Thank you all. Thank you. Please, please. It's so great to be back in Wisconsin. Am I saying it right, Wisconsin? All right. I got a thumbs up from a couple of these Congressmen, so I must be doing OK. You know, I think Kelly Loeffler, our small business administrator, is one of the unsung heroes of the Trump administration.
She has single handedly routed out hundreds of billions of dollars -- hundreds of millions of dollars, I should say, and on to billions of dollars over the next couple of years of fraud against the American people. So, we ought to give it up for Kelly. She's doing a great job for all of us, saving us some money.
I will say I took special note of one thing that she said though. Kelly said that I'm the coolest vice president in American history. And I said, Kelly, that is a low standard. That is a very low bar. But I do think that I clear that bar. But I think that was a low standard she set me to. But let me say a few words of gratitude before we get started today, because I'm so grateful to be back in this great state with all of its amazing people.
You all know this, Wisconsin is a state with a proud tradition of building great American products with Wisconsin hands, and that's what we're here to celebrate today in this great facility. Now that would not be possible, of course, without the workers and the leadership of Pointe Precision. And I've been learning a little bit about this facility just because I knew I was going to come here today.
165 great, Wisconsin employees making great American products at a good wage. This is a place that rewards dignified work and this is a place that makes America and the whole community richer. So, you guys should be proud of yourselves. I want to thank the family, Joe and Cindy and their beautiful kids and all -- it looks like we've got some grandkids here, Joe and Cindy.
That's amazing, life's greatest blessing of course. So, great to have you guys, great to see you guys. Wait, what is today, Thursday? Are you all -- should you all be in school right now? I caught you. I caught you. But this is a good excuse, right, the vice president of the United States comes to town. So, you ought to get a get out of school for the day card.
But I want to thank a couple of other people here because all the things I'm going to talk about, all the things we've been doing in the Trump administration would have been impossible without a couple of great Congressional allies. And so, in particular, I want to call out Representative Derrick Van Orden, my dear friend Derrick.
It's hard to miss him, thank you. I've got to tell you, sometimes in Washington -- you get to Washington, there are people you can trust, there are people you can't trust. Derrick is one of those guys you can trust to always fight for the people who are in this room. He knows exactly where he came from, a proud veteran.
And Derrick was talking with me backstage; he's like we've got to do a little video together just so we can get it out there for the Congressional campaign. And I said, OK, absolutely. What do you need me to say? And he said, well, just say that, you know, we fought alongside each other in Vietnam. I said, Derrik, if we were Democrats, we could get away with that, but I don't think that's going to fly.
We're Republicans, these media reporters are not going to let us get away with that. But there are so many great things about Derrick. But all of the amazing things, no taxes on tips, that happened because of Derrick. No taxes on overtime, that happened because of Derrick. No taxes on Social Security, that happened because of Derrick.
So, if you are a citizen in this district and you see a big tax refund check come next month or the month after that, whenever you file your taxes, remember it was Derrick Van Orden who made it happen and it was Congressional Democrats who tried to stop it. So, we're going to send Derrick Van Orden back to Washington -- yes.
We've also got President Trump's endorsed candidate for governor of Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany. Tom, please stand up and be recognized, another great guy. Another guy without whom we could not have accomplished all the great things that we did in Washington DC. Now he wants to come back home and serve as governor.
Are we going to make Tom Tiffany the next governor of Wisconsin? There we go. And then finally, if I had a few people stand up, I want to recognize Representative Grothman. Where's Representative Grothman? Thank you, sir. It's good to see you. Where is Representative Brian Steil? Brian?
A great guy. We're not in Brian's district, but a great guy. We've got Wisconsin GOP Chairman, Brian Schimming. Where's Brian Schimming? Thank you. State treasurer, John Lieber. Where's John Lieber? Thank you, man. Thank you for your service. And finally state Senate president, Patrick Testin.
Patrick, where are you? Thank you. Now here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the stakes coming up in November because it feels like this election in November is very far away. But if anything, the State of the Union should have showed us that we cannot give power back to Congressional Democrats.
Now I am fundamentally an optimist about this country. I believe most people, most human beings, most American citizens, whether they got a D next to their name or an R next to their name or they have no political affiliation, they're good people. They love our country; they want our country to thrive and prosper.
