Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

J.D. Vance Holds White House Briefing; Vance Comments on Halt to Troop Deployments to Poland; Vance Questioned About San Diego Mosque Shooting and $1.88 DOJ Compensation Fund for Trump Allies; Vance Says We're in a Pretty Good Spot in Iran Negotiations. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired May 19, 2026 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: -- OK, you're an asylee. Go into the interior of the country. Here's a work permit. Maybe come back in 10 or 12 years for your hearing on whether you actually have a legitimate asylum claim.

So what did that mean? That meant that person was just completely given amnesty and released into the interior of the country. Well, what if that person was a criminal? What if that person actually had a violent history? We didn't do any of the work necessary to ensure that the people coming into our country claiming to be asylum claimants actually had anything legitimate or anything good in their background. So that is a serious problem.

It is something that we have fixed in the Trump administration. But fundamentally, that loophole, you're going to see sometime in the future, somebody is going to try to exploit that loophole. And it's one of the things that we're very focused on in the Fraud Task Force, is making sure that the people who exploited that loophole are actually prosecuted for it, assuming they committed a crime.

(CROSSTALK)

Yes, so I don't know your name. You have a beautiful cross necklace, though. So go ahead.

CARA CASTRONUOVA, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, LINDELLTV: Cara Castronuova from LindellTV. Thank you so much. I have two questions. One of them is going back to the $1.8 billion fund, not to keep beating that, but sadly, Democrat lawmakers are misrepresenting that fund.

VANCE: I agree. It's a great question.

CASTRONUOVA: And sadly, some of the mainstream media doesn't understand the magnitude of the political persecution of J6ers. So if a violent offender like a J6er was still over-sentenced and mistreated, literally some of them were sentenced to 24 years in prison, put in unconstitutional pre-trial detention, literally tortured in cages. Wouldn't that person still be able to apply for the fund because of due process? And --

VANCE: This is why we say, just to answer that very briefly, this is why we say we have to evaluate this thing case by case, right? We don't in the United States say that everybody who's accused of a crime is automatically guilty in a court of public opinion. You've got to actually look at this stuff and figure out what were they accused of.

Maybe they did something bad even, but what they were accused of was way worse of what they actually did. Maybe they had their entire lives ruined in a totally disproportionate way. That's fundamentally illegitimate and political.

And I find, just Cara, on this point, one of the interesting things about the American media is there is a fascination. If you go to any American law school, there are these, you know, prisoner rights clinic. There are people who objectively committed heinous crimes, but the American media and the American legal academy has decided that even though they committed bad crimes, their sentence was disproportionate.

They were mistreated in some way. You know who never, ever gets an ounce of sympathy when it comes to that disproportionate sentencing? It's people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protest. Go to your second question.

CASTRONUOVA: I have a question about Pete Davidson. He made a horrific, obscene joke about the murder of your friend, Charlie Kirk. What does this still say about where our political divisions have gone, and what are you specifically doing to bridge the divide, especially as a potential future president?

VANCE: Sorry, who was it that said something?

CASTRONUOVA: Pete Davidson made a really obscene joke about Charlie Kirk. So what are you doing as a potential future candidate or president to bridge the divide?

VANCE: Well, first of all, I'm not a potential future candidate. I'm a vice president, and I really like my job, and I'm going to try to do as good of a job as I can. But let me just say this.

So you talked about Pete Davidson, who said something bad about Charlie Kirk. Look, Charlie was a very, very dear friend. But more importantly than that, Charlie was a father of two beautiful kids, and he did not deserve to have all of those moments with his kids, all those moments with his beautiful wife taken from him in the way that that happened.

I would expect everybody, everybody with a heart or a conscience would say whatever we agreed or disagreed with about his particular viewpoints, this is a tragedy, and it's totally unacceptable that it happens in the United States of America. To their credit, a lot of the reporters in this room, even though I don't agree with their politics, they were open about the fact that what happened to Charlie was disgusting and it shouldn't happen in a civilized country You talk about bridging the divide. I mean, one thing that happened

that hits, you know, not quite literally close to home, but there was a very terrible shooting that happened today at a Muslim community center. It seems like three people are dead plus the shooters. And you know, that community center is actually very close to this restaurant that Usha and I go to every time we visit.

