- 5 weeks ago
The appearance of Vice President JD Vance at the University of Georgia on April 14, 2026, represents a critical intersection of domestic political mobilization and high-stakes international diplomacy. Delivered as the second stop on Turning Point USA’s "This Is The Turning Point Tour," the Vice President’s remarks functioned as a multi-dimensional platform to address the collapse of peace negotiations with Iran, the ideological restructuring of American higher education, and the ongoing leadership transition within the conservative youth movement following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The event, held at the Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia, was characterized by an atmosphere of heightened security and political tension, occurring just weeks before the pivotal May 19 Georgia primary elections.The Geopolitical Context: The Islamabad Impasse and Global Energy VulnerabilityThe most immediate and pressing context for the Vice President’s visit was his return from Islamabad, Pakistan, where he had led a U.S. delegation in face-to-face peace talks with Iranian officials. These discussions, the highest-level direct engagement between the two nations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, were intended to resolve the escalating war in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. However, on Sunday, April 12, 2026, Vance announced that the talks had failed to reach an agreement, citing Iran's refusal to accept U.S. terms regarding nuclear issues, reparations, and maritime control.The Strait of Hormuz and Domestic Economic Ripple EffectsThe collapse of the Islamabad summit has profound implications for the American economy, particularly in the Southeast. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has upended historical trade routes, forcing a global competition for fuel produced in the U.S. Gulf Coast. This has exposed the specific vulnerability of Florida and Georgia, which lack regional refinery capacity and are largely dependent on barges and the Colonial Pipeline for fuel supplies. As fuel producers prioritize high-margin exports to Europe and Asia to mitigate the loss of Iranian crude, domestic consumers in Georgia have faced unprecedented premiums on gasoline and diesel.
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NewsTranscript
00:00:10Governor Burt Jones.
00:00:18How we doing?
00:00:21How's everybody doing tonight?
00:00:25Come on, y'all can do better than that.
00:00:27How's everybody doing tonight?
00:00:32all right listen up everybody I'm Bert Jones I'm lieutenant governor of the
00:00:35great state of Georgia so good to be here with you today and I can just tell
00:00:40you I was just backstage with our vice president how many how many folks are
00:00:44excited about seeing JD Vance so I went to the University of Georgia I
00:00:52I've graduated in 2002 I was on the on the football team up here I was team
00:00:58captain of the SEC championship team and I was talking to the vice president a
00:01:03second ago and I said have you ever been to an SEC football game and he said no
00:01:08I don't believe I have I was like so we're gonna give you I said we're gonna
00:01:13we're I'm gonna let this audience show you what it's like to be at an SEC
00:01:16football game y'all want to do that so I'm gonna go this side over here is gonna
00:01:24go Georgia this side over here is gonna go Bulldogs we're gonna call the dogs for
00:01:29the vice president y'all ready to do that all right here we go Georgia
00:01:55that's what I'm talking about good job they will know where it is so good to be here tonight and
00:02:04I'm so glad to
00:02:05have Turning Point USA y'all know just over just over a year ago Charlie Kirk was
00:02:10here at this same university they were out in the quad there had over 5,000
00:02:15students there and what Turning Point USA has done is unbelievable and the
00:02:22legacy that Charlie has left is something that he did it he started a movement for
00:02:28young people people just like you to and I am so proud of what so many of you have
00:02:33come out here tonight not just support Turning Point USA but support our vice
00:02:39president but also to sit here and say basically you love this country you love
00:02:45what it stands for and you're not gonna take the radical left telling you what to
00:02:51do anymore and I think that's an awesome awesome thing this past this past
00:02:59legislative session Senator Ben Watson we're Senator Ben Watson he's here
00:03:05somewhere he passed he led the charge and passed the first ever first in its
00:03:11history Turning Point USA legislation which allows for every every students that
00:03:17want to start a Turning Point USA Club at their universities and their public
00:03:21schools high schools whatever it might be you now are going to be protected under Georgia
00:03:28law and the friend your first amendment rights to start those clubs and I want to
00:03:36thank I know dr. Watson is here somewhere today dr. Watson stand up for us dr. Watson
00:03:41there you guys give him a big round of applause he and his lovely wife Bernice are here I have
00:03:48my
00:03:49my wife Jan it is our anniversary today can y'all wish my wife a happy anniversary
00:03:58and our two teenage kids are here today and I've got two nephews here they go to
00:04:02University of Georgia one's in law school the other ones in in his third year so go
00:04:07dogs and so we're bulldog we're bulldog born bulldog bred when we die we'll be
00:04:14bulldog dead I'll tell you that right now we love the University of Georgia and I
00:04:18appreciate y'all being here today like I said I'm Burt Jones I'm your lieutenant
00:04:24governor I am running for something though they said I can't be political
00:04:27right now but I am running for something very soon I hope to be your next governor
00:04:33governor so thank y'all very much very good advice and y'all have a great night
00:05:13good advice and y'all have a great night
00:05:33bye
00:15:05Thank you all.
00:22:33We're dealing with humans.
00:23:36a way that you find wrong, well, why don't you stay in your lane and mind your own business?
00:23:42Grief is complicated, and I just, and I, you know, so there's another angle of this, Andrew,
00:23:51which is just so absurd, which is that, you know, people will say that, you know, Erica,
00:23:57you know, she's been doing this, or she's been doing that, and I would be doing something
00:24:01different, and it's like, first of all, that's fine.
00:24:04Like, if you want to criticize somebody because you have a disagreement, disagree with my
00:24:08politics, disagree with something that Erica or Andrew say on the Turning Point podcast,
00:24:14but this desire to go after her for the way she's grieving her husband, that's the most
00:24:21preposterous thing I've seen in a very long time, and I've seen a lot of crazy stuff in
00:24:24politics.
00:24:25Amen.
00:24:26Thank you for saying that, Mr. Vice President.
00:24:29So, I think this segues very well into our next question here.
00:24:34You are a practicing Catholic.
00:24:37You're, despite your language, you're attempting to be a faithful Catholic.
00:24:41That's right.
00:24:41That's right.
00:24:43I think it was well-placed, if I may say.
00:24:45I appreciate it.
00:24:47I'm sure you've seen that the Vatican and the Pope and the President have been in the news
00:24:52lately.
00:24:53So, as a Catholic, what does it feel like to be, you know, in the middle of that?
00:24:59I thought it was going to be an easy question.
00:25:00This is kind of a tough question here.
00:25:01Nope, no easy ones.
00:25:02So, here's the thing about this.
00:25:04So, first of all, you will sometimes hear people say, well, you know, the Vatican, the
00:25:11church, whether it's the Protestant church, the Catholic church, like, you know, they should
00:25:15preach the gospel, they should ignore public policy.
00:25:18I actually don't agree with that.
00:25:20I actually think that it's a good thing when Christian leaders, whether they're Catholic
00:25:24or Protestant, part of preaching the gospel is talking about how the gospel applies to
00:25:29the issues of the day.
00:25:30So, I've never been one of these people who say that you should never have, you know,
00:25:35Christian leadership not talking about politics or, frankly, political leaders not talking
00:25:40about their Christian faith.
00:25:41But I do think that we have to remember that, you know, each of us has our own role.
00:25:47I'm the Vice President of the United States.
00:25:49The fundamental way I understand my role is that I'm trying to take the lessons, the moral
00:25:55truths that are rooted in Christianity, and I'm trying to apply them to a whole host of
00:26:00complicated real-world scenarios.
00:26:02You know, the, the, thank you.
00:26:08So, my job is to apply moral truth to try to do the best thing for the American people.
00:26:13That's my job.
00:26:14And that's the President of the United States' job.
