JD Vance Defends Erika Kirk and Addresses Iran Negotiations, Fraud Crackdown, and American Dream at University of Georgia

That's coming up, Mr. Vice President. Good to see you. >> Thank you all. What a welcome. >> Hello, Athens. >> Yeah. >> I think that that's their their thing. I like it. >> That that that is definitely their thing. So, I've been to two SEC schools with Turning Point USA, and uh my Ohio State brethren are ashamed of me because I've given you guys way more love than my own alma mater, but it's pretty good to be in SEC country, I have to say. It's great to be here. We can help fix that. We can work on that. Um, so for those of you wondering why uh I don't have really flowing long blonde hair right now, um, so I'm going to address it right at the front. Uh, Mr. Vice President, I'm on stage here instead of our friend Erica Kirk. >> That's right. >> Um, because unfortunately she has received some very serious threats in her direction, which is terrible. It's a terrible reflection on the state of reality and the state of the country. But it underscores a larger point that she has received a lot of attacks um from s surprising places perhaps. Tell us what you think about that. Some of the people that have made you know part-time jobs out of attacking Erica and this is the net result. Sure. Well, first of all, I love Erica and I know that she did get some threats and you know, about two hours ago, as you know, Andrew, I was a little worried that we were going to have to cancel the event because Erica was not going to come and she was very worried about it. And I talked to the Secret Service and obviously these guys do a very good job and I said, "You know what? Let's let Erica do what she needs to do for herself and her family. I'm sure Andrew will fill in and let's go and make this an amazing event with the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia." So, absolutely, we're going to do this thing. But, but look, I I I mean, in in so many ways, you know, when did Charlie die? It was midepptember, I believe. >> September. And and in the past, that's right. It was the the day right before September 11th. >> And in so many ways, the past six or so months have been two separate living hills for Erica Kirk. >> And the first is, of course, that she lost her husband. She lost the father of her children. And I I'll never forget this because I I mean frankly I think a lot about it because my wife is now pregnant with our fourth baby is when we went and picked up Thank you. but when we went and picked up Charlie's body in Utah and of course you were there with us and I met Erica and I met the family. I mean, I met Charlie's his parents and his little sister and I I I just think about that moment and where she was so broken. And any of you know who anybody anybody who's greed before is is is you kind of go from just crestfallen and sad and then you want to remember the person that you just lost and there's just this constant flood of emotions, right? At one moment you're laughing about something they said two years ago and another moment you're sobbing because they're not there anymore. And I thought about that moment a lot because Erica told me and that was the first time she had ever, you know, first time she'd ever told me this and and I guess I've I thought about it a lot in the context of our own of our own, you know, my wife's pregnancy. She said, "I really wish that we had had more babies together." And that kind of hit me like, "It's just it. He's gone." That was sort of one of the moments where I realized Charlie's not coming back here. And you have this this mom who's really sad about the fact that her two little kids may never have memories. I mean, you think about like a as a father, I know most of you out there are too young to have have kids, but one of the things that you think about as a father is I want my kids to remember this moment, right? I want my I want my six-year-old to remember when I took him to the zoo or, you know, my six-year-old son was just baptized on Easter Sunday, and I want him to remember that moment with me. And that's Thank you. But so Erica's struggling with this and of course that's terrible, unspeakable. Most of us cannot even put ourselves in her shoes while at the same time, you know, she's trying to make sure that Charlie's legacy doesn't die. And in that context, everybody is attacking her over everything and they're lying about her. And it's one of the most disgraceful things that I've ever seen in public life. And I've seen a lot of crazy stuff in my life as a as a political leader. And I will tell you that the people who tell you I was there with her. I was holding her hand. My wife was hugging her while we loaded Charlie's body onto Air Force 2 and said the Lord's Prayer. The people telling you that Erica wasn't grieving her husband are full of And we need to be honest about that fact. Excuse my language. My wife says I got to work on my language. She's been telling me that for 12 years and it still hasn't taken. But but the thing is, look, when you become a public figure, the natural thing, and I've I've talked to Erica about this privately, is a ton of crazy people say a ton of things about you that simply aren't true. But the thing that makes it so egregious with Erica is that she's a grieving person who's trying to carry on her husband's legacy. And look, we all do things that are wrong. If you want to, you know, criticize Turning Point USA for not taking this position or having this political disagreement or maybe it should do this or that, that's all above board. But to say that Erica Kirk wasn't grieving her husband on that day. To say that Erica Kirk was somehow complicit in it is so preposterous and so disgusting. And it's one of the things that has broken, I think, the American public conversation over the last six months there. I mean, you know, Andrew, we could talk about this for a long time. Charlie's absence, I felt it so many times in so many different ways. There have been so many times where I wanted to call Charlie and say, "Man, you've got to call this person," or, "Man, you've got to put this event together so we can help this candidate or or just to bounce ideas off of as a friend." There have been so many ways in which I felt that void. But one of the ways in which I felt that void is that it's like the response to Charlie Kirk dying. The the resp response to Charlie Kirk getting assassinated by a left-wing furry lover is the response should have been let's go after left-wing violence and terrorism. Let's defund the networks of left-wing violence and terrorism. That's what we've been doing in Washington DC and that's what we've been fighting for every single day. you know, S Savannah Hernandez, of course, was assaulted in Minnesota a couple days ago. I talked to Cash M Pat Mattel on the way down here and I said, I assume that we're doing something here and he said, "Yes, we've had multiple agents on the ground. We've already talked to Savannah. We're going to use the video to try to go after the people who assaulted her and then try to defund the networks that fund those radicals who are going around assaulting activists. That's what we should be doing." And I know that politics is hard and I know that it's challenging and I know that things aren't always easy and we're going to have disagreements even within our coalition, but if you're going after Erica Kirk and not the people who are trying to destroy the United States of America, you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. Yeah. Amen. You know, I I think that's really well said, Mr. Vice President. And I always try and remember that Erica has to live with this constant reality that her kids are one parent away from being orphans. And so we take that extremely seriously. And as you mentioned what happened with Savannah and I think it's just important that we remember that we're dealing with humans. These are human beings. Um, >> yeah. I I I you know, exactly. And I've heard some people say, well, you know, Erica was smiling two days after Charlie Kirk died or something like that. And it's like, have