Speech: JD Vance Addresses a Campaign Event in Olathe, Kansas - September 14, 2026

Wow. Kansas, how we doing today? I see a lot of Chiefs Kingdom gear out there. Are we excited about Kansas City tonight? You may have seen the Bengals one season opener and, uh, the, the TV stations, were all talking about how it was a new record because Cincinnati had won our first game of the year, two seasons running. [Laughter] And my nine-year-old turns to me and says, "That's not very impressive, is it dad?" [Laughter] I said, "No, son, but we'll take what we can get." So, good luck, good luck tonight to Kansas City.

So first, I got a few thank you's here, and I wanna start by thanking, most importantly, the men and women in leadership of Webco, this amazing metal fabrication shop. And I particularly wanna call out the workers here because you've got some incredible welders and machinists making amazing things every single day.

And one thing that's really cool about this company is that it is 100% worker owned. It's an amazing thing. Which means that if you guys wanna take the day off to welcome the Vice President of the United States, you can do that. It also means that every single person in this factory who works here, who builds a life here, who makes the incredible things made in this place, it gives more than a job and a steady paycheck.

You have a real stake in the future of this business and in the future of this company. Now, there are a few other folks that I wanna thanks, thanks specifically for joining today. First, you heard from her already, but you have no idea on both the fraud task force and on supporting our small businesses, we have a great fighter in Kelly Loeffler.

Kelly, thank you for everything you're doing. The most famous of the anti-fraud fighters, our great FTC chairman and most importantly, my co-lead of the Anti-Fraud Task Force, Andrew Ferguson. Andrew, thank you. You know, I was talking actually to a Fox News producer who told me that one of their highest rated guests is Andrew Ferguson because people hate fraud, and he's doing an amazing job fighting against fraud every single day.

We've got several friends from Congress joining us today representing this great state, including representatives Tracey Mann and Ron Estes. Tracy and Ron. My very dear friend from right across the border, the great senator from Missouri, Senator Eric Schmidt. Eric, good to see you, man. And importantly, the great Ty Masterson who has been your Senate President and your next governor.

And as your Senate President, he has passed the largest tax cuts in history, has fought against corruption and fraud tirelessly in the great state of Kansas, and is gonna make an even greater governor than he does as Senate President. Ty, thank you. And last but certainly not least, my very, very good friend, the great Senator and Dr. Roger Marshall for the great state of Kansas.

Thank you, Roger. For five years, Doc Marshall has fought tirelessly for the people of the great state of Kansas. I've seen it in private. As amazing as he is in public, in private, Roger Marshall is just as good a senator and just as good of a man. He is the guy who tells the lobbyists, "I don't fight for you.

I don't work for you. I work for the people in this room." And he means it every single day. Roger has been the guy who comes to work every single day and fights for you. And in the process, he has made an incredible ally of our administration, as we fought to implement the agenda that every single person in this room voted for in 2024. When the lobbyists and the special interests and the far left lunatics come and try to fight against the people in this room, Roger Marshall has been on the right side of every single battle.

At every opportunity, he has stood up for the workers of the great state of Kansas. He has stood up for the businesses of the great state of Kansas. When other people, when foreign interests want to come in and undercut the wages of Kansas workers, he has been the person saying, "I fight for the labor of Kansas workers.

I fight for the dignity of Kansas workers. And we are not gonna stand by as we allow illegal immigrants and foreign corporations to undercut the wages of the people in this factory." Ro- -- Roger --

[An audience member calls out in protest]

Oh, I see, I see, I see we have, I see we have a guy who is protesting. Sir, the last, tou know, the, the last, the last time, the last time I gave a speech and we had a guy who was interrupting, he had the common courtesy to bring a Mexican flag so we knew where he stood. Now this guy, this guy I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, here's what happened, is he decided to come in and lie about my very dear friend Doc Marshall because the reality is that Doc Marshall has stood up for everyday Americans every single day he's been in the United States Senate.

An issue that's close to my heart that Roger and I worked on when we were in the Senate together, he has been the leader on the fight against Wall Street to bring down out of control credit card swipe fees, which is gonna make life affordable for everyday Kansans and everyday Americans. Roger's been the guy who's been standing up for Kansas retailers and Kansas small businesses by saying that he wants more money to go into the pockets of Kansas small businesses and Kansas workers and not to out-of-state credit card companies.

And it's been because of Roger Marshall that Republicans have been able to pass the largest tax cuts in American history. It was because of Roger Marshall that we ended taxes on tips, on overtime and on Social Security. This is a man who fights for you. And with the help of Roger Marshall, but also the great congressional leadership in this building, we've been able to reverse 40 years of industrial decline in this country.