00:26:15And, of course, he's the person who leads our administration.
00:26:18The Pope's job is to preach the gospel, okay?
00:26:21And, again, I think that sometimes in the context, like, it doesn't bother me, even when
00:26:26I disagree with him.
00:26:26And I have a lot of respect for the Pope.
00:26:28I like him.
00:26:29I admire him.
00:26:30I've gotten to know him a little bit.
00:26:32So, I, I, it doesn't bother me when he speaks on issues of the day, frankly, even when I
00:26:37disagree with how he's applying a particular principle.
00:26:39So, the most obvious example is, it has frustrated me that some of the Catholic clergy have attacked
00:26:48mercilessly the Trump administration on immigration.
00:26:51It is a constant idea that somehow everything that the Trump administration does when it comes
00:26:57to securing our borders is inhumane.
00:26:59And my constant response to that is, how is it humane to allow drug traffickers and sex
00:27:06traffickers to bring little kids across the southern border?
00:27:08Amen.
00:27:09How is that humane?
00:27:15But, again, I'd almost rather have the conversation.
00:27:18So, I kind of like, even when there's disagreement, I like it when the Pope comments on questions
00:27:24of immigration.
00:27:25I like it when the Pope talks about abortion.
00:27:27I like it when the Pope talks about matters of war and peace.
00:27:31Because I think that, at the very least, it invites a conversation.
00:27:34So, I think some people, you know, their reaction to this is to say, well, you know, he shouldn't
00:27:39have said that.
00:27:40And, look, there are certainly things that the Pope has said in the last few months that
00:27:43I disagree with.
00:27:44Let me just take, like, one very concrete example, you know, related to this conflict
00:27:48in Iran.
00:27:50So, the Pope said something where he said, and I'm going to try to remember the exact quote,
00:27:56but he said that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword.
00:28:00God is never on the side of those who wield the sword.
00:28:03I'm pretty sure that he said that exact statement.
00:28:06Now, on the one hand, again, I like that the Pope is an advocate for peace.
00:28:11I think that's certainly one of his roles.
00:28:13On the other hand, how can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the
00:28:18sword?
00:28:19Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?
00:28:25Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those
00:28:30innocent people from, you know, those who had survived the Holocaust?
00:28:36I certainly think the answer is yes.
00:28:38And I agree.
00:28:39Jesus Christ does not.
00:28:40I agree.
00:28:41Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide.
00:28:43Whoever yelled that out from the dark, he certainly does not.
00:28:47I think that's pretty easy.
00:28:48I think that's a pretty easy principle.
00:28:53Okay, so here's a guy.
00:28:56Let me just say this.
00:28:57This is a guy.
00:28:58No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:29:01First of all, random dude who's shouting.
00:29:03Can I finish my point and then I'll respond to what you just shouted?
00:29:06Is that okay?
00:29:07Okay, great.
00:29:08Yeah, can we give him one second to answer this?
00:29:11So let me just finish this question on the Pope and then I want to respond to what this
00:29:14guy said.
00:29:15So, number one, when the Pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the
00:29:22sword, there is a thousand year, more than a thousand year tradition of just war theory.
00:29:28Okay?
00:29:28Now, we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just,
00:29:33but I think that it's important.
00:29:34In the same way that it's important for the Vice President of the United States to be careful
00:29:37when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the
00:29:42Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.
00:29:45And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been, again, hey, random dude
00:29:52screaming, I told you I'd respond to your point.
00:29:54I just want to respond to this question first.
00:29:56But I think one of the issues here is that if you're going to opine on matters of theology,
00:30:02you've got to be careful, you've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth, and that's
00:30:06one of the things that I try to do, and it's certainly something I would expect from the
00:30:09clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant.
00:30:11Now, to respond to this guy here, he said, I believe he said the administration supports
00:30:18a genocide in Gaza.
00:30:20And here's my response to that.
00:30:22When we came in, the humanitarian situation in Gaza was an absolute catastrophe.
00:30:28You know who's the person who got a peace agreement in Gaza?
00:30:32Donald J. Trump.
00:30:33So if you want to complain about what happened in Gaza, so if you want, sir, to complain about
00:30:44what happened in Gaza, why don't you complain about Joe Biden in the last administration?
00:30:48We're the administration that solved that problem.
00:30:55And by the way, not only was our administration, like the administration that solved the problem,
00:31:02but the president, the president, excuse me, sir, right, right now, right now, you, right
00:31:12now, you see more humanitarian aid coming into Gaza than it has any time in the past five
00:31:17years, because we have taken that situation seriously.
00:31:21And that's one of the things that I'm proud of about our administration, is whether it's
00:31:26there or Thailand and Cambodia, we have consistently tried as much as we can to solve these problems,
00:31:34not just complain about them like the guy who just ran away angry.
00:31:44You know, J.D., I'll never forget your speech at Charlie's memorial, and you talked about
00:31:50how your faith in the wake of Charlie's assassination has become so central to you, you talk about
00:31:56it more, and now you're even writing a book about it.
00:32:00Sure.
00:32:01Tell us about it.
00:32:03And what's it called?
00:32:04It's called The Way...
00:32:05Well, it's called Communion, and, you know, I think the subtitle is Finding My Way Back
00:32:12to Faith.
00:32:13Yes.
00:32:13And, you know, here's why I wanted to write this book, Andrew, because, you know, I think
00:32:20that, like a lot of you, I was...
00:32:23There was a point in my life, I mean, you're probably much more...
00:32:26This is probably a much more Christian audience than maybe I was when I was a 22-year-old college
00:32:33student.
00:32:33I'd just gotten out of the Marine Corps, and I realized that I was sort of winning this
00:32:39game of life in one sense, and I was losing it in the way that mattered.
00:32:43And, you know, I was raised in a Christian household.
00:32:45I was raised in a very sort of Pentecostal family.
00:32:49You know, our church had really good music and amazing people.
00:32:53And one of the things I love about evangelical culture in the United States of America is
00:32:57just how welcoming it is of everybody, right?
00:32:58And you know that.
00:32:59You're an evangelical Christian.
00:33:01And so, the thing is, I hadn't been properly formed in my faith.
00:33:05And so, I got to the Marine Corps, and by the time I left the Marine Corps and was starting
00:33:10college, I called myself an atheist.
00:33:12And I kind of went through this period of being an angry atheist, and then I realized when
00:33:18I got to a point where I thought to myself, what actually matters in life?
00:33:23It's not getting any of law school, which I had done.
00:33:27It's not making a lot of money.
00:33:28It's not credentials.
00:33:29It's not good jobs.
00:33:31It's being a good person.
00:33:33It's, you know, I'd fallen in love with this.
00:33:37I'd fallen in love.
00:33:40I'd fallen in love with a girl, and that girl eventually became my wife, and the mother
00:33:44to our now four children.
00:33:46And I remember thinking to myself, like, she doesn't care whether I make a certain amount
00:33:51of money.
00:33:52She wants me to be a good husband.
00:33:53She wants me to be a good father.
00:33:54She wants me to be a virtuous person.
00:33:56And I started to realize...
00:33:58She wants date night.
00:33:59Yes.
00:33:59She does want that, which is hard when you're vice president of the United States.
00:34:02But what I realized is that the philosophy of secular liberalism, it was achieve, achieve,
00:34:10achieve.
00:34:10Get as many credentials, make as much money as possible, and that left me feeling empty.
00:34:15And meanwhile, it was this faith that I had discarded as a kid, which actually provided
00:34:20a real sense of meaning and purpose.
00:34:23And then I talked to a priest, and this priest was like, you know what?
00:34:25If you think that the Christian faith is right about all these moral questions, maybe
00:34:30it's right because there's a witness element to it.