most of us in this room have grieved somebody that we loved. You know, maybe hopefully not a spouse who dies in the prime of their life, but when you deal with somebody who's grieving, it's always this weird combination of emotions. It's intense sadness, intense affection. It's, you know, you you sort of love that person in that moment maybe maybe more than you ever have because you feel their absence. You think about all the happy moments that you had and you can't help but smile and then you remember they're not there and you can't help but stop, that's what grief is like. And so again, if your instinct is to go after not the left-wing radicals who are assaulting Savannah or not the people who shot Charlie Kirk, but if your instinct is to go after a a young mother because she's grieving in a way that you find in a you you find wrong, well, why don't you stay in your lane and mind your own business? Amen. >> Grief is complicated. And I just and I you know so there there's there's another angle of this Andrew which is just so absurd which is that you know pe people will say that you know Erica you know she she's she's been doing this or she's been doing that and I would be doing something different and it's like first of all that's fine like if if you want to criticize somebody because you have a disagreement disagree with my politics disagree with something that Erica or Andrew say on the turning point uh podcast, but this desire to go after her for the way she's she's grieving her husband, that's the most preposterous thing I've seen in a very long time. And I've seen a lot of crazy stuff in politics. Amen. Thank you for saying that, Mr. Vice President. So, I think this this segus very well into our next question here. You are a practicing Catholic. You're uh despite your language, you're you're attempting to be a faithful Catholic. >> That's right. That's right. I think it was well placed if I if I may say >> I'm sure you've seen that uh the Vatican and the Pope and the president have been in the news uh lately. >> So as a Catholic, what does it feel like to be, you know, in the middle of that? I thought it was going to get easy questions. This is kind of a tough question here. >> Nope, no easy ones. >> So So here here's the thing about this. So, first of all, you will sometimes hear people say, well, you know, the Vatican, the church, whether it's the Protestant church, the Catholic Church, like, you know, they should preach the gospel, they should ignore public policy. I actually don't agree with that. I actually think that it's a good thing when Christian leaders, whether they're Catholic or Protestant, part of preaching the gospel is talking about how the gospel applies to the issues of the day. So, I'm I've never been one of these people who say that you should never have, you know, Christian leadership not talking about politics or frankly political leaders not talking about their Christian faith. But I do think that we have to remember that, you know, each of us has our own role. I'm the vice president of the United States. The fundamental way I understand my role is that I'm trying to take the lessons, the moral truths that are that are rooted in Christianity and I'm trying to apply them to a whole host of complicated real world scenarios. You know, the the Thank you. So, my job is to apply moral truth to try to do the best thing for the American people. That's my job and that's the president of the United States's job. And of course, he's the person who leads our administration. the Pope's job is to preach the gospel. Okay? And again, I think that sometimes in the in the context like it doesn't bother me even when I disagree with him. And I have a lot of respect for the Pope. I like him. I admire him. I've gotten to know him a little bit. I I I it doesn't bother me when he speaks on issues of the day. Frankly, even when I disagree with how he's applying a particular principle. So the the most obvious example is it has frustrated me that some of the Catholic clergy have attacked mercilessly the Trump administration on immigration. It is a constant idea that somehow everything that that the Trump administration does when it comes to sec securing our borders is inhumane. And my constant response to that is how is it humane to allow drug traffickers and sex traffickers to bring little kids across the southern border? >> Amen. H how is that humane? But but again, I'd almost rather have the conversation. So I kind of like even when there's disagreement, I like it when the Pope comments on questions of immigration. I like it when the Pope talks about abortion. I like it when the Pope talks about matters of war and peace because I think that at the very least it invites a conversation. So I think some people, you know, their reaction to this is to is to say, well, you know, he shouldn't have said that. And look, there are certainly things that the pope has said in the last few few months that I disagree with. Let me just take like one very concrete example, you know, related to this conflict in in in Iran. So the pope said something where he said, and I'm going to I'm going to try to remember the exact quote, but he said that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. pretty sure that he said that exact that exact statement. Now, on the one hand, again, I like that the Pope is an advocate for peace. I think that's certainly one of his roles. On the other hand, how can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those those innocent people from, you know, those who had survived the Holocaust? I I I >> I certainly think the answer is yes. And I agree. Jesus Christ does not I agree. Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide. Whoever yelled that out from the dark, he certainly does not. I think that's pretty easy. I think that's a a pretty easy principle. >> Okay. So, so here's a guy. Let me just say this. Th This is a guy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, first of all, random dude who's shouting, can I finish my point and then I'll respond to what you just shouted. Is that okay? >> Okay, great. >> Yeah. Can we give him one second to to to answer this? >> So, let me just finish this question on the Pope and then I want to respond to what this guy said. So number one, the when when the when the pope says that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword, there is a thousand-year more than a thousand-y year tradition of just war theory. Okay? Now, we can of course have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think that it's important in the same way that it's important for the vice president of United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy. I think it's very very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. And I think that one of these issues here is that there has been is again hey random dude screaming I told you I'd respond to your point. I just want to respond to this question first. But I I think one of the issues here is that if you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth. And that's one of the things that I try to do and it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy whether they're Catholic or Protestant. Now to respond to um this guy here, he said J I believe he said the administration supports a genocide in Gaza. And here's my response to that. When we came in the humanitarian situation in Gaza was an absolute catastrophe. You know who's the person who got a peace agreement in Gaza? Donald J. Trump. So if you want to complain about what happened in Gaza, So if you want, sir, to complain about what happened in Gaza, why don't you complain about Joe Biden in the last administration? We're the administration that solved that problem. And and and by the way, not only was our administration like the administration that solved the problem, but the pres the the the the president >> children, >> excuse me, sir, >> right? Right now, right now, you right now, you see more humanitarian aid coming into Gaza than it has any time in the past 5 years because we have taken that situation seriously. And that's one of the things that