But I've got to tell you, after the State of the Union, I'm not so sure that is true of the Congressional Democrats that we saw at the State of the Union address. As the president of the United States said very well, you watch their reaction to some of what he was saying and all I could think was these people are kind of crazy.
These Congressional Democrats, if you think about all of the things that they were doing -- and I've got to tell you, of course, I've got the best seat in the house in many ways, right? I'm sitting right next to the speaker of the House. I'm sitting right behind the president of United States, and I've got one internal monologue going on. One thought in my head the whole time, which is don't make a stupid face for two hours, which is hard for me when you're on TV for two hours and the Democrats are doing crazy things.
So, I'll give you a little lay of the land. So, to the left, my left, is all of the Republicans, OK, because I'm sitting right behind the president. And to my right is some Republicans, but mostly the Democrats. And so, I see the reaction of all the Congressional Democrats and it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
So, you say, like for example, you have this beautiful little girl had such a sweet moment with her dad, you may have remembered. She's probably six years old. She had been assaulted by an illegal immigrant. She had had a very bad, I think, medical prognosis, but it turned out that she was OK. The six-year-old girl hurt by a human being who never should have been in this country in the first place, who was let into this country by Joe Biden and the Democrats.
And she's hugging her dad and she's so excited and you can tell, and I think everybody's heart feels very -- you know, you get that warm and fuzzy feeling. And then I look over the Congressional Democrats and they're just scowling. They cannot clap their hands for a six-year-old who survived an attack from an illegal alien.
What is that? What kind of a person can't stand up and cheer for an innocent young girl who's doing well, who's showing the entire country strength and resilience? And then the president had this line, I'm not going to get it exactly right, but he said if you believe -- stand up and cheer, if you believe that the American government's first priority should be to look after American citizens instead of illegal aliens.
And all the Republicans, including Derrick and everybody else stands up and starts cheering. And then you look over to the Democrats, complete silence, no reaction at all. The one thing that got at least some of the Democrats to stand up and cheer was the Olympic hockey team, which we're of course very proud of. But you've got to ask yourself, ladies and gentlemen, what is it about a political party that cannot stand up and cheer for a six-year-old girl who survived an attack?
What is it about a political party that can't stand up and cheer for the fact that we have rising wages and low inflation for the first time in a very long time in the United States of America? What is it about a political movement that sees the mother of woman who was murdered on a bus? Because the president highlighted this.
This woman, you know, her 22-year-old daughter was riding on a bus to work, was killed by a violent criminal who was let out of jail 13 times by Democrat leadership. Should have never been on our streets and then murdered an innocent girl. We recognized her mother, her strength and her character and her grief.
And I think we all kind of grieved with her a little bit. And the Democrats cannot even stand up and cheer for that. And so, the question of the next election is not do we want low taxes, and of course we do. It's not do we want a secure border and of course we do. It's a more fundamental question than that.
Do we want to give power back to the people who opened our border, who raised your taxes, who won't even cheer for a six-year-old girl who was wounded because of their bad policies? And I think our answer to that is hell no. We want to give power back to the people like Derrick Van Orden, who fight for us. And here's the thing.
We -- you know, it's funny, I talk to the president multiple times a day. It's kind of the job of vice president; you talk to the president a lot. And every single day the president will say to me what have we done today. Got to do more, got to do more, got to do more, OK. The president has such an intense work pace.
And I sometimes think, Mr. President, we've got to take stock of all the incredible things that we have accomplished over the last year. When Joe Biden and the Democrats left us the government of this country, we had the highest inflation that we had ever had in 40 years. Thanks to Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, we now have inflation at 2.4 percent, the lowest in five years and it's coming even lower, ladies and gentlemen.
Under Joe Biden and the Democrats, the average American lost $3,000 in take-home pay, and under Donald Trump and Republicans in just one year the average American has seen $1,700 increase in take-home pay. That is more money in your pocket and that's what we're here to do is make you guys more prosperous.
Under Joe Biden, in the Green New scam, we had the highest energy prices that we had had maybe in my entire lifetime. And then we had Republicans take over with a simple principle, which is drill baby drill. Get the oil and the gas out of our territory, use American workers to provide American companies the energy that they need.