00:34:34Like, maybe the fact that it's right about morality and about virtue and about sin, maybe
00:34:40that means it's also right about the fact that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
00:34:43Maybe it's also right that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead on the third day.
00:34:50Like, maybe these things that appeal to you about the Christian faith come from the deeper
00:35:01truth of the Christian faith.
00:35:03And that kind of got me down a pathway of where eventually I was baptized and became a very
00:35:09devout Christian.
00:35:10And at this point, amen?
00:35:14Amen.
00:35:17But, you know, I thought, first of all, a lot of people have asked me about that journey.
00:35:21And I thought, what better way than to sit down and actually force myself to write it
00:35:26out?
00:35:26I actually started writing the book back in 2017, right after Usha had our first baby,
00:35:33my son, Ewan, who's now eight years old.
00:35:36And so I've been kind of writing it off and on since then.
00:35:39And, you know, a little bit Charlie's death, a little bit just being in the public eye,
00:35:44but mostly just I've been at this thing for 10 years.
00:35:47And I was like, it's finally time to get it out there.
00:35:50And so I put the finishing touches on it, submitted to the publisher a couple of months
00:35:53ago, and it's coming out in June.
00:35:55So buy the book, Communion.
00:35:57I love that.
00:35:59Not that that wasn't also really riveting, but we're getting to the part of the interview
00:36:03that I'm really excited about.
00:36:05You are working on fraud.
00:36:08You're the fraud czar.
00:36:09Yes.
00:36:10How many bad guys?
00:36:11Yes, we can.
00:36:13How many bad guys are we going to get?
00:36:15I mean, that's the way I, there's a really nice framing of this question that I worked
00:36:19on.
00:36:19No, no, no.
00:36:20I want to know.
00:36:21This is important.
00:36:21What's the progress?
00:36:22Tell us about it.
00:36:23Well, we've already gotten a lot of bad guys.
00:36:25And this is, you know, one of the things I'm very proud about is that, you know, people
00:36:29don't just want talk.
00:36:30They want action.
00:36:31They want us to actually go and arrest the people who committed fraud.
00:36:33And that's happening.
00:36:34We're starting to do that.
00:36:35And that's a good thing.
00:36:36A lot more is going to be happening in the future.
00:36:40But actually, you know what's been amazing on this is Dr. Oz.
00:36:43Memon Oz, who runs the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, because so much of the
00:36:47fraud in our system is people who are defrauding Medicare and Medicaid.
00:36:51Let me just give you a couple of examples.
00:36:52So we have in South Florida, we have entire companies that sell medical devices.
00:37:01They sell prosthetic knees and they sell prosthetic hips.
00:37:05And you know that they've received hundreds of millions, some of them billions of dollars
00:37:09in government funds, and they've never shipped a single product.
00:37:12They're just set up by fraudsters, and there are so many of them, and many of them haven't,
00:37:18there are like over a hundred of these companies that haven't shipped a single product.
00:37:22Okay?
00:37:23I'll give you another example of fraud.
00:37:24So this ridiculous situation with Somali fraudsters in Minneapolis, in the Minneapolis area.
00:37:31So you have a program that exists to help autistic children get the resources they need to help
00:37:37their parents, you know, find them a ride to school, or if they need after-school support
00:37:42to make sure their parents have what they need.
00:37:44And that program has been defrauded by Somali fraudsters who will go in, who will say that
00:37:50we have three kids, every single one of them is autistic, there's no verification from
00:37:55the state of Minnesota, so that family will receive tens of thousands of dollars from
00:38:00the taxpayer, and then the autistic children in Minneapolis who actually do need those
00:38:04services, the money's not there anymore because it's been taken away by fraudsters.
00:38:08We've completely stopped the funding to that program, and we basically told the state of
00:38:13Minnesota, you don't get any more of our money unless you verify that you're taking fraud
00:38:17seriously.
00:38:17So we just turned it off.
00:38:22But, you know, but what Dr. Oz, working with some of the, you know, the people in our Department
00:38:27of Justice found is that in Southern California, you had all these people who were engaged in
00:38:32massive fraud against the Medicare system.
00:38:35You had just tons and tons of people getting rich off fraud.
00:38:38And so we had our sort of, our weekly fraud check-in call two weeks ago, and Dr. Oz called
00:38:45in, but he's like, hey, I gotta go because I'm about to hop on the bus, and we're gonna go
00:38:50arrest a bunch of fraudsters in Los Angeles.
00:38:52I was like, that's exactly what I want you to do.
00:38:54By all means, get off the phone.
00:38:55So we're doing a lot of that stuff, and I think one of the biggest things, the most
00:39:01important things we're doing on this, Andrew, is that there was sort of in the Biden administration,
00:39:05probably intentionally, but regardless, this attitude of, if you were committing fraud
00:39:10of under a million dollars, you were committing fraud of under a million and a half dollars,
00:39:14we're just gonna look the other way.
00:39:15And the approach that we've taken in the last couple of months is, no amount of fraud
00:39:20is too big or too small.
00:39:21If you're defrauding the taxpayer, you ought to go to prison, and anybody who's helping
00:39:25you ought to go to prison too.
00:39:26That's great.
00:39:29I mean, I think this is one of the absolute slam dunk issues.
00:39:32How many of you guys out in this audience care about American taxpayers getting ripped
00:39:36off?
00:39:38Right?
00:39:39This is like a 90-10, 99-1 issue.
00:39:42The guy who was shouting at us earlier, he doesn't care at all about people getting ripped
00:39:46off by fraud.
00:39:47But, you know, I think it underscores a bigger problem, right?
00:39:50Because there's a lot of young people in this room, okay?
00:39:53A lot of you had some very formative years ripped off as well during COVID.
00:39:58You didn't get to do prom.
00:40:00Absolutely.
00:40:00You didn't get graduation.
00:40:01There were so many things taken from you.
00:40:04And, you know, you entered into the college years maybe with a really anemic workforce environment,
00:40:12inflation, historic, life's expensive.
00:40:15What do you tell young people right now that even right now they're wondering, what's the
00:40:19future that I can get?
00:40:20What's the career I can get?
00:40:21Can I afford to have a family, kids, buy a home?
00:40:25What's your message to them right now that have big questions ahead of their future?
00:40:28I think my message to young people who are wondering whether they can afford a family,
00:40:32whether they can afford a home, whether they can afford, you know, kids and the American
00:40:35dream is you guys have every right to demand more of your elected leadership, and my job
00:40:42is to make it as possible for the answer to that question to be yes.
00:40:46And fundamentally, the question you should ask your politicians is exactly that.
00:40:50Are you pursuing policies that make it easier for me to afford a house, easier for me to get
00:40:56a good job, easier for me to get a good education, and easier for me to raise my family in
00:41:02safety
00:41:03and security and comfort?
00:41:04That is the fundamental issue.
00:41:06And the thing that bothered me so much about the last administration, you know, there are
00:41:12all these, like, unique policies that I could sort of point to that were disastrous, and
00:41:16a lot of them were absolutely terrible, but so much of it goes back to housing and immigration
00:41:22and the connection between the two.
00:41:24Under the four years that Joe Biden was president, housing literally doubled in value, meaning if you're
00:41:32a young person trying to buy a house, it costs twice as much as it did before, and you layer
00:41:36on top of that higher interest rates.
00:41:38That's just in four years.
00:41:40Nobody can afford that kind of inflation in the housing market, and one of the biggest
00:41:43drivers of it is the fact that we let in tens of millions of illegal aliens, people who
00:41:49shouldn't have been here, who are taking homes that ought by right go to you and your generation.
00:41:54And so what have we done in the Trump administration?