I'm proud of about our administration is whether it's there or Thailand and Cambodia, we have consistently tried as much as we can to solve these problems, not just complain about them like the guy who just ran away angry. You know, JD, I'll never forget your speech at Charlie's memorial and you talked about how your faith in the wake of Charlie's assassination has become so central to you. You talk about it more and now you're even writing a book about it. >> Sure. Tell us about it. >> What's it called? It's called the the way. >> Well, it's it's called it's it's called Communion. And you know, it's it's I think the subtitle is Finding My Way Back to Faith. >> Yes. >> And you know, here here's why I wanted to write this book, Andrew, because you know, I think that like a lot of you. Uh I was I was there was a there was a point in my life, I mean, you're probably much more This is probably a much more Christian audience than than maybe I was when I was a 22-year-old college student. I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps and uh I I I I realized that I was sort of winning this game of life in one sense and I was losing it in the way that mattered. And you know, I was raised in a Christian household. I was raised in a very sort of Pentecostal uh family. You know, our our church had a really good music and amazing people. And one of the things I love about evangelical culture in the United States of America is just how welcoming it is of everybody, right? And you know that you're an evangelical Christian. And so the thing is I hadn't been properly formed in my faith. And so I got to the Marine Corps and by the time I left the Marine Corps and it was starting college, I called myself an atheist. And I kind of went through this period of being an angry atheist. And then I realized when I I got to a point where I thought to myself, what what actually matters in life? It's not getting into a law school, which I had done. It's not making a lot of money. It's not credentials. It's not good jobs. It's It's being a good person. It's, you know, I'd fallen in love with this uh Thank you. I'd fallen in love I'd fallen in love with a girl and that girl eventually became my wife and uh the mother to our our now four children. And I remember thinking to myself like she doesn't care what whether I I make a certain amount of money. She wants me to be a good husband. She wants me to be a good father. She wants to me to be a virtuous person. And I started to realize >> she wants date night. Yes, she wants she does want that, which is hard when you're vice president of the United States. >> But what what I realized is that the philosophy of secular liberalism, it was achieve achieve achieve. Get as many credentials, make as much money as possible. And that left me feeling empty. And meanwhile, it was this faith that I had discarded as a kid, which actually provided a real sense of meaning and purpose. And then I talked to a priest and this priest was like, "You know what? If you think that the Christian faith is right about all these moral questions, maybe it's right because there's there's a witness element to it. Like maybe the fact that it's right about morality and about virtue and about sin, maybe that means it's also right about the fact that Jesus Christ was the son of God. Maybe it's also right that Jesus Christ died and was ris and rose from the dead on the third day. Like maybe like maybe these things that appeal to you about the Christian faith come from the deeper truth of the Christian faith. And that kind of got me down a pathway of where eventually I uh was baptized and and became a very devout Christian and and at this point >> Amen. Thank you. >> Amen. But you know, I thought first of all, a lot of people have asked me about that journey and um I I thought what better way than to sit down and actually force myself to write it out. I actually started writing the book back in 2017, right after Usha had right after Usha had our first baby, uh my son Euan, who's now 8 years old. And so I've been kind of writing it off and on since then. And you know, a little bit Charlie's death, a little bit just being in the public eye, but mostly just I've been at this thing for 10 years and I was like, it's finally time to get it out there. And so I put the finishing touches on it, submitted to the publisher a couple of months ago, and it's coming out in June. So buy the book Communion. >> I love that. Not that that wasn't also really riveting, but we're getting to the part of the interview that I'm really excited about. You are working on fraud. You're the frauds are. Yes. How many bad guys? Yes, we can. How many bad guys are we going to get? I I mean that's that's that's the way I there's a really nice framing of this question that I worked on. No, no. I want to know how important. >> What's the progress? Tell us about it. >> Well, we've already gotten a lot of bad guys. And this is, you know, one of the things I'm very proud about is that, you know, people don't just want talk, they want action. They want us to actually go and arrest the people who committed fraud. And that's happening. We're starting to do that. And that's a good thing. And a lot more is going to be happening in the future. But I actually you know who's been amazing on this is Dr. Oz Mez who runs the center uh for for Medicare and Medicaid services because so much of the fraud in our system is people who are defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. Let me just give you a couple of examples. So um we have in South Florida we have entire companies that sell medical devices. They sell prosthetic knees and they sell prosthetic hips. And you know that they've received hundreds of millions, some of them billions of dollars in government funds and they've never shipped a single product. They're just set up by fraudsters and there are so many of them and many of them haven't there are like over a hundred of these companies that haven't shipped a single product. Okay, I'll give you another example of fraud. So this this ridiculous situation with Somali fraudsters in uh in Minneapolis in the Minneapolis area. So you have a program that exists to help autistic children get the resources they need to help their parents, you know, find them a ride to school or if they need afterchool support to make sure their parents have what they need. And that program has been defrauded by Somali fraudsters who will go in who will say that we have three kids. Every single one of them is autistic. There's no verification from the state of Minnesota. So that family will receive tens of thousands of dollars from the taxpayer. And then the autistic children in Minneapolis who actually do need those services, the money's not there anymore because it's been taken away by fraudsters. We've completely stopped the funding to that program and we basically told this the state of Minnesota, you don't get any more of our money unless you verify that you're taking fraud seriously. So, we just turned it off. But, you know, but what what Dr. working with some of the, you know, the people in our Department of Justice found is that in Southern California, you had all these people who were engaged in massive fraud against the Medicare system. You had just tons and tons of people getting rich off fraud. And so, we had our sort of our weekly fraud check-in call 2 weeks ago, and Dr. Oz called in, but he's like, "Hey, I I got to go because I'm about to hop on the bus and we're going to go arrest a bunch of fraudsters in Los Angeles." I was like, "That's exactly what I want you to do. by all means get off the phone. So, we're doing a lot of that stuff and I I think one of the biggest things and the most important things we're doing on this, Andrew, is that there was sort of in the Biden administration, probably intentionally, but regardless, this attitude of if you were committing fraud of under a million dollars, you were committing fraud of under a million half dollars, we're just going to look the other way. And the approach that we've taken in the last couple of months is no amount of fraud is too big or too