Vice President JD Vance on Sunday gave his first media interview days after being sworn into office and defended the Trump administration’s recent activity.
Lowering Prices
At one point in the interview, Vance was pressed on how President Donald Trump’s administration will lower prices of groceries, which was a 2024 campaign promise. The vice president, in response, said that getting prices down would take time, noting that Trump only took office less than a week ago.“There have been a number of executive orders that have caused, already, jobs to start coming back into our country, which is a core part of lowering prices,“ the vice president said. ”More capital investment, more job creation in our economy, is one of the things that’s going to drive down prices for all consumers, but also raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need.”
After Brennan pushed back, Vance said that Trump cannot “undo all of the damage of Joe Biden’s presidency in four days” and that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Donald Trump has already taken multiple executive actions that are going to lower energy prices, and I do believe that means consumers are going to see lower prices at the pump and at the grocery store, but it’s going to take a little bit of time,” he said.
Trump’s decisions to address energy prices and increase drilling will also impact everyday costs, Vance said.
Birthright Citizenship
Vance defended Trump’s executive order ending automatic birthright citizenship, which has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Jan. 23.“America should actually look out for the interests of our citizens first,” Vance said. “If you’re here permanently and lawfully, your kid becomes an American citizen.”
The order, signed hours after Trump took office, directed federal agencies to not issue citizenship documents to children who were born on American soil to parents in the United States illegally or under temporary visas. A judge last week blocked the order from going into effect.
Vance said that “if you come here on vacation and you have a baby in an American hospital, that baby doesn’t become an American citizen,” and “if you’re an illegal alien and you come here temporarily, hopefully, your child does not become an American citizen by virtue of just having been born on American soil.”
Big Tech
When asked about the founders or CEOs of Big Tech companies appearing at Trump’s inauguration at the Capitol on Jan. 20, Vance said that the administration believes “fundamentally that big tech does have too much power.”“They can either respect America’s constitutional rights, they can stop engaging in censorship, and if they don’t, you can be absolutely sure that Donald Trump’s leadership is not going to look too kindly on them,” he said.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, X’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Google’s Sundar Pichai, among others, attended the inauguration ceremony last week.
Response to Catholic Group’s Criticism
Last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other Catholic groups issued a statement critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies to allow for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to enter churches and schools.“Catholic health care, Catholic Charities agencies, and the Church’s other social service ministries work daily to feed, house, heal, educate, and meet people’s needs in communities across our nation ... through our parishes, shelters, hospitals, schools, and other Church institutions, we recognize that this dignity is not dependent on a person’s citizenship or immigration status,” the religious group’s statement said.
He said that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for.”
“I think that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns?” Vance asked. “Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?”
When asked by Brennan about whether he thinks the order ending Biden administration policies on ICE officials detaining people near churches and schools will have a “chilling effect,” Vance said he hopes it does.
Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons
Hours after Trump took office last week, he pardoned about 1,500 people who were charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, breach at the U.S. Capitol, a move that drew pushback from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress.Responding to a question about why pardons were given to Jan. 6 defendants who were convicted for violent acts, Vance said that the Department of Justice had “denied constitutional protections in the prosecutions” and said he believes there were “double standards in how sentences were applied to the J6 protesters versus other groups.”
“We looked at 1,600 cases,” he said. “And the thing that came out of it, Margaret, is that there was a massive denial of due process of liberty, and a lot of people were denied their constitutional rights. The president believes that, I believe that, and I think he made the right decision.”
Later, Vance said that while he thinks that violence against police officers was not appropriate, the DOJ was weaponized under the previous administration.
“The pardon power is not just for people who are angels or people who are perfect. And, of course, we love our law enforcement and want people to be peaceful, with everybody, but especially with our good cops,” he said.
“We rectified a wrong, and I stand by it.”