00:41:56We've shut the border.
00:41:57We've kicked a lot of those people who have come into the United States.
00:42:00We've kicked them out of our country.
00:42:02And importantly, we have actually instituted a ban on institutional investors buying up
00:42:07American homes, because I don't want private equity firms, many of them backed by foreign
00:42:19money, to buy American homes.
00:42:21I want you guys to be able to buy American homes.
00:42:23And I will say, and I say this not to brag, because I think you guys should be impatient.
00:42:30When a politician comes to you and tells you, I've done all these things, you should be
00:42:34asking, good, now go and do more.
00:42:36That's how I think of my job.
00:42:38I don't wake up and say, oh, we did something really good last week.
00:42:41I think to myself, we did something good last week.
00:42:43Now let's go do more of it, or let's go do something different.
00:42:45Because maybe the statistic that I'm proudest of in the entire Trump administration is that
00:42:51over the last eight months, rents and home prices have come down.
00:42:56Not stayed the same, they have come down.
00:42:59And what I think of as our ultimate ambition is that after another few years of this administration,
00:43:04of stopping private equity barons from buying up homes, from kicking out more illegal immigrants,
00:43:09from securing the border, what we're going to see is housing that is much more affordable,
00:43:14and then we're going to keep on building on it year after year after year, because the
00:43:18American dream should not be sold to the highest foreign bidder.
00:43:21It belongs to you.
00:43:25That's so well said, and a lot of the people in this audience will know that this is one
00:43:30of the issues near and dear to Charlie's heart as well, to make sure that you guys could
00:43:34afford the American dream, that we thought about you first as a country, and so thank you
00:43:39for saying it so well.
00:43:42Naturally, we have to ask about what's going on in Iran.
00:43:45Sure.
00:43:46So, but I just want everybody, I want to give the Vice President his due here, because you
00:43:50have been to Europe in the last week, and you flew back to the United States, only to
00:43:55fly back across the globe to negotiate in Pakistan, to come back, and somehow we called him, we're
00:44:02like, are you really going to come to Georgia?
00:44:04And he's like, I'll be there.
00:44:05So, I want to give him a big round of applause.
00:44:11I mean, may I just say, that's almost Trumpian level endurance.
00:44:17So, do you know what time zone you are, and how many hours of sleep did you get?
00:44:21I have no idea what the hell time it is right now.
00:44:23And it's kind of good, actually, because you just run on coffee, and then you sleep when
00:44:27you can, you wake up when you have to, and you just drink a whole lot of coffee.
00:44:30And, you know, look, it's the job that I asked for, but yes, I will say, look, I think
00:44:37that, let me just say, U.S. young people, and I want to make some observation, because
00:44:41it made me think of something, which is that young people in the United States, but particularly
00:44:47young Americans in the conservative movement, I think that we have a tendency to get too
00:44:53black-billed.
00:44:54And here's what I say by this.
00:44:56We have a tendency to get too cynical, too pessimistic.
00:44:59Like, I'm sure that I've said mostly things that you agree with, and I'm sure that I've
00:45:03said some things you may not agree with, and you may not agree with everything that I say
00:45:06about the Iran negotiation, which I will get to answer your question.
00:45:10But here's fundamentally the issue.
00:45:11When you see a politician, or you see a political movement, or you see an administration that
00:45:16isn't doing what you want to do, I think you have two choices.
00:45:18You can say, ah, to hell with those people, and check out of the process.
00:45:22Or you can say, you know what, I'm going to get more involved.
00:45:25I'm going to make my voice heard even more.
00:45:28I'm going to pressure that administration to do exactly what I want them to do, because
00:45:32they got my vote, they earned my vote, but they can't take it for granted.
00:45:36And I've seen some of this, you know, on various issues.
00:45:39Like, for example, I recognize that a lot of young voters don't love the policy that we
00:45:46have in the Middle East.
00:45:47Okay?
00:45:48I understand that.
00:45:49I also know that we've secured the border.
00:45:52We've lowered housing prices now for eight months in a row, and there's going to be more
00:45:55to come beyond that.
00:45:56We've made America energy dominant, which has lowered electricity costs and things like
00:46:00that.
00:46:01We've made it so that we have the lowest murder rate in 127 years.
00:46:05I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue.
00:46:10I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue.
00:46:12What I'm saying is don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on
00:46:18one topic.
00:46:19Get more involved.
00:46:20Make your voice heard even more.
00:46:22That's how we ultimately take the country back.
00:46:24It's not by you.
00:46:26You know, if you get five things you want and one thing you don't want, I see way too
00:46:31many people, especially in sort of the online conservative, you know, Twitter sphere, who
00:46:35say, ah, you know, there's no point.
00:46:38No, no, no, no.
00:46:39Because, or let me give you another example, the SAVE Act.
00:46:42Okay?
00:46:43A lot of people want the SAVE Act.
00:46:44I want the SAVE Act.
00:46:45I've been fighting for the SAVE Act literally since day one of the administration.
00:46:49And I've seen a lot of people saying, what the hell's the point of voting for these guys
00:46:54if, you know, you've got three Republicans joining with the Democrats to prevent the SAVE
00:47:00Act from passing, or I guess four Republicans.
00:47:02And here's my response to that.
00:47:04Yes, it is annoying to me that there are only 45 or 46 Republicans who will fight politically
00:47:10to get the SAVE Act passed.
00:47:12But you know what?
00:47:12Ten years ago, that number was 35.
00:47:15So the answer to frustration is engagement.
00:47:19Don't give up on this process.
00:47:21Get more involved in this process.
00:47:23And demand more from people like me.
00:47:25That's how we take our country back.
00:47:27I just think it's important to say that.
00:47:30That's such a good point.
00:47:31How the Senate is such an example is frustrating as it is.
00:47:35But you were part of that new wave of new thinking, of new energy, a new generation.
00:47:39And there's so many new voices that are bringing real change to the Senate.
00:47:44And we were one, two elections away from maybe having it all the way around.
00:47:47A hundred percent.
00:47:47And I understand people get frustrated at it.
00:47:49I get frustrated at it.
00:47:50But it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago.
00:47:52And frankly, 10 years ago, it was a lot better than it was 10 years before that.
00:47:56But here's where we are on, fundamentally, the president said a policy, Iran cannot have
00:48:02a nuclear weapon.
00:48:03And right now, we are negotiating to make sure that very thing happens.
00:48:07And here's, what's interesting about this is, what's interesting about this is that we
00:48:17have this ceasefire that's in place.
00:48:18I think it's six or seven days old.
00:48:20Right now, the ceasefire is holding.
00:48:22And what you're seeing is, what the president wants to make, he doesn't want to make like
00:48:28a small deal.
00:48:29He wants to make the grand bargain.
00:48:31And what he's basically offering to Iran is very simple.
00:48:34And frankly, it's something that no president has, I think, has had the ability to offer.
00:48:38He said that if you're willing to act like a normal country, we are willing to treat you
00:48:44economically like a normal country.
00:48:46He doesn't want a small deal.
00:48:47And that's one of the reasons why, one, I'd say in Pakistan, we made a 10th.
00:48:52But the reason why the deal is not yet done is because the president, he really wants
00:48:57a deal where Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon, Iran is not state-sponsoring terrorism, but
00:49:03also the people of Iran can thrive and prosper and join the world economy.
00:49:08And that's the trade that he's offering.
00:49:10He's saying, if you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran
00:49:21thrive, we're going to make it economically prosperous, and we're going to invite the
00:49:25Iranian people into the world economy in a way they haven't been in my entire life.
00:49:29And that's the kind of Trumpian grand bargain that the president has put on the table.