small. If you're defrauding the taxpayer, you ought to go to prison. And anybody who's helping you ought to go to prison, too. That's great. I mean, I think this is one of the absolute slam dunk issues. How many of you guys out in this audience care about American taxpayers getting ripped off, right? This is like a 9010 99 one issue. The guy who was shouting at us earlier, he doesn't care at all about being people getting ripped off by fraud. >> But, you know, it I think it underscores a bigger problem, right? Because there's a lot of young people in this room, okay? A lot of you had some very formative years ripped off as well during co. You didn't get to do prom. You didn't get graduation. There was so many things taken from you. >> And you know, you entered into the college years maybe with a really anemic uh workforce environment. Um inflation, historic, life's expensive. What do you what do you tell young people right now that even right now they're they're wondering what's the future that I can get? What's the career I can get? Can I afford to have a family, kids, buy a home? What's your message to them right now that that have big questions ahead of their future? I think my message to young people who are wondering whether they can afford a family, whether they can afford a home, whether they can afford, you know, kids and the American dream is you guys have every right to demand more of your elected leadership. And my job is to make it as possible for the answer to that question to be yes. And fundamentally the question you should ask your politicians is exactly that. Are you pursuing policies that make it easier for me to afford a house? Easier for me to get a good job, easier for me to get a good education, and easier for me to raise my family in safety and security and comfort. That is the fundamental issue. And the and and the thing that bothered me so much about the last administration, you know, there are all these like unique policies that I could sort of point to that were disastrous and a lot of them were absolutely terrible, but so much of it goes back to housing and immigration and the connection between the two. Under the four years that Joe Biden was president, housing literally doubled in value. Meaning, if you're a young person trying to buy a house, it costs twice as much as it did before. And you you layer on top of that uh higher interest rates. That's just in four years. Nobody can afford that kind of inflation in the housing market. And one of the biggest drivers of it is the fact that we let in tens of millions of illegal aliens. People who shouldn't have been here who were taking homes that ought by right go to you and your generation. And so what have we done in the Trump administration? We've shut the border. We've kicked a lot of those people who have come into the United States. We've kicked them out of our country. And importantly, we have actually instituted a ban on institutional investors buying up American homes because I don't want I don't want private equity firms, many of them backed by foreign money, to buy American homes. I want you guys to be able to buy American homes. And I I will say and I say this not to brag because I think you guys should be impatient. When a politician comes to you and tells you, "I've done all these things." You should be asking, "Good. Now go and do more." That's how I think of my job. I don't wake up and say, "Oh, we did something really good last week." I think to myself, we did something good last week. Now, let's go do more of it or let's go do something different. Because the the maybe the statistic that I'm proudest of in the entire Trump administration is that over the last 8 months, rents and home prices have come down. Not stayed the same. They have come down. And what I think of as our ultimate ambition is that after another few years of this administration of stopping private equity barons from buying up homes, from kicking out more illegal immigrants, from securing the border, what we are going to see is housing that is much more affordable. And then we're going to keep on building on it year after year after year because the American dream should not be sold to the highest foreign bidder. It belongs to you. Yeah, that's so well said. And a lot of the people in this audience will know that this is one of the issues near and dear to Charlie's heart as well to make sure that you guys could afford the American dream that we thought about you first as a country. And um so thank you for for saying it so well. Um, naturally we have to ask about what's going on in Iran. >> Sure. >> So, but I just want everybody I I want to give the vice president his due here because you have been to Europe in the last week. >> Then you flew back to the United States only to fly back across the globe to negotiate in Pakistan to come back and somehow we called and we're like, "Are you really going to come to Georgia?" And he's like, "I'll be there." So, I want to give him a big round of applause. Thank you. I mean I may I just say that's almost Trumpian level endurance. So um do you know what time zone you are and how many hours of sleep did you get? >> I have no idea what the hell time it is right now. And it's kind of good actually because you just run on coffee and then you sleep when you can. You wake up when you have to and you just drink a whole lot of coffee. And you know, look, it's it's the job that I asked for, but yes, I I will say, look, I I think that let me just say, you ask young people, and I want to make some observation because it it made me think of something, which is that young people in the United States, but but particularly young Americans in the conservative movement, I think that we have a tendency to get too black. And here's what I say by this. We we have a tendency to get too cynical, too pessimistic. Like I'm sure that I've said mostly things that you agree with and I'm sure that I've said some things you may not agree with and you may not agree with everything that I say about the Iran negotiation which I I will get to answering your question. But here's fundamentally the issue. When you see a politician or you see a political movement or you see an administration that isn't doing what you want to do, I think you have two choices. You can say a to hell with those people and check out of the process. Or you can say you know what I'm going to get more involved. I'm going to make my voice heard even more. I'm going to pressure that administration to do exactly what I want them to do because they got my vote. They earned my vote, but they can't take it for granted. And I've seen some of this, you know, on various issues like like for example, I I I recognize uh that that that a lot of young voters don't love the policy that we have in the Middle East. Okay, I understand that. I also know that we've secured the border. We've lowered housing prices now for eight months in a row, and there's going to be more to come beyond that. We've made America energy dominant, which has lowered electricity costs and things like that. We've made it so that we have the lowest murder rate in 127 years. I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. I I'm not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. What I'm saying is don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved. Make your voice heard even more. That's how we ultimately take the country back. It's not by you. You know, if if you get five things you want and one thing you don't want, I see way too many people, especially in sort of the online conservative, you know, Twitter sphere, who say, "Ah, you know, there's no point." No, no, no, no. Because or or let me give you another example, the Save Act. Okay? A lot of people want the Save Act. I want the Save Act. I've been fighting for the Save Act literally since day one of the administration. And I I've seen a lot of people saying, "What the hell is the point of voting for these guys if you know you've got three Republicans joining with with the Democrats to prevent the Save Act from passing or I guess four Republicans." And and here's my response to