And now we've got gas prices lower, we've got electricity and utility bills lower, and we've got companies just like Pointe Precision that can actually afford the cost of doing business which they couldn't do when Joe Biden was in charge. So, it's funny to me -- when the Democrats talk about affordability, you heard the president talk about this in the State of the Union address.
Hearing the Democrats talk about affordability is like hearing an arsonist complain about fire. It's your fault. You guys left us a country with sky high inflation. You all left us a country where we were going everywhere but America for energy. You left us a United States of America where the average family was $3,000 poorer.
So, our attitude is, you know what, when you talk about affordability, you're exactly right. You caused an affordability problem, Congressional Democrats, and we are here to fix it. Now I want to say a few more things and then I'll take some questions from the reporters. So, one of the things that I love about what the president has done is he is trying to cut out the fraud and corruption in the federal government.
I've got to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is very, very rampant. We have way too many people who got way too comfortable getting rich off of your tax dollars instead of providing the services that they need or maybe giving you a tax cut. We had fraudsters getting rich off of your generosity. I did a little press conference yesterday with Dr. Oz who runs our Medicare and Medicaid services.
And beforehand we were talking about some of the fraud that he had uncovered in just a couple of months. Let me give you an example. In next door, Minnesota in Minneapolis, not a very well governed state. You had a situation where we have a service that the federal government provides. The states actually provide it and then they get reimbursement from the federal government.
And you know what they do? They help autistic kids with after school services. Because if you know anybody who has autism or is on the spectrum, sometimes you need a little bit of extra help. And so, we've got a program there to help those special needs kids to make it easier for their families. What was happening is that Somali fraudsters, many of whom were illegal immigrants, shouldn't have been in this country to begin with.
You had Somali fraudsters who were saying that their kids were autistic, even though they weren't. They were collecting a fat check from all of you, and they were getting rich from it. So, what happens? You get poorer, your tax dollars go to Somali fraudsters. And worst of all, you've got special needs kids in American communities that we ought to be helping.
And instead of helping them, we're helping fraudsters who don't have the problem to begin with. That is a scandal. And it's something that Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats promoted with their open border, encouraged it and funded it. Now I'm here to tell you that the job of your government is not to open your borders and allow fraudsters to come in and take advantage of you.
The job of your government is to shut the border and shut off the fraud and that's exactly what we're doing in the Trump administration. But you know, it's actually not just the people on the ground who are committing some of this fraud, some of the worst corruption is the corruption that you see in the federal government.
And I know Derrick and a lot of these other guys were standing up cheering for this. Why don't we stop allowing Congressmen and Congresswomen to get rich off of insider trading? Is that common sense? So, again, I've got a seat unlike any other and the president of the United States -- first of all, the whole time the president was giving his speech, I was amazed at his self-control because I would not have had it if I was up there with the microphone.
Because these two women, far left Democrats, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, they're sitting next to each other and they're talking loudly the entire time, OK? So, there's a point at which I almost look over at them and go like this. But see this is the thing you can't do when you're sitting behind the president.
I would have gotten in trouble for that. Even Derrick wouldn't defend me if I did that. But it's just nails on a chalkboard, they're talking, they're interrupting. The president was completely unfazed by it. But again, you're sitting there and then the president gets to the point where he says you know what?
We're going to stop Congressmen and Congresswomen from getting rich off of insider trading from violating the public trust that you have put in them and get rich off of insider trading. Of course, a lot of people stand up and cheer, most of the Democrats don't. You know who was not standing up and cheering?
Nancy Pelosi. I have never seen a person more angry in my life than Nancy Pelosi when the president of the United States is calling out insider trading. Ladies and gentlemen, my hope for all of you, of course, is that we can make you richer and more prosperous and safer in your communities. But my hope for all of you is that you find somebody who loves you as much as Nancy Pelosi loves insider trading because then you will have a very good life indeed.
[Laughter] But on all these things, we just have to stop the fraud. The government exists to serve you. We want the government of course to be smaller. We want it to have -- to be limited in its scope. We don't want it in your pocketbooks. We don't want it telling you what to do. But there are a few things you need the federal government to do. You need it to provide for the common defense.