00:49:34Man, we're going to keep on negotiating and try to make it happen because it would be
00:49:37great for the world, it'd be great for our country, it'd be great for everybody.
00:49:41So I'm going to keep on fighting to make it happen.
00:49:48Just a few more and then we've got to...
00:49:50Yeah, please, I know we have some questions for the audience.
00:49:52So my one question is, when you looked across from these Iranian negotiators, what did you
00:49:57make of them?
00:49:57Did you get the sense that they really were the right people?
00:50:00I mean, I'm assuming you guys know this type of thing, but...
00:50:03Yeah, I mean, look, you never know, we had never, the United States had never had meetings
00:50:09at that level with the Iranian government in 49 years.
00:50:13Like, it's a meeting that had never before happened, not Democrat, not Republican, we
00:50:17had never had a meeting like that, where you have, you know, the person who's effectively
00:50:21running the country in Iran sitting across from the vice president of the United States,
00:50:25that had never happened.
00:50:26And what I, my, my, look, honestly, after 49 years, there's a lot of, of course, mistrust
00:50:33between Iran and the United States of America.
00:50:36You're not going to solve that problem overnight.
00:50:38But yeah, I think the people we're sitting across from wanted to make a deal.
00:50:41And I know the president of the United States told us to go out there and negotiate in good
00:50:46faith.
00:50:47That's what we did.
00:50:48That's what we're going to keep on doing.
00:50:49So you never know though.
00:50:51Yeah.
00:50:51Right.
00:50:52I mean, I've, I've sat across from United States senators that I thought I agreed with
00:50:56and, you know, you don't know what those people, right?
00:50:59I won't say who you can guess, but I feel very good about where we are.
00:51:05Right.
00:51:06All right.
00:51:06So this is the last one from me.
00:51:08Now, a lot of people make a big deal about illegal immigration and we should, it's terrible,
00:51:12right?
00:51:13And this administration has made historic progress on that issue.
00:51:16I think it's, you don't get enough credit for it.
00:51:18And the problem with immigration, illegal immigration is once it's not a problem anymore, our memories
00:51:23are about six days long and we move on to the next thing.
00:51:26But what about legal immigration?
00:51:29Sure.
00:51:29And reforming it, correcting it, addressing abuses?
00:51:32Because I look around here and I see a bunch of American students that want jobs, that want
00:51:37homes, that want a space in this country.
00:51:40And I think reforming legal is so, so critical.
00:51:43Maybe talk about some of the reforms that this administration has done specifically on the
00:51:47legal front.
00:51:48So this is exactly right.
00:51:49And this is a hundred percent, you know, I think one of the first pieces of legislation
00:51:53I sponsored in the United States Senate was effectively to get rid of the H-1B visa because
00:51:59I cared so much about this when I was in the Senate.
00:52:04And yes, it is the case that Congress has not exactly come along.
00:52:09Again, to my point about the United States Senate, there are far more people who are sponsoring
00:52:13that legislation today than there were 10 years ago, but it's not nearly enough to get
00:52:16it through, but just through administrative action.
00:52:19I don't think people realize this.
00:52:20The number of new H-1B visas is down about 90% in the United States of America.
00:52:25Like that's something that we accomplished purely through, that's something we accomplished
00:52:30purely through administrative action.
00:52:32And again, it's something I cared a lot about.
00:52:34It's something the president cared a lot about.
00:52:35So, you know, there are other things too.
00:52:38There are ways in which, you know, our visa system is taken completely advantage of.
00:52:43One of the biggest loopholes in American immigration, legal immigration policy, and I'll never forget
00:52:48my debate against Tim Walsh where the moderator tried to fact check me because I said this person
00:52:55is an illegal immigrant.
00:52:56It's like, no, actually, they came in as an asylum claimant.
00:52:59And it's like, if you came in on a fraudulent asylum claim, you are an illegal immigrant,
00:53:04whatever the hell somebody from CBS says that you are.
00:53:07And the asylum process was, I mean, there were, guys, there were literally millions of people
00:53:14coming into the United States every single year on false asylum claims.
00:53:18We have those claims down something like north of 95%.
00:53:22So there are all of these things that you can do, all these things that you can do purely
00:53:28through administrative action.
00:53:30But for us to really make this stick, I mean, look, as much as I don't want this to happen
00:53:34eventually, hopefully 20 years from now, you're going to have a Democratic president who tries
00:53:39to undo everything that we've done on immigration.
00:53:41That's why we need Congress to codify this stuff.
00:53:44But right now, I'm very proud of what we've done in the Trump administration.
00:53:48Massive reductions in fraudulent visas.
00:53:50Massive reductions in fraudulent number of asylum claims.
00:53:53Massive reduction in H-1B visas granted.
00:53:56We're making a lot of progress.
00:53:58As I said to you, we want to make more.
00:54:00We're certainly going to make more over the remaining three years.
00:54:03But what that means, fundamentally, is you guys deserve to have good jobs.
00:54:08And I don't want, you know, when you graduate from this amazing university, and it hurts me
00:54:13to say that as an Ohio State fan, but this is an amazing university.
00:54:18When you graduate, I think the guy who was screaming earlier, he's clearly a Michigan
00:54:24guy.
00:54:24Just put it on the table.
00:54:28Oh, no.
00:54:28We have another Michigan guy over here.
00:54:31But they did win the natty.
00:54:34Yes, that's right.
00:54:35That's right.
00:54:35But when you guys graduate from this university, I don't want you competing against a low-wage
00:54:41foreigner for your first job.
00:54:42I want a company to have to pay you a fair wage for a fair day's work.
00:54:46It's like common sense.
00:54:52But to do that, you really have to do reform of the H-1B and other, it's not just the
00:54:57H-1B,
00:54:57a number of the other visa systems.
00:54:59We've made a lot of progress, but man, I would love a Congress.
00:55:02And you guys advocated.
00:55:03Ask yourself.
00:55:04I mean, you have a Senate primary going on right now.
00:55:07This is what I say about getting more involved.
00:55:09Every single one of you should ask, those Senate candidates, what do you think about
00:55:13the H-1B visa?
00:55:15Would you co-sponsor the vice president, former senator's legislation to eliminate that program
00:55:20because it's basically just something that big tech companies take advantage of?
00:55:24These are the things that you guys have to do because I can't keep these politicians
00:55:28honest by myself.
00:55:29I need your help.
00:55:30It's a very big job.
00:55:32Great stuff.
00:55:36So, thank you, Mr. Vice President.
00:55:38We have some questions.
00:55:39I believe we're ready for some questions for the vice president.
00:55:41Yeah, let's do some questions for the audience.
00:55:43Oh, right here.
00:55:44Okay, there we are.
00:55:45Hello.
00:55:46Hi, my name is Hope.
00:55:48I have a serious question and then a fun question.
00:55:51Okay.
00:55:51So, your serious question is, when you were growing up, who was your voice slash influencer
00:55:57that helped you see your conservative views?
00:56:00And then, for now, who couldn't we look at as an influencer or like a voice?
00:56:08Okay.
00:56:08So, that's very interesting.
00:56:10So, you know, when I was a kid and I was kind of developing my politics, there was actually
00:56:16a radio host, a guy who founded this organization called Focus on the Family, James Dobson, who
00:56:23was really influential to me.
00:56:26And he was just, he was a good Christian guy.
00:56:28He talked about the family.
00:56:29He talked about things I cared a lot about.
00:56:31And I came from a broken home.
00:56:32So, when he talked about the ways in which a broken home had a negative effect on kids,
00:56:37it made sense to me because I was seeing it in my own life.
00:56:40And then, here was a guy who was actually talking about it.
00:56:43And what I liked about him is that he didn't talk about it in this judgmental way, right?
