Read the full transcript of Vice President JD Vance’s remarks on Wednesday on Charlie Kirk, the Big Beautiful Bill, in Howell, Michigan, September 17, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
Opening Remarks and Gratitude to Michigan
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE:Well, it’s great to be here in the great state of Michigan. I always loved coming to Michigan on the campaign trail. And I’d always said, you know, the most dangerous place maybe that the Ohio State grad visited was Michigan on the campaign trail. But you all were always kind and friendly and good to me.
“We love you, too.” Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you again, man. I’m not going to do that here. Somebody yelled out “08.” I’m not doing that here. Don’t insult your host is the basic thing that I learned in politics.
Recognition of Congressman Tom Barrett
Let me just say a few things, a few words of gratitude. First of all, you guys are lucky to have a great congressman who fights for working people in the state of Michigan, Tom Barrett. Where are you, Tom? Thank you so much for what you do.
We talk a lot about the working families tax cuts. We talk about no taxes on overtime, which we are proud to deliver. No taxes on tips, which we are proud to deliver. The lowest taxes that we’ve had in this country in a very long time, because Tom Barrett went to Washington and fought for the people of this district. Thank you so much, Tom, for everything that you do.
Honoring Hatch Manufacturing Leadership
I want to thank, of course, the leadership of this great American manufacturer. Hatch was founded in 1952 by two brothers. Where are we out here? Where’s the leadership of Hatch at? Thank you, guys. Stand up. Come on. Let’s give them a round of applause. Thank you, guys. I got a little quorum with Daniel Craig and Wally earlier today. Thank you guys so much. I’m not going to try to pronounce your last name, Wally. I don’t want to insult you, or look like an idiot in front of the TV cameras. But you guys, this is a great facility.
So it started, of course, manufacturing parts for M1 rifles for the American warfighter. And now it manufactures all kinds of automotive components that we rely on each and every single day. And one of the things they told me is that business got maybe a little tough, a little uncertain when they had a president of the United States who was obsessed with telling everybody to drive an electric vehicle, because too many of those electric vehicle components were not made in America. But now that we are leaning in to great American-made automobiles, Hatch is doing better. The American auto worker is doing better. And President Trump and I are proud to fight for you each and every single day.
Secretary of Labor Recognition
I’ve also got to thank our incredible Secretary of Labor. You just heard from her, Secretary Chavez de Reynman. Let’s get a round of applause for the great Secretary of Labor. Now, she is a very, very interesting person. She has got a great career. She had a great career in Congress. But I have never met anybody on either the Republican Party or the Democrat Party who is more obsessed with fighting for American workers every single day.
She wants our workers to have the best training. She wants our workers to have the best benefits. She wants our workers to have the highest wages. And thanks to her work, we’re getting closer every single day to being the most pro-worker administration in the history of the United States of America. So thank you, Madam Secretary.
Michigan GOP Leadership and TPUSA Recognition
We also have Michigan GOP Chair Jim Runestad. Where’s Jim at? Jim, thank you for everything that you’re doing. Thank you. Now, Jim did such a good job during the last election in 2024 that the previous GOP Chair, Pete Hextra, is now our ambassador to Canada. So if you do a really good job, man, you might just get a promotion. Who knows? But he’s doing a great job here in Michigan. And we’re going to fight with him for the next couple of years to make sure that we’re electing candidates who actually serve the interests of Michiganders and serve the interests of the American worker. And that’s what we’re here for, and we’ll never forget it.
So I want to say just one thing about my friend Charlie Kirk. I want to talk about Charlie Kirk for a little bit. The last group I want to have be recognized here is we have got a lot of kids. And I hate to call you kids, but when you’re 41 years old, you guys are kids. TPUSA is a great organization founded by my friend Charlie Kirk that takes the message of free speech and conservative values all over our college campuses here in the state of Michigan and elsewhere. And we’ve got some proud TPUSA folks here.
Would you guys stand up and be recognized by the crowd? We love you. We love these kids. And we love the organization that was founded by Charlie Kirk. And I know I speak for all of the kids behind me, all of the great TPUSA members, and also the alums, that over the past 10 years, Turning Point USA has not just been an organization. It has been the fountain of a movement all across the United States of America.
If you look at just the youth vote in 2024 and how much young voters shifted from Democrat to Republican from 2020 to 2024, Charlie Kirk created a movement. And that movement made Donald J. Trump the President of the United States, and it made me the Vice President of the United States. I would not be here without Charlie.
Charlie Kirk’s Integral Role
But Charlie was an exceptionally talented individual.