You have to remember that I grew up in a town where every single year it seemed like a factory would close down. But Donald Trump came into office with a totally different vision and thanks to the help of Roger Marshall, we've been implementing it every single day, which is to give American workers a fighting chance again and have a government that fights for you.

The job of your government, ladies and gentlemen, should be to protect your jobs, protect your dignity, protect the hard work, protect the companies that invest in you rather than ship good American jobs overseas. Our job is to fight for workers like Brayden Lewis, a 23-year-old in the paint department. Brayden, where are you?

Now Brayden started working at Webco in February of last year and in just a year and a half. You, you got a new job early last year too, Brayden? Me too. I got a new job early last year. [Laughter]But what everybody will tell you at Webco is that in a year and a half, he has worked his tail off, resulting in his promotion to lead and a 50% raise in just a year and a half.

Brayden, that's not too bad. I have not gotten a 50% raise in the last year and a half, so I'm not doing as well as Brayden has. But because he's a hardworking guy, because he's a diligent guy, he often takes night shifts. And because our administration eliminated taxes on overtime, Brayden has got more money in his pocket, which is exactly how it should be. Now, the reason I love Brayden's story is because it is the American story, working hard to master a trade and earning a stake in the company that he's devoting his career to. That is exactly the kind of All-America success story that your government should be fighting for every single day.

And thanks to Roger Marshall and Donald J. Trump, your government does fight for the Braydens of this factory every single day. Because ladies and gentlemen, our goal is very simple. It is to turn back decades of open borders and bad trade policy. Decades of the leadership of this country looking at amazing Americans who work with both their brains and their hands and dismissing that work as an artifact of the past.

For too long, our leadership says the work that sustained this factory was the work of other countries, the work of other people. But you know what Kansas said in 2024? To hell with that, we're gonna reinvest in our country again. And you know what happened instead, thanks to that decision. You know what happened thanks to President Trump and guys like Roger Marshall?

Since Inauguration Day, just 18 months ago, we have added one million new jobs, all of them to American citizens instead of foreign workers. Since the start of just this year, about 60,000 of those new jobs are in American manufacturing, but importantly, we are not done yet. We're gonna build more factories.

We're gonna build more investing into the United States of America. We're gonna create new jobs and we're gonna create more and more promotions for the workers like Brayden who are working their tail, tail off every single day. And as companies break new ground on new manufacturing facilities, they're gonna start building new assembly lines.

There's gonna be more demand for metal cutting and painting and machine tools. And we're gonna see that great American renaissance in American manufacturing. This has not happened overnight, ladies and gentlemen, but we are seeing it already, the incredible work that we've had in the United States leadership over the past 18 months.

We're seeing companies like Webco right here in Kansas are literally rebuilding America's future. So it's our job. So we're thrilled to support them. We, we're thrilled to have been supporting them for the past 18 months and with great leaders like Roger Marshall, we're gonna keep on fighting for you for the next two and a half years and beyond.

Now we gotta remember, we gotta go back in time a little bit to remember just how far we've come in 18 short months because before Donald J. Trump's inauguration, before Brayden joined this company, we had for four years an administration that saw supporting all American companies like Webco as the very bottom of their priorities.

Time after time, the same people who came to your towns and your cities asking for your vote, they threw you under the bus when the stakes were the highest. For four years, remember, Democrats invited millions of illegal immigrants to take over your communities, make your towns less safe, and compete with you for jobs that all by right go to American citizens.

They let in, they let in the very worst of the worst into small towns and big cities all across this state and the people that flooded our country. They were murderers, they were predators, they were gang leaders, they were fraudsters and they were drug traffickers, and the previous administration let them in by the bushel.

Now let's just take one particularly charming example. A guy by the name of Akhror Bozorov. I don't know if I got that right. In 2022, back home in his native Uzbekistan, Akhror gets charged with literally distributing jihadist propaganda and trying to recruit his fellow Uzbeks to engage in radical terrorism.

So what does he do? What any highly dangerous wanted criminal did during the Biden years, he got a first class ticket to the United States of America. Because at that point, if you remember, the administration was quite literally putting an open sign on the southern border of the United States of America.

Now, sure enough, the Biden administration picks him up after he enters the US illegally in February of 2023, and what does it do? It releases this guy right back into our streets. [Audience boos]

Fast forward to last November, and the Trump administration and ICE arrest this guy right here in the great state of Kansas. Now, now, here's the kicker, ladies and gentlemen. This quite literally convicted terrorist who was in the United States illegally, what was he doing? He was a commercial truck driver on the streets that you drive with your children every single day.