We need a good military. You know, we need it to ensure that people like special needs kids are able to get the essential services that they need and can't afford. I happen to believe -- I grew up in a poor family. When we have people who are down on their luck, we don't want those people to starve or not be able to get medical care.
We want to make sure that Americans are taking care of Americans. But that is not possible if we allow fraudsters to come into our country and get rich off of your generosity of spirit. And so, I want you, when you go to the polls in November, I don't want you to just think about all the great things that we've accomplished, all the great things that we've talked about.
I don't want you just to think about no taxes on tips and lower gas prices. I want you to think who is going to protect my money from fraudsters. And the simple answer is it's Derrick Van Orden and Congressional Republicans. It is not the Democrats who created this problem to begin with. I've got so many notes here.
I could sit here and go on for another 45 minutes. Housing prices are down, apartment rents are down four months in a row. We came in saying we wanted to make housing more affordable and we're starting to make good progress on that. The annual cost of a new mortgage in just a year is down by $5,000. And my friends, if we could get Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates because the inflation is now low, then those mortgage costs would come down even further.
I happen to believe, and I know the president of United States does, that when young people look at their country, one of the best things that we can do for our young families is make it possible for them to afford a home again and raise a family on a piece of land that they themselves own. I happen to believe that we do not want our young people to be permanent renters.
In the society that was built by their parents and grandparents we are going to fight for our young families to own a home and that's exactly what we've been doing for the past year. Let's keep on doing it. But let me just close with this one final thought and then I'll take some questions from the media.
There are a lot of specific issues that matter. We could talk about all of them. We could talk about the fact that we've got a closed border and they opened it. We could talk about the fact that we've got the lowest murder rates in the United States of America in 100 years. And you wonder how did that happen so quickly?
Two reasons. Number one, we empowered our great law enforcement officers to do their job. And the last administration was holding back. And two, we got a lot of violent criminals the hell out of this country and sent them back to where they belong. That's how you get a low murder rate. We've got so many things we could brag on, so many things that we've still got to do. We've still got to work to make home ownership affordable for young families.
You know, you've probably seen the headlines about -- you know, the stock market has been doing incredibly well because the economy's been doing incredibly well. But the president asked me probably four months ago, he said what about the Americans who don't own stocks. And so, he's created a new program where we can allow the 35 percent of Americans that don't own stocks to open up the kind of accounts like a 401(k) that some workers have access to, other workers don't. We're going to allow every worker to open up that kind of account.
So, when the stock market goes up, it's good for every single American citizen, not just the 60 to 65 percent of people who own stocks. We want to make it good for everybody. So, there's still so much more that we can do. But the fundamental question I don't think is this issue or that issue. The fundamental question is who fights for you?
And what I saw at the State of the Union, when I saw all those Democrats sitting on their hands, even when we're celebrating little girls who survived a terrible attack, it hit me that these Democrats, most of them, they don't serve you. Now ask yourself, why are they sitting on their hands? I would like to think -- I don't know them personally.
Maybe Derek would disagree with me, but I'm going to be a little charitable to those Congressional Democrats. And I think when that little girl was standing up hugging and kissing her dad that those Democrats, there was at least a part of them, the human part and their soul that wanted to stand up and cheer for that little girl and all of them sat on their hands.
And you have to ask yourself why is that? And the answer is because they know they don't answer to you; they answer to somebody else. They answer to people who have corrupted this country, they answer to people who opened the border, they answer to people who got rich off of illegal immigrant labor. We want you guys to get rich off of the labor of American citizens.
We want American workers to get rich for working hard, not illegal aliens. And that to me is the fundamental difference between Congressional leadership and Congressional Democrats and the Congressional Republicans under the leadership of this president. These guys, they don't serve you. Watch a speech of any of the Congressional Democrats, go watch a -- if you can handle it. Maybe have a few good Wisconsin beers beforehand and prepare yourself.
But watch a speech when these guys talk about illegal immigration and then watch a speech when they talk about manufacturing jobs for American workers. That doesn't give them passion; that gives Donald Trump passion, that gives Derrick Van Orden passion. The idea that every single one of you should have a good job, a good life if you work hard and play by the rules.