People don’t realize how integral he was, how important Charlie Kirk was. He helped to staff the administration with solid people like Secretary Chavez de Rimmer. He made sure that when we hired somebody, that it was a smart person, but it was also a kind and decent person. You see him at these college events, and he would talk to anybody. He didn’t care if you were a Democrat, a Republican, a liberal, a conservative, if you supported the Trump administration or not. He felt that the most important American political virtue was to just get out there and talk to our fellow Americans.
And I hate to say that a week ago, he was doing what he did best. He was doing what he loved. And an assassin gunned him down for daring to say things that that assassin thought were wrong or shouldn’t be said. Well, I think I speak for every person in this room, and I think I speak for a majority of our fellow Americans when I say we do not attack or commit violence against people because we disagree with their ideas. We debate ideas, and we’re going to keep on debating them in honor of the great Charlie Kirk for as long as I have a microphone.
More Than a Political Organizer
But the last thing I want to say about Charlie, my friends, is he was more than a political organizer, more than a person who literally helped make me the Vice President of the United States. And I’ll never forget it, Charlie, that I would not be here were it not for you. He was a good guy. He was a good friend.
I mean, all of these people who’ve been involved in TPUSA, you know, Turning Point USA wasn’t just a debate society. It wasn’t just a political organization. It gave these kids a sense of home and a sense of purpose in often very hostile places. If you were a young conservative or you were a young Christian and you were worried that a professor might give you a bad grade for being who you were, Charlie’s Turning Point USA gave you a home. If you were worried that you had an idea that was maybe disfavored by your social group, if you were worried that you believed something that was just a little too controversial for a college campus, Turning Point USA gave you a home. It gave you friends. It gave you moral support.
And that is what I think must live on in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. I have friends who met a husband, a wife, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, who met the best man at their wedding at Turning Point USA because it was an organization of patriots dedicated to making this country the very best country that it could be.
Rejecting Political Violence
And I would like to think that whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, this basic idea of young people gathering to discuss and debate, that is the thing that we cannot let pass away just because the leader of Turning Point USA was gunned down by an assassin. And I want to let you know that whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whatever your belief is, I will fight for your right to speak your mind. We reject political violence. And we reject the crazy left-wing radicals that gunned down our friend Charlie Kirk. Let’s talk to one another and not try to shoot each other down for disagreeing.
Charlie’s Work on Today’s Bill
You know, one of the things that Charlie worked on very, very hard was the very bill that we’re going to talk about today. I remember having so many phone conversations, so many text conversations with Charlie about how to make the bill better, about how to do more for working families. Because you know what, Charlie?
He believed exactly what I believed and exactly what the President of the United States believed, that we have got to rebuild the American dream, especially for our young people, which is why this big, beautiful bill does so much to bring American manufacturing back to the United States of America.
Rewarding American Investment and Workers
These working families tax cuts, they don’t just cut your taxes, though they certainly do. They reward companies for building and investing in the United States of America. Because isn’t it nice to have an administration that is fighting for the businesses and the workers that are building right here at home, rather than shipping our jobs off to Asia or Mexico?
We fought for no taxes on overtime and no taxes on tips because we want you to keep more of our hard-earned money. We fought for an increase to the child tax credit because we want to make it easier for young families to bring new life into this world and to raise that new life in security and prosperity and comfort.
The working families tax cut is not just a big, 1,000-page bill. It is an important part, maybe the most important part, to restarting the American dream in this country.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president, and now we do, who builds in America, rather than rewards companies for shipping jobs overseas? Wouldn’t it be nice to have an administration that actually gives you more of your hard-earned money, rather than taking more of it for government bureaucrats? Wouldn’t it be nice to have an administration that fights for your ability to keep more money in your pocket? Wouldn’t it be nice to have an administration that punishes corporations that ship our jobs overseas, but rewards businesses for building right here in the great state of Michigan?
That is what we promised to do, and that is what we’re doing every single day.
Presidential State Visit to the United Kingdom
Now, I don’t know if you saw the headlines this morning, if you turned on the TV this morning, but the president right now is participating in a great state visit to the United Kingdom. Our closest ally, of course, going back to the very beginning of our country when we didn’t always agree, very early on. But pretty much since then, they’ve been very close friends of the United States, about 200 years, our most important ally in the world.
And the president is over there. And somebody asked me, would you rather be in England celebrating the state visit? I said, no, I’d rather be right here in the great state of Michigan, where people are building great products for the American people.
So with all due respect to our great president, and all due respect to the King of England, I am so proud to be right here where I am today, with all of you talking about all of the ways in which we can continue to build an America that works for normal Americans again.
Making Communities Safe Again
And that means a lot of things. Part of making this country work for you all is making sure you’re safe in your communities and safe in your streets. And one of the proudest things the president of the United States has done in Washington, DC, and in Memphis, as of a couple of days ago, is to send the National Guard to take back American streets. We deserve to be safe in our communities again. And that’s what the president is making happen.
