing. Vote Ken Paxton for Senate. God bless you.