The idea that our young families should be able to own a stake in their country, that's what fires us up. That's what we're fighting for in government. But you watch these Congressional Democrats, what really fires them up, they get really mad at the idea that we are deporting illegal immigrants. They talk about the dreams of illegal immigrants who have come into our country.
But what about the dreams of you and your children? Because that's who I'm fighting for. That's who Donald Trump is fighting for and that's who Derrick Van Orden is fighting for. I'm not going to tell you -- and I know there are a lot of people who are going to watch clips of this or even watching it live right now.
I'm not going to tell you you're going to agree with us. Agree with me on every single issue? That'd be impossible. Even in the Republican Congress, which is just 220 or so very good guys. You've got disagreements of opinion; you've got some people who will say this thing about this issue and something else about another issue.
Disagreement is fine, but I'm not asking you to agree with us on everything. I'm asking you to remember who serves you. And what I know about Donald Trump and the Congressional Republicans is that we wake up every single day, and we think about how do we fight for you. The question in November is do we give power to the people who fight for corruption, who fight for fraud, who fight for illegal aliens, or do we give the government to the American citizens for whom it was designed and for whom it was created?
I think I know the answer. Let's vote for our people. Let's vote for Derrick Van Orden next November. Thank you all. Thank you, guys. Thank you all. OK, thank you. Thank you. Please, have a seat and what we'll do is we'll answer a few questions from the media. And I would ask that the local reporters get first dibs here and then we'll answer as many questions as we've got time for. So go ahead.
Alex Loroff with Spectrum News 1. Mr. Vice President, there was a poll released yesterday of Wisconsin voters where 70 percent of respondents said their biggest concerns right now are affordability and the cost of living. What can still be done at the federal level to ease some of those affordability concerns that Wisconsinites still have?
Well, look, it's our top concern too. We want people to be able to afford a good life. Nothing breaks my heart more than the idea that you've got somebody who goes out, they bust their rear end, they come home, they want to give their kids a nice meal, maybe once or twice a year they want to take their kids on a nice vacation.
We want people to be able to afford that so long as they work hard and play by the rules. And I think the thing that we've tried to remind ourselves of in the Trump administration is we were put in a very big hole. When you talk about the average American family under Biden's leadership that lost $3,000 of take-home pay, we think every single day, how do we get that $3,000 back and then some?
You heard me say earlier -- and this is a true statistic -- that the average American family has gained about $1,400 under the Trump administration just in about a year and a month. Now that's something we're very proud of, but we think every single day that still means that, compared to when Biden took over, those Americans are still running behind.
They're still catching up. So, I think what we have to do every single day is come up with ideas for how to make the American people's lives better and that's what we're doing. Some of this is the policies that we've already put in place take a little bit of time to work their way through the system. Some of it is we've got to keep on working at it. You know, a few months ago the president of United States had the big pharmaceutical companies into the Oval Office.
And normally what happens is these big pharmaceutical companies, they come to Washington, thanks to the fraud and corruption, and they get a big fat paycheck from Congressional Democrats. You know what they got Instead? They got a lecture from the president of United States -- why is it that the people in this room for my entire life and then some paid the highest prescription drug prices in the world, while people in England or France or other rich countries paid much lower prices?
And the reason is because the pharmaceutical companies took advantage of us. That was corrupt. It was unacceptable. Now you're already starting to see this with certain medications and you're going to see it with more. But the president of United States said we are done paying more than Europe for prescription drugs.
We want to pay what they pay. And if you're not going to take that deal, then get the hell out of my office. Well, they took that deal. So, my -- so we've got to keep working at it. But I'd say to Wisconsin voters, whether they're conservative or liberal or in the middle, I'd say to them ask yourselves what kind of a hole the Joe Biden era put us in. And do you want to give power back to the people who created those problems?
Or do you want to double down on the administration that has busted our tails for the last year to fix those problems? Let's double down on the leadership that's fixing the problems, not the leadership that created them.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President, Matt Smith from WISN-TV in Milwaukee. On the fraud efforts and what we saw in Minnesota yesterday, here in Wisconsin, the governor has refused to give over the SNAP data here in the state along with the voter data. I'm curious, is there a point or at what point would the administration withhold federal funds from Wisconsin?
