On The Record With Senator JD Vance

Yesterday, Ohio Senator JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, spoke directly to Nevadans for the first time during two campaign stops in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. Vance also spoke directly in an interview with The Globe, prior to taking the stage at the Reno Sparks Convention Center to address approximately 2,500 supporters.

Earlier today, you referred to Kamala Harris’ radical left-wing agenda. You also have referred to her agenda as anti-family. What’s in her agenda that concerns you and what should Nevadans be concerned about?

First of all, Kamala Harris’ policies has opened the American southern border. That has caused a lot of fentanyl coming into our communities. That has caused a lot of death, especially among those with a substance abuse disorder. I think that’s a fundamentally anti-family policy threatening people’s public safety in their own communities. Kamala Harris has also made some remarks, and this is what I was criticizing in calling her anti-family, where she’ll say things like, “Well, it’s reasonable not to have children because of concerns over climate change. I think we should be telling our young people, “If you wanna have a family, you should start a family.” We should make it easier as America’s leaders to do that–not telling them that they shouldn’t have kids because of fears over climate change, which I think, frankly, is a little crazy.

Harris is on the record stating that 18 to 24 year olds are “stupid.” What is your message to millennial and Gen Z voters who trend Democratic when they vote?

(laughs) I remember hearing that. Well, my message would be, “Has the Kamala Harris Joe Biden presidency made your life better off?” I think for a lot of young people, they’re looking at starting on their own. They’re looking at starting a new job. They’re looking at buying a house, but it’s really hard right now because interest rates are through the roof and housing prices are through the roof. So, I guess my pitch would be that President Trump and I want to make it possible for you to live your dreams. I think part of that is making sure you’ve got a good job and you work hard. Part of that is lowering housing costs so you can afford to start a family, if you want to do that. And, part of that is just making the country a safer place to live and work, which, unfortunately, public safety has been going in the wrong direction over the last few years. So, I I think in in a lot of ways, obviously, young people are at a different phase in their life. But a lot of the same concerns that I’m worried about as a 39 year old, or my mom is worried about as a 62 year old, a lot of young people are worried about too.

Immigration, both legal and illegal, is the number one cause of urban sprawl. That affects Nevada’s housing crisis, our fentanyl crisis, and an overall increase in various crimes throughout the state. Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto’s staffer was killed in a hit-and-run by an illegal alien. Four Nevadans from our rural community were murdered by an illegal alien. The Trump campaign has promised the largest deportation force in U.S. history, but immigration activists and attorneys are sounding the alarm over this policy. What is your message to them and to the illegal immigrants who reside in Nevada?

I think we need to have a common sense approach to immigration. You can’t have an immigration system unless you’re willing to enforce the laws at certain points. Now, I think if you ask about where you focus the deportation effort, I think you focus it on the most violent criminals, the people who have committed additional crimes–on top of of of coming in the country, illegally. But, I also think that we have to be honest that unless you’re willing to enforce immigration laws, you’re fundamentally not going to have a country, and we have to be willing to do that. Now, I think to immigration activists, I think the message to them would be is that the way to promote health and well-being among the immigrant community, is to encourage people to come illegally. Right? We know that some of these activist groups have actually used loopholes in American asylum law to facilitate illegal immigration. That’s not good for America. It’s not good for the immigrants themselves.

We do have a legal immigration system and it’s broken in some ways, but we still have over a million people coming into the country legally. If you want to promote the interests of immigrants, I think the best way to do it is to facilitate them coming through the legal channels, not coming in illegally through the backdoor.

AI and Cryptocurrency was added to the GOP platform. Why is it  important for the GOP platform and the Trump campaign to protect these modalities of technology and currency?

First, we just believe in innovation. We want an economy that is creating new products and creating new services. Technology is the rising tide that lifts all boats. So, if you have a really cool innovative sector, we think it could make people’s lives better. AI could lead to breakthroughs in health care. A lot of cryptocurrencies could lead to breakthroughs. For example, preventing identity theft and helping our elderly people deal with some of these identity theft problems. So there are a whole host of applications here. We just want to promote this innovative sector of the economy and not throttle it in its infancy, which is what the Biden and Harris administration have tried to do.

AI and crypto share one thing in common as a whole host of things, but one really important thing is they cannot function without reliable low-cost power. The Biden Harris energy policies have actually made it hard for these new technologies to thrive, which means a lot of jobs that might have otherwise been created, have not been created. And a lot of new services that could come online and make people’s lives better, have not come online. We’ve got to have low- cost power. It’s really the foundation of a lot of things, but especially AI and crypto.

What does the campaign’s promise of “No Tax on Tips” mean for Nevada workers? And, were you surprised that the Culinary Union called it a campaign “Hail Mary” when President Trump had mentioned it in Las Vegas, but a month later the union supported it when Senator Jacky Rosen co-sponsored the legislation? 

Better late than never. I think it’s telling that the Culinary Union did eventually support it because it’s good for Nevada workers. But the IRS is on the backs of servers, bartenders and casino dealers, forcing them to report everything and open up these workers to a massive IRS bureaucracy.

I think it’s one of the brilliant things about President Trump’s leadership is that he heard about this from a server. It is my understanding that she was complaining both about the tax burden of paying the taxes on the tips, but also keeping track of everything and how it just made this massive administrative burden on top of an already tough job. And he said, “Look, we could fix the tax issue. We could fix the proposition.” So, that’s where it came from. And it highlights that, in a lot of ways, the Trump campaign is leading on innovative policy, whereas the Harris campaign is just attacking the opposition.

Editors note: The Globe will provide additional coverage of the event in a forthcoming article.