Her family lives in San Diego. She was born and raised in San Diego. Every time we go to San Diego, we go to this restaurant that is like maybe a five-minute drive from this community center. And I found out about it actually on my way to the White House this morning, and I texted her. I said, you know, would you have known anybody who was like involved in this? And she said, absolutely, I would have known some people or at least their parents who might have actually used the services at this community center.

I don't know a single person who would say anything other than what I'm about to say, which is that that type of violence in the United States of America is reprehensible. And I encourage every single American to pray for everybody who was involved and affected by it. We don't want that to happen in our country, and may God rest the souls of the people who lost their lives.

What I do find a little distressing is that while every person I know, every politically conservative person I know, would say exactly what I said about these innocent people who were killed, there were a lot of people who were celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk.

[14:05:00]

And I think one way we can bridge the divide is just have a very simple principle in this country. Number one, we don't want the government throwing people in prison because they have bad politics, however you define bad politics. Number two, and way more importantly, political violence, wherever it comes from, is unacceptable in the United States of America.

Let's talk with one another, not shoot each other when we disagree. I think that's the principle that everybody in this room agrees with. It's certainly the principle the president of the United States agrees with.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: OK. All right. Sorry, I'm going to try to read this here. I'm sorry. OK.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: OK. That was kind of interesting, so I'm going to give you the question.

(LAUGH)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So last week, the Pentagon halted deployment of 4,000 troops, U.S. troops, in Poland -- to Poland. This is in direct contradiction to President Trump explicitly promised not to reduce the troop level in Poland.

So I'm going to ask you this question, which many people in Poland think. Why are you rewarding Putin and punishing your best ally in Europe?

VANCE: Well, first of all, I'd say there's been no president who's done more, frankly, to ensure that Ukraine survived the invasion of Russia than Donald Trump. As he famously said, Obama gave him sheets, I gave him javelins, and it was those javelins that ensured that Ukraine still has its territorial sovereignty.

What he's also said is that he wants to pursue an American policy that focused on the interests of the United States. And part of that foreign policy is not to reward Putin or not to punish a country like Poland, which we love. We love Poland. We love the Polish people.

No, no, no. What we're trying to do, what our foreign policy is geared towards, is promoting European independence and sovereignty. We want Europe to take more ownership over its own territorial integrity. We want Europe to step up in a big way.

Now, I think you said 4,000 troops. We've not reduced the troop levels in Poland by 4,000 troops. What we did is that we delayed a troop deployment that was going to go to Poland. That's not a reduction. That's just a standard delay in rotation that sometimes happens in these situations.

But here's the fundamental problem. Poland is capable of defending itself with a lot of support from the United States. We're not talking about pulling every single American troop out of Europe. We're talking about shifting some resources around in a way that maximizes American security. I don't think that's bad for Europe.

That's encouraging Europe to take more ownership. The United States cannot be the policeman of the world. We want to be good allies. We want to make sure that our troop presence promotes regional stability in Europe. The president has not said, though he could, the president has not said that he's taken all of the troops out of Europe, but Europe has to stand on its own two feet.

And that's something that he's been consistent of, frankly, not even since the beginning of this administration, going back to the first administration, is we have got to have more sovereignty and more of Europe standing on its own two feet. That will continue to be our policy in Europe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those troops will go eventually to Poland?

VANCE: What I said is that it is a delay in troop rotation. Those troops could go elsewhere in Europe. We could decide to send them elsewhere. We actually haven't made the final determination about where those troops are ultimately going to go. But what I'm saying is it is not accurate to say that we are pulling a bunch of troops out.

It is a very small and very minor thing. And I think, frankly, a lot of the European media, again, is overreacting to this a bit. And here's one thing I'll say about this.

Look, I have, for my entire life, I'm 41-years-old. For my entire life, I have heard chirping from the European media about everything that's wrong with the United States of America. We don't have this. We don't have that. We don't spend enough on health care, even though part of the reason why we spend so much on defense was because we have tens of thousands of troops in Europe.