Well, look, we're going to look at every option that we have because we've got to stop this terrible fraud, but that is absurd. Ask yourself a question. Why would the government of Wisconsin not want to help us kick fraud off of the welfare rolls and kick fraud off of the voter rolls? And the only answer I can possibly come up with is because they like to cheat.
There's no other real explanation. Now the governor might say -- in fact, I'm sure the governor would say this. Let me just be charitable to those who disagree with us. The governor would say, well, there isn't as much fraud as the Trump administration believes there is. Well, even if that's true and it's not.
But even if that's true, let's get what fraud there is off the voter rolls and off the welfare rolls. You know the right number of people who should be illegally voting in American elections? Zero. You know the number of people who should be fraudulently collecting food stamps? Zero. I want those benefits to exist for the people who need them.
The only way to promise that is to get the fraud out of the system and that's what we're trying to do in the Trump administration. No more fraud, no more corruption. It shouldn't be hard.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Ellie Davis, Local 5 News. What should data centers do to be good community partners?
Well, that's a very, very good question and you saw the president talk about this in the State of the Union address. Look, there's good news and bad news with data centers. Now the good news is, first of all, they're big facilities. You create a lot of construction jobs. In this next generation of the technological revolution, you need those data centers to make that run.
Those data centers are like the gasoline of the technology revolution that we're going to see over the next 75 years. And I don't know about you all, but I want America to win that technology revolution. I don't want China or some other country to win it and so that's why we've got to have these things. Now here's the downside.
If those centers are built and the local governments aren't ensuring that there's enough power for those data centers, then it's going to increase electricity costs for everybody else. And so, what we think the data centers have got to do is they've got to work with the local governments, with the state governments and in the federal government we are trying to do everything that we can so that if you build a data center, for example, you can just build a power plant right next door.
What I think we ought to be working towards is you build those data centers and electricity costs come down for American citizens instead of going up for American citizens. The data centers can afford it. We've got to make sure that they're good neighbors so that when they come in and build these great buildings, the people in their neighborhood, the people in their community benefit too and that's through lower power, that's the best way they can be good neighbors. Thank you.
Hello, my name is Laura Schulte; I'm a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And in Wisconsin rural hospitals are struggling. Closures are creating healthcare deserts for parts of the state. What can be done federally to keep those hospitals open and providing necessary care to community members?
Yeah, that's a -- I appreciate that question. It's a very, very serious problem and unfortunately this, like so much of else of what's going on in our country right now, is a problem that we inherited from the last administration. If you look at the number of rural hospital closures that were happening in 2022 and 2023 and 2024, it was really accelerating.
And it's one of the reasons why -- it's not a provision that's talked about as much. But if you look in the Big, Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, however you're calling it, in that legislation, there was a multibillion-dollar rural hospital fund to try to help these rural hospitals persevere in tough times, stay open, provide essential services and get them to a place where they're on firmer financial footing.
Nothing like that, I don't believe, Derrick, had ever existed in the federal government before, but we said, look, we cannot let these rural hospitals just disappear. So, we've created this fund to try to support the ones that can stay open and try to slow the closures for the ones that are going to have to close.
We think that we're starting to see some good evidence from those. It takes a little bit of time for that tens of billions of dollars to work its way through the system. But that's the number one thing. And then the number two thing is the Trump administration did a number of things in the first term, and we're trying to do this in the second term, to give patients more choice.
Because what we often do in our health care system, like for example, if you're a veteran, under the Biden administration, we would force veterans to drive an hour and a half away to a big city hospital when they could maybe go to a telehealth appointment in their own home or maybe drive 15 minutes down the road to the local doctor.
So we've tried to empower people to have more choice because if they have more choice, they're going to be able to stay in their communities, which means more money going to those rural healthcare organizations. And that's the way that we save rural health care too. It's a tough problem. I'm not going to pretend it's easy, but we are working as hard as we can to make sure that the people in our rural communities still have access to great health care. Thank you.