that. Yes, it is annoying to me that there are only 45 or 46 Republicans who will fight politically to get the Save Act passed. But you know what? 10 years ago, that number was 35. So the answer to frustration is engagement. Don't give up on this process. Get more involved in this process and demand more from people like me. That's how we take our country back. I just think it's important to say that. >> That's such a good point. The the how the Senate is such an example as frustrating as it is, but you were part of that new wave of new thinking, of new energy, a new generation, and there's so many new voices that are bringing real change to the Senate. I mean, we're one two elections away from maybe having it all the way around >> 100%. And I understand people get frustrated at it. I get frustrated at it, but it's a lot better than it was 10 years ago. And frankly, 10 years ago, it was a lot better than it was 10 years before that. But here here's here's where we are on fundamentally the president set a policy Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And right now, we are negotiating to make sure that very thing happens. And here's, you know, what's interesting about this is What what what's what's interesting about this is that we have this ceasefire that's in place. I think it's six or seven days old. Right now, the ceasefire is holding. And what what you're seeing is the president wants to make he doesn't want to make like a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain. And what he's basically offering to Iran is very simple. And frankly, it's something that no president has, I think, has had the ability to offer. He said that if you're willing to act like a normal country, we are willing to treat you economically like a normal country. He doesn't want a small deal. And that's that's that's one of the reasons why one I'd say in in Pakistan, we made a ton of progress. But the reason why the deal is not yet done is because the president he really wants a deal where Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. Iran is not state sponsoring terrorism, but also the people of Iran can thrive and prosper prosper and join the world economy. And that's that's the trade that he's offering. He's saying if you guys he's saying if you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran thrive. We're going to make it economically prosperous, and we're going to invite the Iranian people into the world economy in a way they haven't been in my entire life. And that's the kind of Trumpian grand bargain that the president has put on the table. man, we're going to keep on negotiating and try to make it happen because it would be great for the world. It'd be great for our country. It'd be great for everybody. So, I'm going to keep on fighting to make it happen. >> Yeah. >> Just a few more and then we've got a >> Please. I know we have some questions for the audience. >> My my one question is when you looked across from these Iranian negoti negotiators, what did you make of them? Did you get the sense that they really were the right people? I mean, I'm assuming you guys know this type of thing, but yeah. I mean, look, you never know. Um, we we had never the United States had never had meetings at that level with the Iranian government in 49 years. Like, it's it's a meeting that had never before happened. Not Democrat, not Republican. We had never had a meeting like that where you have, you know, the person who's effectively running the country in Iran sitting across from the vice president of the United States. That that had never happened. And and what I my my look, honestly, after 49 years, there's a lot of of course mistrust between Iran and the United States of America. You're not going to solve that problem overnight. But yeah, I think the people we're sitting across from wanted to make a deal. And I know the president of the United States told us to go out there and and negotiate in good faith. That's what we did. That's what we're going to keep on doing. So, you never know, though. Yeah. >> Right. I mean, I I've I've sat across from United States senators that I thought I agreed with, and you know, you you don't know what those people, right? I won't say who. You can guess, but I feel very good about where we are, right? All right. So, this is the last one from me. Now, a lot of people make a big deal about illegal immigration, and we should. It's terrible, right? And this administration has made historic progress on that issue. I think it's you don't get enough credit for it. And the problem with immigration, illegal immigration, is once it's not a problem anymore, our memories are about 6 days long and we move on to the next thing. But what about legal immigration and reforming it, correcting it, addressing abuses? Because I look around here and I see a bunch of American students, that want jobs, that want homes, that want a space in this country. >> And I think reforming legal is so so critical. Maybe talk about some of the reforms that this administration has done specifically on the legal front. So, this is exactly right. And this is 100%, you know, I think one of the first pieces of legislation I sponsored in the United States Senate was effectively to get one of rid of the H-1B visa because I cared so much about this when I was in the Senate. >> And and and yes, it is the case that Congress has not exactly come along there. Again, to my point about the United States Senate, there are far more people who are sponsoring that legislation today than there were 10 years ago, but it's not nearly enough to get it through. But just through administrative action, I don't think people realize this. The number of new H-1B visas is down about 90% in the United States of America. Like that's a that's something that we accomplished purely through >> that's something we accomplished purely through administrative action. And again, it's something I I cared a lot about. It's something the president cared a lot about. So, you know, there there are other things too. There are ways in which, you know, our our our visa system is taken completely advantage of. one of the biggest loopholes in American immigration, legal immigration policy. And I'll never forget my debate against Tim Walsh where I the moderator tried to fact check me because I said this person is an illegal immigrant. It's like no actually they they came in as an asylum claimant. And it's like if you came in on a fraudulent asylum claim, you are an illegal immigrant, whatever the hell somebody from CBS says that you are. And the asylum process was I mean there were guys there were literally millions of people coming into the United States every single year on false asylum claims. We have those claims down something like north of 95%. So there are all of these things that you can do all these things that you can do purely through administrative action. But for us to really make this stick, I mean, look, as much as I don't want this to happen, eventually, hopefully 20 years from now, you're going to have a Democratic president who tries to undo everything that we've done on immigration. That's why we need Congress to codify this stuff. But right now, I'm very proud of what we've done in the Trump administration. Massive reductions in fraudulent visas, massive reductions in fraudulent number of asylum claims, massive reduction in H-1B visas granted. We're making a lot of progress. As I said to you, we want to make more. We are certainly going to make more over the remaining three years. But what that means fundamentally is you guys deserve to have good jobs. And I don't want, you know, when when you graduate from this amazing university, and it hurts me to say that as an Ohio State fan, but this is an amazing university. When you I owe when you graduate, when you I think the the guy who was screaming earlier, he's clearly a Michigan guy. Just put put it on the put on the table. Oh no, we have another Michigan guy over here. But but >> they are they did win the natty. So >> yes, that's right. That's right. But when you guys graduate from this this university, I don't want you competing