I think that if the European media wants to attack the president of the United States, they need to start looking in the mirror. All he has said is that we're going to be good allies. We're going to be good friends. We're going to be trading partners. But it is reasonable for Europe to take a little bit more ownership over its continental integrity.

(CROSSTALK)

Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, I have a question on the war. But just to follow up, you previously told me that anyone who assaulted a police officer on January 6th should go to prison. So why not rule out giving them taxpayer-funded money?

VANCE: Well, Kaitlan, what I said is we're going to look at everything case by case.

COLLINS: But why not rule it out?

VANCE: Because, Kaitlan, there are people who I don't know their individual circumstances, and I don't rule things out categorically when I know nothing about a person's individual circumstances.

[14:10:00]

Let's say a person is accused, let's say hypothetically, a person is accused of doing something that they never actually did, that they got a kangaroo court, that they had a judge who mistreated them. I think that we should look at those things case by case. We're not making commitments to give anybody money. We're just making commitments to look at things case by case.

COLLINS: But just to follow up on the war, you last week denied that the president said he was not taking Americans' financial situations into consideration when he's making decisions on the Iran War. He was asked about that again.

He stood by it, called it a perfect statement, and said he would make it again. Do you believe that Americans' financial situations should be taken into consideration when you're making decisions as an administration on the war?

VANCE: See, Kaitlan, what you did is you misrepresented the question that I was asked, and then you misrepresented the answer that I gave. What I said is that a question that was asked where the president allegedly, he allegedly said that he didn't care about Americans' financial situations, he never said that.

What he said is that when he, it was totally taken out of context. What he said is that when he is negotiating with the Iranians, he's focused on the national security objectives that he's trying to achieve. Of course, the president has a mandate to be focused on a number of things, and I guarantee you every single day, I have conversations with him about it.

Every single day, he's worried about his fellow Americans. He wants them to be prosperous. He wants them to thrive. He wants them to have good jobs. That's why we've done the things and taken the steps that we've taken in order to create record job growth, in order to create record wage growth, in order to induce trillions of dollars of new investment into our country. That's because he cares about that stuff.

What he also said is that when he's talking to the Iranians, he's talking to the Iranians about questions, of course, of national security. Like their nuclear program, you could hold two thoughts in your head at the same time that the president cares about financial security for Americans, but also when he's negotiating with the Iranians, he's talking about the issues that are germane to the concerns of that particular conflict.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Going back to the price tag for this DOJ fund, $1.8 billion. You have people that can't afford groceries, gas is high, people are making sacrifices in their personal lives to accommodate for this rise in prices. People are telling us that they feel financially worse off. They're very concerned about the uncertainty.

How can you justify that amount of taxpayer money for that fund when people are struggling? What do you say to Americans who wonder why this fund is getting all this money and I can't afford basic life amenities?

VANCE: Let me say a couple things about that. First of all, you said $1.8 billion, and it's important for people to realize we're not just writing a $1.8 billion check. We're going to take a lot of people who are going to apply and say that they have been mistreated by their government.

We're going to handle those situations case by case, and if we determine they were in fact mistreated by their government, we think it's reasonable to give them just compensation. But when you talk about funds and pots of money that are out there, I mean, thanks to Donald Trump's leadership and the Working Families Tax Cut, we put $40 billion into a rural health care fund in order to stop the closure or at least prevent some closure of rural hospitals and rural clinics that have been decimated under the Biden administration.

We had a piece of tax legislation that put hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of families. No taxes on Social Security, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on tips. So I don't, I reject the idea that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. We can give just compensation to people who are mistreated by the government.

We can also make sure that the American people, we do everything that we can to make their lives better, to make them more prosperous, to give them better jobs. That is the primary focus of Donald J. Trump's White House. That's the question all of us ask every single day is, how do we make our fellow citizens more prosperous? We can do that while also taking care of people who were mistreated by the last administration.

Go ahead, sir. Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Mr. Kurdi (ph) is here. After the ceasefire with Iran, drone and missile attacks on the Kurdistan region have not stopped. That happened yesterday as well.

