WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance wants to boil the 2026 midterms down to a binary choice: Democrats who want to trans kids and destroy the economy, or Republicans who are making steady progress on a long list of promises.
“We have to focus on the things that we’ve accomplished,” Vance explained. “We did come in with a historic border crisis that’s now over. We came in with a historic crime crisis. We now have violent crime in some places at century-low levels. We came in with a historic inflation crisis, and yes, prices are still too high. But we’ve made a lot of progress in curbing that inflation problem.”
The vice president reflected on the upcoming elections during a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Wire, laying out how he believes the White House and Republicans should be messaging to Americans. While Republicans should be touting the wins of the second Trump administration, they also need to remind the public that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said.
One of President Donald Trump’s main priorities upon entering office was “getting things back on track,” Vance said, “having people reinvest in the country,” and “rebuilding the industrial base of the United States.”
“We’ve made a lot of progress there, where we see record capital flowing into our country, record construction and factories, and so forth. So there’s a lot to it that we’ve achieved.”
He also emphasized honesty about the work that’s left to be done.
“I also think we have to be you know candid with the American people that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and as much as we achieved over the last two years, we can do a lot more on housing, on energy, on agriculture and food, and those things we need to get some more time in order to accomplish,” Vance said.
“Fundamentally, the question for the American people is: Do you want to give the government back over to a bunch of crazy people who want to trans the kids and led to a historic inflation crisis, or do you want to give the people who have chipped away at a lot of those problems another two years to keep on working at them?”
“It’s ultimately up to the American people.”
The Daily Wire spoke to Vance days after Maine Democrat Graham Platner was hit with a rape allegation that forced him out of the state’s Senate race. Until last week, Democrats had largely stood by the embattled candidate as he faced a series of scandals, including his Nazi tattoo and explicit social media posts.
“I think that it shows that they’re afraid of their radicals,” Vance said of the Platner debacle.
“Look, Graham Platner was a guy that every Republican in D.C. knew had major red flags. It was just it was sort of an open secret that if he was nominated, there would be so much stuff on him that it would make it impossible for him to win,” Vance said. “So if that was an open secret in our party, I guarantee it was an open secret in their party.”
“The fact that they still nominated him, the fact that they still pushed him shows that they don’t have the ability in their movement to stand up to the radicals,” the vice president argued.
Vance pointed to how Trump deals with Republicans who defy him or buck his will.
“When he sees a candidate he doesn’t like, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, he can very very easily get that person out of the Republican Party,” Vance said.
“The Democrats just don’t have that,” the vice president insisted. “They don’t have any real leadership that allows them to draw any bright lines in their party, and because of it, they keep on nominating crazier and crazier people.”
Vance cautioned that the Democrats winning primaries in New York City are “even crazier” than Platner.
“People who are talking about ending ICE, ending police, ending the imprisonment of violent criminals,” Vance said. “Say what you will about Graham Platner. At least he wasn’t advocating the end of imprisoning violent criminals. The Democrats actually have people who are running in New York who are advocating exactly that position.”
“Between a guy with a terrible personal history and candidates in New York with crazy ideas, it’s not a great time to be a Democrat in Washington, D.C.,” he concluded.
Vance also addressed warnings from the pro-life movement that religious Americans may become disillusioned with the Trump administration over failure to act on abortion, causing them not to go to the polls. One area of particular concern for the pro-life movement: abortion drugs, which are still easily available by mail thanks to a Biden-era mandate, potentially harming many women.
“I hope not,” Vance responded, stressing that the Trump administration has been the “most pro-life administration in history.” He pointed out that Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, ending taxpayer funding for abortions abroad and appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, giving the “life question” “back to the people as opposed to unelected judges in robes.”
“I just think there are a lot of things that we can hang our hat on and say that we’ve accomplished a lot for the life community,” Vance responded. “So I certainly cherish those votes. I agree with those voters, and I certainly want them to come out.”
“We are trying to do the best we can, within the political realities that we face, to do as much for life [as we can],” he explained. “And that’s not going to make everybody happy.”
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