Now, Josh Shapiro, who is Pennsylvania's Democrat governor, he had given Akhror a license to drive a 40-ton truck down the highways of the United States of America. You were taking your ch- -- kids to school, and this lunatic, a literal convicted terrorist, was illegally driving on the streets that you share with your neighbors.

Kansas's roads became less safe because the Democrats and leadership refused to enforce our immigration laws. And here's the thing, it is not hard to enforce the law, my friends, but for years, we heard Democrats say that we needed a giant new law to fix the crisis that they had created at the southern border.

But it turns out we didn't need new laws, ladies and gentlemen, we just needed a new president of the United States. And on day one, we of course ended the border invasion and now we've had 15 straight months of zero releases at the American Southern border. But we didn't stop there. We told American corporations that if they needed new workers, they should start by training and hiring their own fellow citizens, not foreign illegal nationals.

And so for the first time in my entire life, that is not exaggeration, America has seen net migration out of the United States of America as we send millions of illegals back to where they belong. We've reduced the illegal immigrant population, which by the way, was at the highest level in recorded history by, one, closing down that southern border, but we also incentivized illegal immigrants to leave the United States of America.

We made it easy for you all to get jobs, for you all to build a life in the United States of America, and we told illegal immigrants to go back to where they came from because we're investing in American workers for a change. Now, the Democrats will say, the congressional leadership will say that this is all about hating foreigners.

But ladies and gentlemen, this is not about hating anybody, no matter what the radical fringe of the left says. This is about love for our fellow citizens. This is about standing up for them. This is about standing up for workers at factories. This is about standing up for your good jobs, your good wages, and for your neighborhood's safety.

Because for too long, we had a leadership that said the way to love the United States of America was by letting unvetted foreigners come into our country. The way to love the United States of America is for, by fighting for the people who are here and have the right to be here. And the reality is that millions of people who should have never been here to begin with, they've, as they've exited our country, we've started to see finally some pressures on pricing come down in the United States of America.

Remember, under Joe Biden, the cost of a median priced home more than doubled. In four years, the price of a home doubled under Joe Biden. But now for the first time in five years, rents are falling, especially, by the way, in the cities and the towns where you see the biggest drop in illegal immigration.

The reason is simple. When you start putting American homes into the hands of American citizens rather than illegal immigrants, you see that price start to come down and that's what we got to keep doing. But we're also seeing that our country is getting safer too, 'cause we're currently experiencing the largest reduction in violent crime in US history.

Homicides are at their lowest level in 126 years and it's because we got the criminals out. And I think we ha- -- that's how we have to understand this election coming up in November. It's whether we double down on the great American turnaround or we give power back to the radical left that caused these problems to begin with.

And I hate to say it because I would, frankly, love to be dealing with some reasonable Democrats in Washington DC, but we're not dealing with FDR's Democrat Party. We're not dealing with JFK's Democrat Party. We're not even dealing with Bill Clinton's Democrat Party. This, today, is the party in Washington DC, congressional Democrats, they are the party of race quotas.

They're the party of anti-white discrimination rather than colorblind equality. They're the party of lifting up people and tearing people down based on skin color. Whereas you know what we believe in this room? Whether you're white or Black, whether you're rich or poor, we want every single American child to succeed because every single American is a child of God and a fellow citizen in our country. [Audience chants "USA"]

Now, th- -- this is my favorite part because I get to come around the country and every time I come to a new place, I get to read, or I have to read, what the crazy Democrats that are running in these jurisdictions have actually said. Folks, these people tell on themselves, just listen to them in their own words.

We're gonna get to Kansas in a second, but you know this guy, Abdul El-Sayed, the clown running for Senate in Michigan. [Audience boos]

This guy is a content machine for the Republican Party. He has said that criticisms of Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy. Go look it up. He actually said that. William Lawrence, who's running for Congress alongside Abdul in Michigan said, quote, "F the nuclear family." And he also said, "A world without police and prisons would be a better place." [Audience boos]

He also wrote a song calling for the murder of Democrat Joe Manchin, one of the last few reasonable Democrats that was left in Washington DC. And friends, let me tell you something. I served in the Senate with Joe Manchin, we disagreed on a whole lot. But if your politics are calling you to murder your political enemies, then you are the political enemy of every God-fearing citizen in the United States of America.