What is your position on this issue, and what do you expect from the new Iraqi government regarding the control of militias?

VANCE: Well, as you know, you've asked the president this question before, and we certainly love the people of Kurdistan. Any time that drone attacks or missile attacks are hitting anybody, but particularly civilian populations, that's not something we like to see at all. And it's one of the things that sometimes happens.

Unfortunately, these ceasefires, they're not always perfect. We've seen that in Gaza. We've seen that certainly in Iran and some of its neighbors.

But we have seen a significant reduction in violence over the last few weeks of the ceasefire. And look, fundamentally, the president's been quite clear, this is going to go, again, in one of two directions.

[14:15:00]

We're going to restart the war, which is not the preference of the president of the United States. We're going to restart the operation. Or we're going to strike a deal, and I think that's an important thing. That's what we're focused on, and that's what we're going to keep on working on.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: OK, in like the kind of the purple dress there, yeah. Go ahead.

ROWENA ORTIZ, TURNING POINT USA: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

VANCE: Go ahead.

ORTIZ: Thank you so much, Mr. Vice President. Rowena Ortiz with Turning Point USA. There has been an uptick in religious violence across the country. What's your message to protect people across all states in America? VANCE: I appreciate that question. Obviously, Turning Point would know a lot about this issue. As we talked about earlier, you guys have been the subject of a fair amount of violence yourself. I guess what I would say is the principle of religious violence is particularly disgusting, especially in the United States of America.

And as a devout Christian, I would say it's one of the most anti- Christian things and anti-American things that you could do.

And here's why. One, because a fundamental principle of all the great faiths is we are all children of God, and because of that, we are endowed by certain rights that are unique to our status as human beings. You violate those rights, most importantly, when you commit violence against another person.

You can violate them in other ways as well, but the most profound way to violate the fundamental right of human dignity is to commit violence. But here's why the religious piece of it is particularly egregious. One of the fundamental American rights that I think came from our Christian heritage as a civilization is the idea that we respect people's religious freedom in part because we respect them as human beings, but also because we respect their right to find their own pathway to God.

You can't force anybody to a pathway to God. They have to, through their own free will, find God themselves. That's one of the reasons why that right of religious freedom is the very first right enshrined in our Constitution.

So when you commit acts of violence, you're committing an act against this fundamental idea that people are created in the image of God and that they have the right, through their own free will, to find God however they might want. And as a Christian, of course, you might have your preference for how they find their pathway to God. They have to find that choice.

And anybody who would commit violence against another human being in the name of religion is, I think, doing something that is a violation, of course, of the laws of man. But I think, more importantly, it is a fundamental violation of the laws of God.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Let me go with, OK, Garrett, you have your hand up. Garrett Hayes. That's right?

GARRETT HAYES, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, TJC: That's right.

VANCE: OK. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Midterms are well underway. You've got voters go to the polls in six states today. You and the president ran on a platform that included no new wars, cutting gas prices, cutting inflation. What do you say to people who are going to the polls today and who feel like those promises are unkept?

VANCE: Well, I'd say a few things. First of all, we've delivered great wins for the American people. We ran on delivering tax cuts to the American people, which we did, the largest tax cuts in American history. We ran on cutting taxes, particularly on people who were working on overtime, working on tips. We cut taxes for those Americans.

We ran on the promise of bringing investment back into the United States of America, that rather than factory closures, we were going to have factories opening, and we've seen both construction jobs and manufacturing, but also manufacturing jobs, have great rebounds under the Trump administration and under our leadership.

We are very aware that because of what's going on in the Middle East, gas prices have gone up, and a lot of Americans are struggling because of that. Our view is that it is a temporary increase. We're taking a number of steps to try to push back against it and try to ensure that Americans are paying as little at the pump as possible, but I feel quite confident after we've taken care of business in the Middle East, those prices are going to come down, and there have been a lot of prices.

As you know, a lot of prices, from rent to housing, where we've still got a lot of work to do, but we do see some real progress made across the economy on pricing, but also on people's jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Jon, I'm going to call on John, I'm just going to start calling Jon Raasch.

JON MICHAEL RAASCH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, DAILY MAIL: John Michael Raasch of Daily Mail?