against a low-wage foreigner for your first job. I want a company to have to pay you a fair wage for a fair day's work. It's like common sense. But to do that, you really have to do reform of the H-1B and and other it's not just the H-1B, a number of the other visa systems. We made a lot of progress, but man, I would love if Congress and you guys advocated. Ask yourself, I mean, you have a Senate primary going on right now. Every sing, this is what I say about getting more involved. Every single one of you should ask those Senate candidates, what do you think about the H-1B visa? Would you co-sponsor the vice president, former senator's legislation to eliminate that program? because it's basically just something that big tech companies take advantage of. These are the things that you guys have to do because I can't keep these politicians honest by myself. I need your help. It's a very big job. Great stuff. So, thank you, Mr. Vice President. We have some question. I believe we're ready for some questions for >> Yeah, let's do some questions for the audience. Oh, right here. >> Okay, there we are. Hello. >> Hi, my name is Hope. Um, I have a serious question and then a fun question. Okay. >> So, your serious question is when you were growing up, who was your voice slash influencer that helped you see your conservative views? And then for now, who couldn't we look at as an influencer or like a voice? >> Okay. So, that's that's very interesting. So, you know, when I was a kid and I was kind of developing my politics, there was actually a radio host, um, a guy who who founded this organization called Focus on the Family, James Dobson, who was really influential to me. And he was just he was he was a good Christian guy. He talked about the family. He talked about things I cared a lot about. And I came from a broken home. So when he talked about the ways in which a broken home had a negative effect on kids, it made sense to me because I was seeing it in my own life. And then here was a guy who was actually talking about it. And what I liked about him is that he didn't talk about it in this in this judgmental way, right? He wasn't attacking a kid like me who didn't have everything handed to him. He was just explaining in a very real world with with a fundamentally Christian underpinning. Here's what happens when things are broken. And you know when when you ask who who should I who are the some of the conservative influencers or the the political influencers today and there are a few people that I look to who I think have very very smart and wise spiritual wisdom. I mean like I I think Andrew and Blake and the and the podcast that they have at TPUSA is amazing. Uh I listen to it all the time. I think it's great. You know, I think if you want a good laugh, I love Theo Von. Like he's one of my favorite. He's just incredible. and he's he's got one of these senses of humor where like 30% of the time it goes completely over my head and 70% of the time he's the funniest person imaginable. But I think Theo has a good heart and that's that's one of the reasons why I really like listening to his show. Um and then and then just in terms of like you know pure politics, of course you should be listening to the vice president of these United States. >> Thank you. And then my fun question is, if you could have a free day with zero responsibilities, what would your day look like? >> Oh, that's a that's a good question. And honestly, I would add not just zero responsibilities, but total anonymity because the thing that I really I love this job. It's very cool. I'm very honored to have it. But I would really, what I really want to do honestly is take Usha and the three kids and just walk to a local cafe, eat a ton of pancakes, and then take the kids to the zoo without anybody knowing who the hell I am. That's that's what I would do if I had a day. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Very nice question. >> All right. Hi, JD. My name is Jacob and I'm also from Cincinnati. So, I I get you I'm with you there on the zoo. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, appreciate that. Thank you. >> Uh anyway, my question is that there's a lot of division within uh our country right now from right to left and everybody in between. And leading up to the 2024 election and Charlie's death, I found that Charlie was definitely the glue that held at least the conservative movement together. And since he has passed, there's been a lot of division within our conservative movement. And especially with the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election coming up, how do you think the conservative movement can be united? And if there is a who, who do you think that could be? >> Well, that's a very good question. And and look, man, I I agree with you. I think part of the division is Charlie's death because Charlie, as Andrew knows well, and a lot of this was behind the scenes. Charlie was the guy who was talking to different segments of the movement, right? So, I mean, ju just this this Iran thing, Charlie would be the guy who was talking to the people who really wanted to go to war with Iran and the people who really didn't want to go to war with Iran. And he would be he would try to find ways for those guys to work together even if they disagreed over one issue, right? And so Charlie's absence is is is a huge thing. And and I my answer to your question is who replaces Charlie Kirk? I think it's going to be a combination of people. I think Andrew's got a role. I've got a role. You guys have got a role. And I think the most important thing to remember about how how Charlie thought about this is he always recognized what was the goal and who was the real problem. The real problem is not a person who disagrees with you about this or that foreign policy or domestic policy issue. The real problem is the person who killed our friend and anybody who defended the people who killed our friend. And we got to keep our eye on the ball and recognize that those who want to kill conservatives because they have the wrong viewpoints, we need to defeat those people. We need to unite with each other and actually fight together to defeat the real enemy that's out there. That's that's the most important message. And I and I'll also give you, you know, one of the reasons why I'm optimistic about this is you even when Charlie was alive, you saw some of these divisions starting to bubble to the surface. Okay. And I and I remember I mean Charlie died in September of 2025. I hadn't been vice president I mean for I'd been vice president for all of 8 months when Charlie lost his life to an assassin's gun. You know, one thing that makes people in politics sort of divide against each other is just being in power, right? When you have control of the House, the Senate, the uh the White House, and there's not an election around the horizon, it's very easy to forget what your goal is. Well, starting in a few months, we're going to have primaries that are over. We're going to have candidates on the ballot, and we're all going to need to get out there and work hard because the people who want to kill Donald Trump, the people who want to throw Donald Trump in prison, the people who murdered our friend, and then the people who celebrated it afterwards, those people were trying to achieve political power. We cannot let them and we have to uniite to make sure that doesn't happen. >> Amen. >> Thank you, Judy. >> Good evening, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for taking the time to come out here. My name is Dane Hoff. I'm originally from the great state of Arizona and proudly voted for you and Donald J. Trump in November 2024. >> Here we go. >> And my question is that many people believe the midterms are already gone for us. I disagree. So, what is the game plan to win the midterms and what's the strategy to maintain the coalitions Trump won in 24? So, number one is I totally agree with you. The idea that midterms are gone is preposterous. And if you go back to 2018 and you look at the polling picture in 2018, that was that was Trump's first term. And what it showed is that