Now I wanna get back to Kansas though, because right here in Kansas, we have a couple of Democrats that I think even Bill Clinton, if he was being honest with himselves, would be ashamed of. So we're of course proud to support the great Ty Masterson this fall, right? Well, Ty is running against a left-wing lunatic by the name of Cindy Holscher [Audience boos]

and Cindy would like to be your governor. And you know what her vision is? She says that Kansas should learn from the California model. That is a direct quote. This is a woman who is a Gavin Newsom super fan. She literally kept a photo of him as her iPhone background. Cindy has voted, not just said, but has voted to give taxpayer benefits to illegals, to keep boys in girls' sports, and she has voted repeatedly to increase your taxes. [Audience boos]

Now, I don't know about you, but in my opinion, a woman who says and does those things is way too radical for the great state of Kansas, which is why, which is why I humbly recommend that you send Cindy packing in November and send Ty Masterson to the governor's mansion. Now [Laughs] I've got to say that, uh, Cindy is maybe not as crazy as the guy who's running against Doc Marshall.

You gotta actually look up what Adam Hamilton, that's the guy's name, what he has said about any number of issues. Because Roger, this is the great state of Kansas. You would think that the Democrats, because they wanna win, would nominate a reasonable person, or at least a person who pretends to be a reasonable person.

But what they did is I think that they tried. They said, "What we're gonna do is we're gonna find a church pastor." That's what they're gonna do. But they didn't actually look at what this guy has said and did over his life in the public. Because this guy's pastoral leadership, that's not what you think of. When you think of ministry, you think of going out and serving people, maybe serving some meals to the, to the homeless and the downtrodden, supporting your congregation.

But this guy is a guy who uses his pulpit not to lift people up, this is a guy who uses his pulpit not to serve the Lord or to serve his congregants, this is a guy who says that you need to repent for your white privilege. [Audience boos]

He told his congregation in the great state of Kansas, one of the barbecue capitals of the world, that they need to atone for eating meat. [Audience boos]

And you know this very summer what Adam, Adam Hamilton did, he made sure that his church was a key financial sponsor of something called PrideFest in Kansas City. [Audience boos]

He took, he took, that was the, our, our little protestor friend. He was actually a representative of that organization. That's why he was unhappy. He took the donations from his congregants, from people who show up and try to support the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know what he did? You know where those dollars went?

To events at this festival that were led by strippers and drag queens. [Audience boos]

Adam Hamilton sent his church's donations to sessions with titles, and I'm quoting here, "kink, consent and communication," whatever the hell that means. To sessions whose titles, those are some of the good ones. There are, there are titles that I could not even repeat on this stage or my lovely wife back home would kill me. [Laughter]But maybe worst of all, by sponsoring this festival, Adam Hamilton proudly supported a drag group called Our Ladies of Perpetual Indulgence, which you may remember was the devil worshiping group that was saying special blessings before LA Dodgers games and insulting Christian and every Christian in this room in the process.

We gotta be clear about what this group is. This is an anti-Christian hate group. Its whole purpose is to mock the Christian religion. It mocks nuns. It insults the crops. It desecrates the Eucharist and thinks every person of faith in the United States of America is a joke. So let's review. Democrat Pastor Adam Hamilton thinks it's a sin to be white and a sin to raise cattle and eat meat, but he's okay with supporting groups that spit on God-fearing Americans and mock everything that we hold dear.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is not Christianity. That is left-wing radicalism dressed in the skin suit of our religion. Let's send it packing in November. But more than that, it is the kind of hatred that we rejected in 2024, hatred that asks to split our country up by race, by gender, that tries to separate neighbor against neighbor based on their skin color, based on their background, based on their ethnicity.

This is not a man who is interested in representing the whole of Kansas, Black and white, rich and poor. This is a man who would rather divide us against each other so that he could accrue political power to himself. So to Adam Hamilton and every far left radical who wants to gain power by dividing Americans against each other, our message is simple.

We are united and keeping you as far away from the halls of Congress as possible. So I think the choice before us, ladies and gentlemen, is very simple and very clear. And the choice between Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton, you have somebody like Roger Marshall who has fought to keep your credit card rates low, money in your pocket and your streets safe.

Are we gonna fight for Roger Marshall? [Audience chants "Roger"]

In this race, we have got Dr. Roger Marshall, a proud servant of this state and a proud Christian to boot versus a guy who would insult your faith and spit on your religion to accrue donations to himself. Let's support Roger Marshall and his real faith and real principle. And Doc Marshall, you have a man who devoted his life to delivering babies and making sure that moms and children from every walk of life were safe and had the healthcare that they need.

So I ask you this November to stand for a man who stood for moms and babies, to stand for a man who stood for all Kansas. Let's stand for Doc Marshall and send the crazy people packing. Ladies and gentlemen, elect Roger Marshall to the United States Senate. Thank you all for having me. God bless you, Kansas. We'll fight for you.