00:56:47He wasn't attacking a kid like me who didn't have everything handed to him.
00:56:50He was just explaining in a very real world with a fundamentally Christian underpinning,
00:56:56here's what happens when things are broken.
00:56:58And, you know, when you ask who should I, who are some of the conservative influencers
00:57:02or the political influencers today?
00:57:05And there are a few people that I look to who I think have very, very smart and wise
00:57:09spiritual wisdom.
00:57:10I mean, like, I think Andrew and Blake and the podcast that they have at TPUSA is amazing.
00:57:15I listen to it all the time.
00:57:17I think it's great.
00:57:18You know, I think if you want a good laugh, I love Theo Vaughn.
00:57:20Like, he's one of my favorite.
00:57:22He's just incredible.
00:57:23And he's got one of these senses of humor where, like, 30% of the time, it goes completely
00:57:28over my head.
00:57:29And 70% of the time, he's the funniest person imaginable.
00:57:32But I think Theo has a good heart, and that's one of the reasons why I really like listening
00:57:36to his show.
00:57:37And then just in terms of, like, you know, pure politics, of course you should be listening
00:57:42to the vice president of these United States.
00:57:46And then my fun question is, if you could have a free day with zero responsibilities, what
00:57:52would your day look like?
00:57:55Oh, that's a good question.
00:57:56And honestly, I would add not just zero responsibilities, but total anonymity.
00:58:02Because the thing that I really, I love this job.
00:58:05It's very cool.
00:58:06I'm very honored to have it.
00:58:07But I would really, what I really want to do, honestly, is take Usha and the three kids
00:58:14and just walk to a local cafe, eat a ton of pancakes, and then take the kids to the zoo
00:58:20without anybody knowing who the hell I am.
00:58:22That's what I would do if I had a day.
00:58:27That's a very nice question.
00:58:29All right.
00:58:30Hi, J.D.
00:58:31My name is Jacob, and I'm also from Cincinnati, so I'm with you there on the zoo.
00:58:35That's pretty awesome.
00:58:36Yeah, appreciate that.
00:58:38Anyway, my question is that there's a lot of division within our country right now from
00:58:43right to left and everybody in between.
00:58:46And leading up to the 2024 election and Charlie's death, I found that Charlie was definitely the
00:58:52glue that held at least the conservative movement together.
00:58:55Right.
00:58:56And since he has passed, there has been a lot of division within our conservative movement,
00:59:00and especially with the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election coming up.
00:59:05How do you think the conservative movement can be united?
00:59:09And if there is a who, who do you think that could be?
00:59:12Well, that's a very good question.
00:59:14And look, man, I agree with you.
00:59:16I think part of the division is Charlie's death because Charlie, as Andrew knows well,
00:59:21and a lot of this was behind the scenes, Charlie was the guy who was talking to different segments
00:59:27of the movement, right?
00:59:28So, I mean, just this Iran thing.
00:59:31Charlie would be the guy who was talking to the people who really wanted to go to war with
00:59:34Iran and the people who really didn't want to go to war with Iran.
00:59:37And he would try to find ways for those guys to work together, even if they disagreed over
00:59:41one issue, right?
00:59:42And so, Charlie's absence is a huge thing.
00:59:46And my answer to your question is, who replaces Charlie Kirk?
00:59:49I think it's going to be a combination of people.
00:59:51I think Andrew's got a role.
00:59:52I've got a role.
00:59:53You guys have got a role.
00:59:54And I think the most important thing to remember about how Charlie thought about this is he always
01:00:00recognized what was the goal and who was the real problem.
01:00:04The real problem is not a person who disagrees with you about this or that foreign policy
01:00:09or domestic policy issue.
01:00:11The real problem is the person who killed our friend and anybody who defended the people
01:00:17who killed our friend.
01:00:18And we've got to keep our eye on the ball and recognize that those who want to kill conservatives
01:00:24because they have the wrong viewpoints, we need to defeat those people.
01:00:27We need to unite with each other and actually fight together to defeat the real enemy that's
01:00:32out there.
01:00:32That's the most important message.
01:00:35And I'll also give you, you know, one of the reasons why I'm optimistic about this is
01:00:41even when Charlie was alive, you saw some of these divisions starting to bubble to the
01:00:46surface, okay?
01:00:47And I remember, I mean, Charlie died in September of 2025.
01:00:51I hadn't been vice president.
01:00:53I mean, I'd been vice president for all of eight months when Charlie lost his life to an
01:00:57assassin's gun.
01:00:58You know, one thing that makes people in politics sort of divide against each other is just being
01:01:05in power, right?
01:01:07When you have control of the House, the Senate, the White House, and there's not an election
01:01:13around the horizon, it's very easy to forget what your goal is.
01:01:16Well, starting in a few months, we're going to have primaries that are over.
01:01:20We're going to have candidates on the ballot, and we're all going to need to get out there
01:01:24and work hard because the people who want to kill Donald Trump, the people who want to
01:01:29throw Donald Trump in prison, the people who murdered our friend, and then the people who
01:01:32celebrated it afterwards, those people are trying to achieve political power.
01:01:36We cannot let them, and we have to unite to make sure that doesn't happen.
01:01:41Thank you, J.D.
01:01:45Good evening, Mr. Vice President.
01:01:47Thank you for taking the time to come out here.
01:01:49My name is Dane Hoff.
01:01:50I'm originally from the great state of Arizona and proudly voted for you in Donald J. Trump
01:01:55in November 2024.
01:01:56There we go.
01:01:57And my question is that many people believe the midterms are already gone for us.
01:02:01I disagree.
01:02:03So what is the game plan to win the midterms, and what's the strategy to maintain the coalitions
01:02:10Trump won in 2024?
01:02:12So number one is, I totally agree with you.
01:02:15The idea that midterms are gone is preposterous.
01:02:17And if you go back to 2018 and you look at the polling picture in 2018, that was Trump's
01:02:22first term.
01:02:23And what it showed is that Republicans were getting crushed in the generic ballot by 10,
01:02:2811, 12 points.
01:02:30The worst polls right now, the worst polls, not all of them, the worst polls have us down
01:02:36by five or six points, okay?
01:02:38And what happened in 2018 is that as we got closer to the election, and again, the right
01:02:43kind of unified in the face of an election campaign, what happened is those margins narrowed, and
01:02:50the Republican Party did much better than expected in 2018.
01:02:53It wasn't a great election by any means.
01:02:55But the idea that this is done now, it's ridiculous, and frankly, it's cynical, pessimistic
01:03:01garbage pushed by people who want us to completely give up.
01:03:06Don't give up.
01:03:07We've got to keep on fighting.
01:03:08That's the fundamental and most important thing, is the people telling you to give up on
01:03:12the midterms are the people who want us to lose the midterms.
01:03:15Don't listen to them.
01:03:16But what's the game plan?
01:03:17You ask what the game plan is.
01:03:18So I'll give you a little good news and a little bad news on that, because the bad news
01:03:22and the good news about the modern Congress is, whether you agree with this or not, the
01:03:28districts are so gerrymandered, there aren't that many battleground congressional districts
01:03:32left.
01:03:33If you go back to 2014, where I think Republicans won like 80 seats in the House, that's not
01:03:39going to happen.
01:03:40Elections like that don't happen anymore.
01:03:42So what we've got to fight is 20 or 30 districts, where there's actually some real competition
01:03:50in those districts.
01:03:51We've got to put a lot of resources.
01:03:52We've got to knock on a lot of doors.
01:03:54We've got to get out the marginal Trump voter.
01:03:56Because one of the things we saw in 2024 is a lot of our voters, they're dedicated.
01:04:01They love the president.