Republicans were getting crushed in the generic ballot by 10, 11, 12 points. the worst polls right now, the worst polls, not all of them, the worst polls have us down by five or six points. Okay? And what happened in 2018 is that as we got closer to the election and again the the right kind of unified in the face of an election campaign, what happened is those margins narrowed and the Republican party did much better than expected in 2018. It wasn't a great election by any means, but the idea that this is done now is ridiculous. And frankly, it's cynical, pessimistic garbage pushed by people who want us to completely give up. Don't give up. We got to keep on fighting. That's the fundamental and most important thing is the people telling you to give up on the midterms are the people who want us to lose the midterms. Don't listen to them. But what's the game plan? You ask what the game plan is. So, I'll give you a little good news and a little bad news on that. Because the bad news and the good news about the modern Congress is whether you agree with this or not, the districts are so gerrymandered, there aren't that many battleground congressional districts left. Like, if you go back to 2014 where I think Republicans won like 80 seats in the House, that's not going to happen. Elections like that don't happen anymore. So, what we got to fight is 20 or 30 districts where there's actually some some some real competition in those districts. We got to put a lot of resources. We got to knock on a lot of doors. We got to get out the marginal Trump voter cuz one of the things we saw in 2024 is a lot of our voters, they're dedicated. They love the president. They don't show up in midterm elections. So, we got to knock on as many doors and make sure those people get out and vote. We have a game plan, but the House is going to be determined by 20 or 30 seats. We just got to win as many of those as possible. And yes, we can win the midterms in 2026. >> Thank you. >> And and we should say what's happening in Virginia, you know. Um >> Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and this is the thing. Democrats always overreact. They always overreach. They always do crazy things. And there there look, there are districts where, you know, MSNBC will say, "Well, this district, you know, Donald Trump won it by 20 points." And then, you know, this guy only won it by 12 points. That means everything's terrible. You look in Virginia, look at some of these other places where, you know, Kla Harris won it by four points and now Republicans are winning by a few points. There's a lot of reason to think that we have a good chance here. We just got to keep on working at it. Sorry. Next question. >> And the redistricting, make sure if you're watching in Virginia. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Virginia, vote against the the Obama Spangberger redistricting plan. >> Yep. >> Vote against it. And frankly, the polls are moving in our direction a little bit. We just got to get out there and defeat that ballot measure. >> Hi, Mr. Vice President. Um, thank you so much for being here. It's truly it's truly incredible that you can come all across the world and then just be in Athens. Um, um, so my question, not to sound pessimistic, um, but my question revolves around Congress. Sure. >> And, you know, many Americans feel discouraged, even somewhat dissatisfied. You know, the executive sets out a plan. we would know we want to do something but Congress sometimes is just unable to deliver and with you know the inability to keep the government open during shutdowns and and all that stuff. Um what are your thoughts? I know leaders such as Governor DeSantis have called on term limits for Congress members, balanced budget amendments and banning stock trading. What do you but what do you think um are just some practical measures that we can take to ensure Congress is delivering results to the American people? Yeah. So, great question. And I remember during the State of the Union address when the president talked about banning members of Congress from trading stocks, I looked over at Nancy Pelosi and she was sitting in her chair like and if you if you watch the State of the Union, I start laughing hysterically. It's because I looked over and saw the look on on Nancy Pelosy's face. I look I I think people don't have any idea how bad the corruption is in Washington DC. So, yeah, I love the idea of term limits for Congress. You know what I love more? I I love the idea of term limits for bureaucrats. Nobody in Washington DC should be able to sit in a chair for 30 years, do your public service, and go back home and do something productive. But, but but so look, so much of what's broken about about Congress really does go down to corruption. So, you know, there are so many examples, let's say, of a congressman who got a classified briefing on CO. It's like, oh, there's this crazy Wuhan flu that's floating around Wuhan, China. And and you know, again, at that point, like, everybody called it the Wuhan flu. And then you come out of that classified briefing and you buy a bunch of biotech stocks or you buy a bunch of pharmaceutical stocks or maybe you know you sell airline stocks because you know that the airlines aren't going to work that well if everybody's sort of sheltering in place and governments are shutting down the economy. That stuff should be illegal and you should go to prison for it. And if you just cut out the basic corruption, you'd solve a lot of the problem. >> Thank you so much. >> This will be the last question. Okay. Can we take two more? Because I I I like it. I like answering questions. We'll take a couple more. >> Hi, Mr. Vice President. Before I get to my question, I just want to number one, thank you for your service to the United States military and number two welcome you to the greatest university in this country. >> Thank My question is um as somebody whose parents adopted three children from the foster care system and coming from a broken household yourself, we have seen different sides of a somewhat similar narrative. How would you to how would you respond to somebody who says that the only way to succeed in this country is to come from a generationally wealthy family? >> That's a good question. Um wow, I didn't expect that one. Um well, first of all, it's just not true. And I I think that one of the things that a very powerful thing that somebody told me is that you know disadvantage and unfairness it's just it is true. You know not not everybody started at the exact same place. Some people were dealt a much worse hand than others but what somebody again this person gave me a very good piece of advice and said no matter what hand you were dealt you have the responsibility to play it as well as you can. And I think that for me at least, there was something empowering for me about recognizing that yeah, my life wasn't as easy as most other kids. Like I I wasn't born with money. I wasn't born with parents who had connections, but I still had a responsibility to God. I had a responsibility to myself to play that hand as well as I possibly could. And that was very that was very empowering to me. So I think first the message is look at the stories. Look at Clarence Thomas. Look at all the people in the United States who have come from very humble beginnings and achieved great things. You can believe as I do that we have to do a lot better job by the young people of this country while at the same time knowing that you are the master of your own destiny. Never give up on yourself and never believe that you're a victim of circumstances because when you believe that you will be a victim of circumstances. >> Thank you so much and go dogs. >> She's trolling you with that. I know. I know. >> Hi, Mr. Vice Presidents. This is My name is Esther. This is so cool. Um, so so I know like the whole H-1B thing you talked about, but I am also a daughter of a legal immigrant who came here on an H1B visa. So, my mom and my dad, we've been here for over 10 years. I was born here, well, more than over 10 years. I'm 20 years old. Sorry. Sorry. I'm a little nervous. >> That's