And it’s so funny, you go to these places, and the TV cameras, very often the fake news media, all due respect to the fake news. We love them, even when we don’t. They show up in these places, and they put a microphone or a camera in front of somebody who they assume is the Democratic voter. And they say, “What do you think about Donald Trump deploying these people to your city?” And every single person says, “It’s a great idea. I just want to be safe.” And we’re glad the president is making that happen.
So my one message to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, here in the state of Michigan, is, oh, come on. My one message to Gretchen Whitmer is, look, the city of Detroit, we know, has got some serious crime problems. And we know that it’s the people in Detroit who suffer the most when crime is allowed to run rampant all over city streets.
Gretchen, we are happy to send the National Guard to Detroit, Michigan. All you got to do is ask. We got to remember, the streets are safer when law enforcement is allowed to put the bad guys away.
And just as we want to protect your job, and we want to make sure you have a good wage when you work hard, we also want to make sure, when you go home, you can enjoy your neighborhood and enjoy your community and safety. You know what else we want to do? We want to make sure that our young people stop dying of this terrible poison, this fentanyl and other drugs that are being brought in by these cartels.
And I’ll tell you a little story. I was talking to our great Secretary of Defense, probably about a week, week and a half ago. And this was right after we lit up a narco-terrorist boat that was trying to bring drugs into the United States of America. And I got to tell you, after, I am a child of the war on terrorism era. I served, just as Tom did, in our military. I deployed to Iraq as a United States Marine, a young enlisted United States Marine. And I’m proud to have a president who is sending our military to light up the cartels that threaten our people in our own backyard. That’s where the military belongs, if they belong anywhere.
So I was talking to our great, I said, Secretary of Defense, but our new Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. And I was talking to Secretary Hegseth. And you know what he said? He said, “You know what, Mr. Vice President? We don’t see any of these drug boats coming into our country. They’ve completely stopped.” And I said, “I know why. I would stop, too. Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.”
But that is what a military that is dedicated to its purpose and a commander in chief that is dedicated to the national good can do. If we just have our actual government fighting for the interests of Americans and nobody else, we can make this country safer. We can protect your jobs. We can make sure you’ve got the best wages anywhere in the world. And we can stop this terrible poison from coming into our country. We just needed a president who was willing to fight for you. And now we’ve got one.
Never Forgetting Where We Come From
So let me leave you with this final thought here. Look, I grew up in a community. You heard Secretary Chavez, you remember, mention this. I grew up in a community where the American dream seemed to be disappearing, where the jobs were getting shipped overseas, where the factories were closing down. I remember driving around my hometown of Middletown, Ohio, and we’d see some abandoned factory. And my grandfather would tell me what used to happen there, what good jobs used to happen there, what good wages used to provide for families there.
And I remember thinking, why is it like this? Why have our leaders ignored us for so long? Why are factories closing instead of opening up? Why are good jobs going to China when American workers deserve good jobs right here at home? And the answer was bad leadership. Just as our leadership chose crime, they also chose to shift your jobs overseas. Just as they chose to send our young men and women to foreign wars all over the world, they refused to stop the cartels that were operating right here in our backyard.
And I believe our sacred promise and our sacred duty is to make this country even better for the next generation than it was for the generation that came before. That is why we’re doing the things that we’re doing. But I want to tell you, I’m never going to forget where I came from. I am never going to forget that I was a little boy who was worried about why the jobs were disappearing. I’m never going to stop fighting for the auto workers to have good jobs right here at home.
Fighting for American Workers
I’m never going to stop. I’m never going to stop, and neither is the President of the United States, from fighting for your public safety, for your good wages. We’re going to fight for when you send a dollar to Washington, D.C., that we spend it wisely. We’re going to fight for you to have low taxes. If you’re working hard, we’re going to fight for you to keep as much of your hard-earned money as possible.
Because I believe that the American dream belongs to America. And I believe that the American dream belongs to American citizens, not to illegal aliens, not to drug cartels. And it doesn’t belong to foreign workers. It belongs to workers right here in the state of Michigan.
A Choice for America’s Future
So I hope you remember, when you’re voting in 2026, you have a choice between somebody who tried to fight for the illegal aliens and somebody who tried to fight against the drug cartels. You’ve got a choice between somebody who is trying to get good law enforcement officers to be able to do their job and those who demonized our cops and demonized our National Guardsmen.
You’ve got a choice between politicians who shipped your jobs overseas and politicians who fought to keep good American jobs right here at home. Ladies and gentlemen, in November of 2026, we are going to have to make a choice. Let’s make it for America, for our workers, and for our families.