01:04:02They don't show up in midterm elections.
01:04:04So we've got to knock on as many doors and make sure those people get out and vote.
01:04:07We have a game plan, but the House is going to be determined by 20 or 30 seats.
01:04:12We've just got to win as many of those as possible.
01:04:14And yes, we can win the midterms in 2026.
01:04:18And we should say, what's happening in Virginia?
01:04:20You know?
01:04:22Exactly.
01:04:22Exactly.
01:04:23And this is the thing.
01:04:23Democrats always overreact.
01:04:25They always overreach.
01:04:26They always do crazy things.
01:04:29And look, there are districts where MSNBC will say, well, this district, Donald Trump
01:04:35won it by 20 points, and then this guy only won it by 12 points.
01:04:39That means everything's terrible.
01:04:40You look in Virginia or look at some of these other places where Kamala Harris won it by
01:04:45four points, and now Republicans are winning by a few points.
01:04:48There's a lot of reason to think that we have a good chance here.
01:04:51We've just got to keep on working at it.
01:04:52Sorry.
01:04:53Next question.
01:04:53And the redistricting, make sure if you're watching in Virginia.
01:04:56Yeah, sorry.
01:04:57Virginia, vote against the Obama-Spangberger redistricting plan.
01:05:02Yep.
01:05:02Vote against it.
01:05:03And frankly, the polls are moving in our direction a little bit.
01:05:05We've just got to get out there and defeat that ballot measure.
01:05:08Hi, Mr. Vice President.
01:05:10Thank you so much for being here.
01:05:12It's truly incredible that you can come all across the world and then just be in Athens.
01:05:19So my question, not to sound pessimistic, but my question revolves around Congress.
01:05:25Sure.
01:05:25And, you know, many Americans feel discouraged, even somewhat dissatisfied.
01:05:30You know, the executive sets out a plan.
01:05:32We want to do something.
01:05:34But Congress sometimes is just unable to deliver and with, you know, the inability to keep the government open during
01:05:41shutdowns and all of that stuff.
01:05:44What are your thoughts?
01:05:46I know leaders such as Governor DeSantis have called on term limits for Congress members, balanced budget amendments, and banning
01:05:52stock trading.
01:05:53But what do you think are just some practical measures that we can take to ensure Congress is delivering results
01:06:00to the American people?
01:06:01Yeah.
01:06:01Yeah, so great question.
01:06:02And I remember during the State of the Union address when the president talked about banning members of Congress from
01:06:09trading stocks, I looked over at Nancy Pelosi and she was sitting in her chair like.
01:06:16And if you watch the State of the Union, I start laughing hysterically.
01:06:20It's because I looked over and saw the look on Nancy Pelosi's face.
01:06:24Look, I think people don't have any idea how bad the corruption is in Washington, D.C.
01:06:28So, yeah, I love the idea of term limits for Congress.
01:06:30You know what I love more?
01:06:35I love the idea of term limits for bureaucrats.
01:06:39Nobody in Washington, D.C. should be able to sit in a chair for 30 years, do your public service,
01:06:44and go back home and do something productive.
01:06:50But look, so much of what's broken about Congress really does go down to corruption.
01:06:57So, you know, there are so many examples, let's say, of a congressman who got a classified briefing on COVID.
01:07:04It's like, oh, there's this crazy Wuhan flu that's floating around Wuhan, China.
01:07:09And, you know, again, at that point, like everybody called it the Wuhan flu.
01:07:13And then you come out of that classified briefing and you buy a bunch of biotech stocks or you buy
01:07:18a bunch of pharmaceutical stocks.
01:07:20Or maybe, you know, you sell airline stocks because you know that the airlines aren't going to work that well
01:07:26if everybody's sort of sheltering in place and governments are shutting down the economy.
01:07:30That stuff should be illegal and you should go to prison for it.
01:07:33And if you just cut out the basic corruption, you'd solve a lot of the problem.
01:07:37Thank you so much.
01:07:40This will be the last question.
01:07:43Okay.
01:07:44Can we take two more?
01:07:45Because I like answering questions.
01:07:48We'll take a couple more.
01:07:50Hi, Mr. Vice President.
01:07:51Before I get to my question, I just want to, number one, thank you for your service to the United
01:07:55States military.
01:07:56And number two, welcome you to the greatest university in this country.
01:08:05So my question is, as somebody whose parents adopted three children from the foster care system and coming from a
01:08:11broken household yourself, we have seen different sides of a somewhat similar narrative.
01:08:17How would you respond to somebody who says that the only way to succeed in this country is to come
01:08:23from a generationally wealthy family?
01:08:25That's a good question.
01:08:27Wow, I didn't expect that one.
01:08:30Well, first of all, it's just not true.
01:08:33And I think that one of the things that, a very powerful thing that somebody told me, is that, you
01:08:40know, disadvantage and unfairness, it's just, it is true.
01:08:44You know, not everybody started at the exact same place.
01:08:46Some people were dealt a much worse hand than others.
01:08:49But what somebody, again, this person gave me a very good piece of advice and said, no matter what hand
01:08:55you were dealt, you have the responsibility to play it as well as you can.
01:08:59And I think that, for me at least, there was something empowering for me about recognizing that, yeah, my life
01:09:08wasn't as easy as most other kids.
01:09:10Like, I wasn't born with money.
01:09:11I wasn't born with parents who had connections.
01:09:14But I still had a responsibility to God.
01:09:17I had a responsibility to myself to play that hand as well as I possibly could.
01:09:21And that was very empowering to me.
01:09:23So I think, first, the message is, look at the stories, look at Clarence Thomas, look at all the people
01:09:28in the United States who have come from very humble beginnings and achieved great things.
01:09:33You can believe, as I do, that we have to do a lot better job by the young people of
01:09:38this country, while at the same time knowing that you are the master of your own destiny.
01:09:43Never give up on yourself and never believe that you're a victim of circumstances.
01:09:47Because when you believe that, you will be a victim of circumstances.
01:09:51Thank you so much, and go Dawgs.
01:09:55She's trolling you with that.
01:09:57I know, I know.
01:09:58Hi, Mr. Vice President.
01:10:00Hello.
01:10:00My name is Esther.
01:10:01This is so cool.
01:10:05So I know, like, the whole H-1B thing you talked about, but I am also a daughter of a
01:10:11legal immigrant who came here on an H-1B visa.
01:10:15Sure.
01:10:16So my mom and my dad, we've been here for over 10 years.
01:10:20I was born here, well, more than over 10 years, so I'm 20 years old.
01:10:24Sorry.
01:10:25Sorry, I'm a little nervous.
01:10:27That's okay.
01:10:28Take your time.
01:10:28But, like, for people who have been here on H-1B visas, it's been really hard, like, getting the green
01:10:36card based on everything with quotas and everything.
01:10:40Like, my family, we're from India.
01:10:41The quotas are so bad.
01:10:42And they're still open, and they're taking the money.
01:10:46How do we fix the immigration system for people who have been waiting for the green cards for so long,
01:10:52and they're not getting it in time?
01:10:55Because a lot of people don't know it.
01:10:57During the Biden administration, to get a green card, it would have taken my family 150 years to get a
01:11:05green card.
01:11:06So how is the Trump administration, like, trying to fix that for people who have been here, are paying taxes
01:11:13and doing a lot of stuff that citizens do, but they can't do a lot of things that citizens do?
01:11:19Like, we're also looking for the American dream.
01:11:22Like, my parents, they sent me to private Catholic school, even though sometimes we used to live paycheck to paycheck.
01:11:29So how is the Trump administration going to fix that for, like, people like that?
01:11:33Sure, sure.
01:11:34So let me just offer a couple observations there.