I'm Stephanie Hoff with the Midwest Farm Report Radio Network talking to farmers across the state of Wisconsin. My question for you today is commodity markets have not been friendly to Wisconsin farmers, I'm talking corn, soybeans and dairy. What is the administration doing to bolster trade, increase export markets and those relationships to bring market prices back up?
Yes. So, the good news on that is that our great Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke, has been on this from the very beginning. I think it was maybe the first cabinet meeting where Brooke comes up to me and says, JD, the farmers have inherited a mess, and we've got to do everything that we can to ensure that they can stay afloat during this very tough time.
So, one of the things that we're doing is making sure that, wherever commodity prices are, that our farmers can do their job, they can provide their food. And if they fall on tough times, there's a little bit of a support mechanism there. Now you might say why do we do that, but the answer is actually very simple.
If we don't have American sovereignty in our food supply, we don't have sovereignty at all. If you cannot depend on your neighbors to provide your food, if the food that you're relying on comes from another country, say goodbye to sovereignty because that country is the one that controls you. The country that controls the food is the country that will ultimately control the entire world.
So, we've made very strong efforts, and we're going to keep on working at this with our farmers to ensure that whatever commodity prices are, they're able to stay afloat, they're able to grow their products. We know that they're struggling and we're trying hard to fix that. The other thing the president has done is for a very long time China, one of the biggest buyers of soybeans, they would take advantage of American markets, but they would not take the product of Wisconsin farmers, whether it's corn or soybean or whatever it is, they would Not offload that product into their country.
Now that was a fundamental unfairness and that's why the president is fighting back and making sure that we have fair trade practices. If you don't have countries honoring the United States of America, our great farmers and our great manufacturers. If you have countries that are able to come in and undercut the wages of our workers but we're not able to export their products.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is not trade, that is international fraud and that's what's been happening far too long all over the world. The president of United States is stopping it. We're going to keep on stopping it to the benefit, not just of Wisconsin farmers, but Wisconsin manufacturers too. So, I'll take -- let's say we'll take two more questions here. Sir.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Dylan Eckhart. Nine news out of Wausau, WAOW. Nationally there has been bipartisan legislation introduced. Sticking with agriculture, for example, the Domestic Organic Investment Act, which would make a USDA's development grant permanent allowing for grants for farmers and businesses.
How will the administration continue to work with local farmers and businesses in Wisconsin, especially central Wisconsin, to expand on some of those ideas and introduce legislation?
Well, you heard a little bit of my answer in the last question, but you're right that there's a lot of legislation that's working through the Congress. And as broken as Congress is as an institution sometimes, there are still some good pieces of bipartisan legislation that happen. Luckily, I think agriculture is one of those areas where you still have some good bipartisan pieces of legislation.
You asked how we're going to work with local farmers, especially in central Wisconsin. And the answer is just to listen. You know, we've got a great legislative team at the White House, but we've also got a lot of great allies like Derrick Van Orden in Congress. And what these guys are doing is they're coming to us with ideas.
And they're saying, look, we heard from our constituents, this is something we've got to do. You know, whatever the product is, sometimes they're most concerned about commodity prices. They're worried that the soybeans and the corn, it's way too low. Sometimes they're worried, of course, about inputs. They're worried about fertilizer.
They're worried about the cost of fuel. So, what we just try to do is work with our allies in Congress. And frankly, we'll work with anybody in Congress who has good ideas about how to help our farmers. We're going to have some good legislation on this front over the next year. It's just a question of getting it over the hill, getting it to the president's signature -- or the president's desk, I should say, for his signature.
Thank you. One more question.
Thank you, Vice President. Derek Tritz, News Watch 12 in Rhinelander. I wanted to ask about the health care worker shortages in several hospitals. Hospitals in Wisconsin are experiencing or are worried about the aging shift, aging demographic shift, and I'm wondering what the administration will do to bolster the healthcare workforce in the coming years.
Yeah, a couple things that we see is, one, we're encouraging hospitals and all health care providers, and we're seeing some evidence of this, to use technology to your advantage, right? So, if you've got, let's say, a guy who needs to see a doctor, but he can see that doctor from the comfort of his own home doing a telehealth appointment.
