'A night of hope': JD Vance speech transcript

Editor's note: The following is the pre-released prepared GOP Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech delivered by U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

My fellow Americans, my name is JD Vance, from the great state of Ohio.Tonight is a night of hope. A celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again.

And it is a reminder of the sacred duty that we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren.

But as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning.For the last eight years, President Trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. He didn’t need politics, but the country needed him.

Prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world. He had everything anyone could ever want in a life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander, and persecution.

But don’t take my word for it, go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life.Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump. And then look at the photo of him defiant – fist in the air.

When Donald J. Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field – all of America stood up with him.

Even in his most perilous moment we were on his mind. His instinct was for US. To call us to something higher. To something greater. To once again be citizens who ask what our country needs of us.

He called for national unity, for calm. He remembered the victims of the terrible attack, especially the brave Corey Comperatore, who gave his life to protect his family.

And then President Trump Flew to Milwaukee and got back to work.

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That is the man I’ve gotten to know personally over the last few years.

He is our once and future president future president of the United States.

And I want to respond to his call for unity myself.

And my message to my fellow Americans is: shouldn’t we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution?

That’s the Republican Party of the next four years: united in our love for America and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

So tonight, I stand here humbled, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude, to say..

I officially accept your nomination to be vice president of the United States of America.

Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that I could be standing here tonight.

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I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, family, community, and country with their whole hearts.

But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.

When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good American manufacturing jobs to Mexico.

When I was a sophomore in high school, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good middle class jobs.

And when I was a senior in high school, Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan and other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war.

Somehow, a real estate developer from New York by the name of Donald Trump was right on all of these issues while Joe Biden was wrong. Donald Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America First.

Thanks to these policies that Biden and the other out-of-touch politicians in Washington gave us, our country was flooded with cheap Chinese goods and cheap foreign labor… And in the decades to come, deadly Chinese fentanyl.

Joe Biden screwed up, and my community paid the price.

Now, I was lucky. Despite the closing factories and the growing addiction in towns like mine, in my life, I had a guardian angel by my side. She was an old woman who could barely walk but was tough as nails.

I called her “Mamaw,” the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers.

Mamaw raised me as her own as my own mother struggled with addiction.

Thanks to Mamaw, things worked out for me.

After 9/11, I did what thousands of other young men my age did in that time of soaring patriotism and love of country: I enlisted in the United States Marines.

I left the Marines after four years and went to the Ohio State, and then to law school at Yale—where I met my beautiful wife—and then started businesses to create jobs in the kinds of places I grew up.

My work taught me that there is still so much talent and grit in the American heartland. But for these places to thrive, we need a leader who fights for the people who built this country.

We need President Donald J. Trump.

Some people tell me I’ve lived the American Dream, and they are right.

But the American Dream that always counted most was not starting a business or becoming a senator or even being here with you fine people, it was becoming a good husband and a good dad, and of giving my family the things I never had as a kid.

And that’s the accomplishment I’m proudest of.

That tonight I’m joined by my beautiful wife, Usha, an incredible lawyer and a better mom, and our three kids— Ewan, Vivek, Mirabel—hopefully in bed.

Things did not work out well for a lot kids I grew up with. Every now and then I will get a call from a relative back home who asks, did you know “so and so.” And I’ll remember a face from years ago. And then I’ll hear, “they died of an overdose.”

As always, America’s ruling class wrote the checks; communities like mine paid the price.

For decades, that divide between the few, with their power and comfort in Washington, and the rest of us only widened.

From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.

That is, until President Donald J. Trump came along.

Donald Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what – if lost – may never be found again.

But my fellow Americans, this moment is not about me, it’s about all of us, and who we’re fighting for.

It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out of touch politicians are destroying your jobs.

It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.

It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio, who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators but not hard-working Americans right here at home.

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And, it’s about single moms like mine, who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up.

And I am proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober.

I love you, mom.

It's about grandparents all across this country, who are living on Social Security and raising grandchildren they didn't expect to raise.

Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer than I've been alive.

For half-a-century, he's been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.

In four years, Donald Trump reversed decades of betrayals inflicted by Joe Biden and the rest of the corrupt Washington insiders.

He created the greatest economy in history for workers. Just imagine what he can do with four more years in the White House.

Months ago, I heard some young family member observe that their parents’ generation—the baby boomers—could afford to buy a home when they first entered the workforce. “But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford a home,” they said sadly.

The absurd cost of housing is the result of many failures of America’s leadership class. And I can tell you exactly how it happened.

Wall Street barons crashed the economy and American builders went out of business.

As tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built.

The lack of good jobs led to stagnant wages.

Then Democrats flooded the country with illegal immigrants.

So citizens had to compete – with people who shouldn’t even be here – for precious housing.

Joe Biden’s inflation crisis is really an affordability crisis.

Many of the people that I grew up with can't afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent, and that's exactly what Joe Biden’s economy has given them. So prices soared and dreams were shattered.

And China and the cartels sent fentanyl across the border, adding addiction to the heartache.

But that’s not the end of our story.

We’ve heard about the villains and their victims. But let me tell you about the future.

President Trump’s vision is simple - we won’t cater to Wall Street, we’ll commit to the working man

We won’t import foreign labor, we’ll fight for American citizens.We won’t buy energy from countries that hate us, we’ll get it right here from American Workers.We won’t sacrifice our supply chains to unlimited global trade, we’ll stamp every product Made in the USA. We will build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made with the hands of American workers.Together, we will protect the wages of American workers—union and non-union alike—and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building THEIR middle class on the backs of our hard-working citizens.Together, we will make our allies share in the burden of securing world peace: no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.Together, we will send our kids to war only when we must.

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But as President Trump showed with the elimination of ISIS, when we punch, we will punch hard.Together, we will put the citizens of America first, whatever the color of their skin. We will, in short, make America great again. I am married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country, incredible people, people who genuinely have enriched the country in so many ways.And of course, I'm biased, because I love my wife, but I believe that it's true.

When I proposed to my wife, we were in law school, and I said, Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt, and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky.That cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family’s ancestral home. Like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.This is Kentucky coal country, by the way, one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States of America.They are very hardworking people, and they're very good people, and they would give you the shirt off their back.The media call them “privileged” and look down on them.But they love this country, not only because it's a good idea. But because in their bones, they know that this is their home, and it will be their children's home, and they would die fighting to protect it. That is the source of America's greatness.

As a U.S. senator, I get to represent millions of people in the state of Ohio with similar stories, and it’s the great honor of my life.

But never forget that the reason why this united Republican Party exists, why we do this, why we care about all those great ideas and that great history, is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come.

Eventually, in that mountain cemetery, my children will lay me to rest. And when they do, I would like them to know that thanks to the work of this Republican Party, the United States of America is as strong and as proud and as great as ever.And the thing that we have to do, right now, to make that happen, is to re-elect President Donald J. Trump!Mr. President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me. And what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision you have for our country.

I pledge to every American - no matter your party, I will give everything I have to serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family, and your country will be possible once again.

And I promise you one more thing - the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and every corner of our nation…

I promise you this - I will never forget where I came from.

And every single day for the next four years, when I walk into that White House to help President Trump,I will be doing it for you and for your family and for your future.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: JD Vance speech transcript: Read the full speech