okay. Take your time. >> But like for people who have been here on H-1B visas, it's been really hard like getting the green card based on everything with quotas and everything. Like my family, we're from India. The quotas are so bad and they're still open and they're taking the money. How do we fix the immigration system for people who have been waiting for the green cards for so long and they're not getting it in time? Because during the a lot of people don't know it, during the abiden administration to get a green card, it would have taken my family 150 years to get a green card. So, how is the Trump administration like trying to fix that for people who have been here are paying taxes and doing a lot of stuff that citizens do, but they can't do a lot of things that citizens do? Like we're also looking for the American dream. Like my parents, they send me to private Catholic school even though sometimes we used to live paycheck to paycheck. So, how is the Trump administration going to fix that for like people like that? >> Sure. Sure. So, so let me let me just offer a couple observations there. So, one, I appreciate the question and and two, what what I would say is, you know, you know, you heard me talk about H-1B fraud because I think there is a lot of fraud in the H1B system and I I think you can you can believe on the one hand that there's a lot of fraud in the H1B system while also believing that there are people who have come to the United States in the past who have enriched this country. And look, I I I'm married to the daughter of immigrants from India. And you know, I I love my in-laws and they're great people and they've been great contributors to the United States of America. But I also think that when you become an American citizen, whether your family is nine generations of lineage in the United States or whether your family has zero generations of lineage in the United States, one of the responsibilities that we must expect of citizens, and I of course, you know, it's always hard to talk in specifics about your situation cuz I don't know about it. But one of the obligations of citizens is that you have to think about the best interest of the country and not the country you came from beforehand and not of any sort of any any group that you came from, you've got to think of yourself as an American. The system only works if everybody thinks of themselves as an American. I I remember having this conversation with my father-in-law um who's who's an amazing guy and uh you know I I and it was actually during a Senate event that I had done where I had somebody who came up to me and I'm sure a great person like a wonderful person. It was a a Ukrainian-American in Cleveland, Ohio. You know, I was campaigning for the Senate. There are a lot of Ukrainian Americans in Cleveland, Ohio. And this person got really agitated at me because I was saying we should stop funding the Ukraine war. Okay? And I still believe that obviously and it's one of the things I'm proudest that we've done as administration is we've told Europe that if you want to buy weapons, you can, but the United States is not buying weapons and sending them to Ukraine anymore. We're just out of that business. It's a very good thing. But but these Ukrainian American, again, a a kind person. They probably didn't vote for me after this conversation, but he was kind of sticking his finger in my face saying, "You need to to to support my country. You need to support my country." And I said, "Sir, with all due respect, if you're an American, your country is the United States of America, not a place that you immigrated from." Whenever that was. And and and it occurred to me, and I know this at the last question. I'll try to be quick here, but it occurred to me that my father-in-law who came from India, who moved to the United States, who who got an education and and became an American citizen, that never once never once in my life has he ever said, "You have to do this or you should do this because it's in the best interest of the country that I came from." And I think that attitude to the extent that attitude dominates among the new generation of Americans that makes Americans feel welcoming towards people because everybody again whether your family's been here for 300 years or 1 second to be an American means to look out for Americans first and that's the perspective we have to take to our immigration policy. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. We'll do one more. Sorry, real quick. I love this but I got to go. Uh thank you so much Mr. Vice President and uh coming for to UG and allowing us to express our freedom of speech. So thank you so much. Um the first lady lady said Epstein was not acting alone and had to be held accountable. She said uh and called for a congressional hearing, but President Trump multiple times called the files a hoax. Uh the acting attorney general said Epstein shouldn't be a part of anything at the DOJ. If there are compromised government officials in those files, how can the public trust that this administration will hold anyone accountable when its own justice department is actively blocking the investigation? Given that, can you clearly articulate your stance on whether uh federal entities should have a formal investigation? Thank you. >> Yeah. So, so first of all, you you said the associate attorney general or something. I I haven't seen that quote, but here's here's look, here's my view on the Epstein matter. Number one, the guy was clearly a scumbag. Okay. Number two, he clearly had extraordinary connections both with intelligence services both inside the United States and outside the United States, and also with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people. Okay. Number three, I have been a firm advocate and will continue to be a firm advocate of where we where we have something and and and you know like I'm probably more obsessed with this than most most officials, okay? probably more obsessed with this than most people even in this room is when you see somebody who says something in an email that suggests, you know, there there's one email I read and it's been a little while ago, but it was talking about, you know, one person sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein saying, "Oh, there was some really nice like pizzas and grape sodas or something like that." And I remember it sounded like the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, but here it was in like an email from a guy. And my reaction to that was, "We should absolutely investigate that person." Okay. And you know, you remind me, I'm going to follow up on that to see whether we've investigated that person because we should. We absolutely should. When you see evidence of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, regardless of whether you're powerful or not. In fact, you should probably investigate it more if you're a powerful person, right? I don't want I don't want powerful people, you know, being involved in in this disgusting behavior. But but I have to defend the president on this because when he said that it was a hoax, what he was talking about was this Democratic idea that he's connected to to Epstein. If you look at those emails, it's like, you know, they were in the same, you know, everybody in Palm Beach knew everybody. Okay? Like the president has said he knew Jeffrey Epste and he was a scumbag. But what you see in those emails is that Jeffrey Epste hated Donald Trump and Donald Trump hated Jeffrey Epste. In fact, one of the emails is about Donald Trump on Jeffrey Epstein to the local sheriff saying, "This guy's a scumbag. You should go and pick him up." So, when Donald Trump says when the president says this is a hoax, he's not saying it's a hoax that Epstein was the scumbag. He's not saying that it's a hoax that Epstein was connected to powerful people. He's saying this Democratic idea that somehow he was Epstein's best friend. That is a hoax. And if you look at the emails, it's obvious that Jeffrey Epste hated Donald J. Trump. And by the way, one of the best signs for whether you're a good person or not, for whether