Sometimes you've got to go into the doctor, sometimes you can actually do that by just talking to the doctor at home. That we're trying to encourage because that puts less stress on some of the health care workers. If you can just see somebody quickly, it's in and out, you don't have to deal with all the paperwork of coming in for a doctor's visit.
That's one of the ways that you relieve that stress and shortage that we see in our health care workforce. The other thing is that we're investing a lot to try to make sure that we meet the doctor, the nurse, the physician assistant shortage. The basic problem that we had in our country is that for a long time we would encourage people to get like women's studies degrees in the United States of America, which maybe you need a few of those.
I'm not sure how much. But what you really need is doctors, you need nurses, you need people who can work with their hands. You need people who can work on a farm, you need people who build and make things and take care of people. And our education system just really underinvested in training the next generation of health care workers.
That's not a problem that's going to be solved overnight, but it is something we're working to solve because we want -- I mean, you know, I see kids in the audience. I'm sure everybody has a young person who wants to be a health care worker, knows somebody in your family or your friendship circle that wants to work in health care.
We've got to make it easier for our young people to choose those careers. Unfortunately, for a very long time, we've actually made it harder for people to go into the health care field. We layer up those who do with debt, and we make it harder for them to join the workforce. We're trying to make it easier for people to enter the health care field and, in doing that, that's how you release the long-term shortage.
So, that's all I have. I appreciate everybody who asked a question. I'm sorry if you didn't get time to ask a question but let me just leave you with this one final thought. So, I've got three little kids at home, and I've got one on the way. I've got an eight-year-old, I've got a six-year-old, I've got a four-year-old and Usha is pregnant with baby number four, which we're very happy about, very proud of. Thank you.
But my eight-year-old, he's gotten really into football in the last -- in the last probably three or four months. Don't hold it against him. He's an Ohio State fan; that's his dad rubbing off on him. Are we Wisconsin fans here in central Wisconsin? OK. But here's the thing, we were watching -- we watched over the past few days -- we watched Rudy.
Does everybody remember the movie Rudy about this guy? He was too little. He wasn't fast enough, he was five foot six, but he worked his tail end off and he made the Notre Dame football team at really the height of Notre Dame's power. I mean they were one of the best, they still are, but they really were one of the best football programs back in the country.
And it really is just this incredible tale of a guy who believed in his dreams, who fought for those dreams and would never give up -- a classic American tale. But I was watching that movie, and I realized the three most important people in that movie -- obviously one is Rudy, the guy who became the football player.
But number two is Rudy's dad. And number three is the priest. There's a priest in the movie who sort of serves as a spiritual counselor to Rudy. And it kind of hit me watching this movie that the American dream takes many shapes and sizes. I think all of us know that. Even among our own kids, our grandkids, our friends and family, you've got the striver, you've got the guy like Rudy, who's got really big dreams, wants to play football for Notre Dame and is going to make those big dreams happen.
But you've also got a guy like Rudy's dad, a guy who just wanted to work a good job, who wanted dignified work, who wanted to raise his family and take a nice vacation every now and then. And then you had this priest who was kind of the glue that held everything together, that helped people when they were struggling, that provided counsel to people when they were down on their luck and was empowered to be a leader in the community.
And I realized watching this that when we talk about the American dream, I'm not talking about my American dream. I'm talking about your American dream. Whether you want to have a good job and raise a healthy happy family, whether your kid wants to go off and play college football, whether you want to start a business like the one that we're standing in, whatever it is, the great thing about this country is that the American dream comes in many shapes and sizes.
But here's the thing about the American dream -- the government cannot give it to you for you. But the government with bad policy and bad leadership, it can destroy that American dream, whatever shape it takes in the lives of you and your children. And so, I just want you to know that I'll never forget where I came from.
Raised in a poor family, raised by a grandmother who would sometimes struggle to pay her prescription drugs or put food on the table and had to pick one or the other. And here I am before you, the greatest crowd in the world, as the vice president of the greatest country in the world. This country is still a place of very big dreams.
But I'm not going to pretend that my dream is your dream. And I just want you to know that every single day I go to work, and every single day Donald J. Trump goes to work and we fight for the American dream for you and your family however you define it, we would really appreciate you not sending us a bunch of crazy Democrats in November, so please don't do that.
God bless you all and thank you.