01:11:37So, one, I appreciate the question.
01:11:38And two, what I would say is, you know, you heard me talk about H-1B fraud, because I think
01:11:45there is a lot of fraud in the H-1B system.
01:11:47And I think you can believe, on the one hand, that there's a lot of fraud in the H-1B
01:11:51system, while also believing that there are people who have come to the United States in the past who have
01:11:56enriched this country.
01:11:57And, look, I'm married to the daughter of immigrants from India, and, you know, I love my in-laws.
01:12:03And they're great people, and they've been great contributors to the United States of America.
01:12:07But I also think that when you become an American citizen, whether your family has nine generations of lineage in
01:12:13the United States or whether your family has zero generations of lineage in the United States,
01:12:17one of the responsibilities that we must expect of citizens, and I, of course, you know, it's always hard to
01:12:23talk in specifics about your situation, because I don't know about it.
01:12:26But one of the obligations of citizens is that you have to think about the best interests of the country,
01:12:31and not the country you came from beforehand, and not of any sort of, any group that you came from,
01:12:39you've got to think of yourself as an American.
01:12:41The system only works if everybody thinks of themselves as an American.
01:12:44I remember having this conversation with my father-in-law, who's an amazing guy, and, you know, it was actually
01:12:53during a Senate event that I had done, where I had somebody who came up to me,
01:12:57and I'm sure a great person, like a wonderful person, it was a Ukrainian-American in Cleveland, Ohio.
01:13:02You know, I was campaigning for the Senate.
01:13:04There are a lot of Ukrainian-Americans in Cleveland, Ohio.
01:13:06And this person got really agitated at me because I was saying, we should stop funding the Ukraine war, okay?
01:13:12And I still believe that, obviously, and it's one of the things I'm proudest that we've done in this administration,
01:13:16is we've told Europe that if you want to buy weapons, you can, but the United States is not buying
01:13:20weapons and sending them to Ukraine anymore.
01:13:21We're just out of that business.
01:13:23It's a very good thing.
01:13:24But these Ukrainian-American, again, a kind person, they probably didn't vote for me after this conversation,
01:13:30but he was kind of sticking his finger in my face saying, you need to support my country.
01:13:37You need to support my country.
01:13:38And I said, sir, with all due respect, if you're an American, your country is the United States of America,
01:13:43not a place that you immigrated from, whenever that was.
01:13:50And it occurred to me, and I know this is the last question, I'll try to be quick here,
01:13:54but it occurred to me that my father-in-law, who came from India, who moved to the United States,
01:13:58who got an education and became an American citizen,
01:14:02that never once, never once in my life has he ever said,
01:14:08you have to do this or you should do this because it's in the best interest of the country that
01:14:12I came from.
01:14:13And I think that attitude, to the extent that attitude dominates among the new generation of Americans,
01:14:18that makes Americans feel welcoming towards people because everybody,
01:14:24again, whether your family's been here for 300 years or one second,
01:14:27to be an American means to look out for Americans first.
01:14:31And that's the perspective we have to take to our immigration policy.
01:14:38We'll do one more.
01:14:39Sorry, real quick.
01:14:40I love this, but I got to go.
01:14:43Thank you so much, Mr. Vice President,
01:14:45and coming to UGA and allowing us to express our freedom of speech.
01:14:51So thank you so much.
01:14:53The first lady said Epstein was not acting alone and had to be held accountable.
01:14:59She said and called for a congressional hearing,
01:15:02but President Trump multiple times called the files a hoax.
01:15:06The acting attorney general said Epstein shouldn't be a part of anything at the DOJ.
01:15:12If there are compromised government officials in those files,
01:15:16how can the public trust that this administration will hold anyone accountable
01:15:21when its own Justice Department is actively blocking the investigation?
01:15:26Given that, can you clearly articulate your stance on whether federal entities should have a formal investigation?
01:15:37Yeah.
01:15:41So first of all, you said the associate attorney general or something.
01:15:45I haven't seen that quote, but here's my view on the Epstein matter.
01:15:49Number one, the guy was clearly a scumbag.
01:15:52Okay?
01:15:53Number two, he clearly had extraordinary connections both with intelligence services,
01:15:58both inside the United States and outside the United States,
01:16:01and also with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people.
01:16:04Okay?
01:16:05Number three, I have been a firm advocate and will continue to be a firm advocate of where we have
01:16:11something.
01:16:12And, you know, like, I'm probably more obsessed with this than most officials.
01:16:17Okay?
01:16:17Probably more obsessed with this than most people even in this room,
01:16:20is when you see somebody who says something in an email that suggests,
01:16:25you know, there's one email I read, and it's been a little while ago,
01:16:28but it was talking about, you know, one person sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein saying,
01:16:32oh, there were some really nice, like, pizzas and grape sodas or something like that.
01:16:37And I remember it sounded like the Pizzagate conspiracy theory,
01:16:40but here it was in, like, an email from a guy.
01:16:43And my reaction to that was, we should absolutely investigate that person.
01:16:47Okay?
01:16:47And, you know, you remind me, I'm going to follow up on that to see whether we've investigated that person,
01:16:53because we should.
01:16:54We absolutely should.
01:16:54When you see evidence of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, regardless of whether you're powerful or not,
01:17:00in fact, you should probably investigate it more if you're a powerful person.
01:17:03Right?
01:17:04I don't want powerful people, you know, being involved in this disgusting behavior.
01:17:09But I have to defend the president on this, because when he said that it was a hoax,
01:17:14what he was talking about was this democratic idea that he's connected to Epstein.
01:17:19If you look at those emails, it's like, you know, they were in the same, you know,
01:17:24everybody in Palm Beach knew everybody.
01:17:26Okay?
01:17:27Like, the president has said he knew Jeffrey Epstein and he was a scumbag.
01:17:30But what you see in those emails is that Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald Trump.
01:17:35And Donald Trump hated Jeffrey Epstein.
01:17:37In fact, one of the emails is about Donald Trump narking on Jeffrey Epstein to the local sheriff,
01:17:42saying, this guy's a scumbag.
01:17:44You should go and pick him up.
01:17:45So when Donald Trump says, when the president says, this is a hoax,
01:17:49he's not saying it's a hoax that Epstein was the scumbag.
01:17:52He's not saying that it's a hoax that Epstein was connected to powerful people.
01:17:56He's saying this democratic idea that somehow he was Epstein's best friend, that is a hoax.
01:18:01And if you look at the emails, it's obvious that Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald J. Trump.
01:18:06And by the way, one of the best signs for whether you're a good person or not,
01:18:12for whether you're a decent human being, is if the worst people in the world hate your guts.
01:18:16The fact that Jeffrey Epstein hates Donald J. Trump is a pretty good thing for Donald J. Trump.
01:18:21Yeah.
01:18:22Well, and there's, I will say, by the way, just so you know, the DOJ, just before we got on
01:18:26stage,
01:18:27I guess I saw the news, has unredacted fully the six million documents,
01:18:33made it available to your congressmen and women.
01:18:35So put pressure on them to go give you a report of what they find.
01:18:38Mr. Vice President, thank you so much.
01:18:41Thank you, guys.
01:18:42Appreciate you.
01:18:43That was awesome.
01:18:51Bye, y'all.
01:18:55Look at this.
01:18:55My big fat head.
01:18:58Bye.
01:18:58Thank you all.
01:19:00Go this way.
01:19:01Go this way.
01:19:11Go this way.
01:19:11Go this way.
01:19:14Go this way.
01:19:20Go this way.
01:19:21Go this way.
01:19:21Go this way.
01:19:22Go this way.
01:19:22Go this way.
01:19:24Go this way.
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