VANCE: Yes.

RAASCH: Great to see you.

VANCE: Great to see you too. Thank you.

RAASCH: So Trump initially said that the war would last six weeks. We are now, it's been going on for 11 weeks and three days. What's your message to the American people as to why it's gone on so long and it hasn't ended yet?

VANCE: Well, first of all, the president said it's going to be a short-term operation, and I think that has proven out to be true. The active period of conflict lasted about five, five-and-a-half weeks, and now we've been in this ceasefire where we're trying to get a negotiated settlement that gets the American people the things that we need for our national security.

[14:20:00]

So I've said before that we're going to go one of two options here. We're going to have a good settlement that actually gets the American people what they need or we're going to go back to a kinetic operation. Obviously, the president prefers to get that settlement. I think the Iranians prefer to get that settlement, but regardless of what direction the president ultimately goes down, whatever he ultimately decides, I think it's important for the American people to know two things.

Number one, it will be for their security and their prosperity. That's why we're doing this. And number two, it will not -- this is not going to be the sort of thing that lasts forever. I think a lot of Americans, especially in my generation, who are worried about forever, endless conflicts, we have to remember, I think you said 11 weeks, a big chunk of that has been a ceasefire.

This is not a forever war. We're going to take care of business and come home. That's what the president has promised. And that's exactly what he's going to deliver.

(CROSSTALK)

Go ahead. Yes, the orange.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

VANCE: Guys, please don't shout over each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President, the Egyptian foreign minister today on an interview on CNN, he said that the Arab countries are working with you on a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran that can lead to a deal. Can you confirm that?

And one other question, also on Iran. You've spent over than 20 hours with the Iranian negotiating. Do you believe that other countries may be able to achieve what those negotiations could not?

VANCE: Well, I think that the purpose of our initial negotiation was, one, to establish some relationships between two countries that hadn't talked directly in a very, very long time. And number two, just to get this the pathway started to negotiation. I don't think any of us, meaning me, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff had any great confidence that we were going to be able to reach a deal. But we did think we were going to take important steps along the pathway to reaching a deal. And we did.

Now, you asked what the Egyptian foreign minister said, I haven't seen those comments, so I won't comment on them myself. What I'd say is, I'm not going to detail what's going on in the negotiation. There's a lot of back and forth, a lot of good progress is being made, but we're just going to keep on working at it. And eventually, we'll either hit a deal or we won't, but we're going to keep on working at it.

And I think it's important for us to actually privately have these conversations because sometimes when you're doing a negotiation and you put everything out there in public, it actually complicates things more than it should.

So we're going to keep these negotiations private until we've got something, of course, to tell the American people. And at that time, we will.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Is that a magenta tie? It's hard to tell.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: He's got a purple tie there, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.'

VANCE: So this guy insists that he has the real purple tie. So I'll give you a question too. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Two questions for you. One on Iran and one on China, given the president's trip last week to Beijing. On Iran, you met on April the 11th with Iranian negotiators, including the foreign minister. Is it your sense, Mr. Vice President, that they're just stringing the U.S. along? That's the sense from lawmakers from both parties.

And then on China, you come from a state that manufactures a lot of automobiles. Is it your sense that within this term that you have with the president, that China-branded vehicles will be sold right here in America?

VANCE: Well, I think that what the president has shown a willingness to do, unlike any president in my lifetime, is to protect the American automotive industry. We are not going to let the American automotive industry disappear. There are a lot of ways in which we've reinvested, in which we've tariffed foreign competitors to ensure that American car workers, American auto workers, and the products they develop are going to be made right here in the United States of America and also available right here in the United States of America.

I think it's important for the American people -- I want to make this point. Car manufacturing is one of those skills that when it disappears, it's hard to regain. And when you've got people who can build complex machines, and our great workers in Ohio, Michigan, and elsewhere, they do a very good job. They also, God forbid in times of national emergency, can be called on to manufacture other complex machinery.

So it's very, very important that we protect that native auto industry. The president has done more on this than anybody, but we're certainly going to keep on working at it.

You asked about being strung along. Look, you never know until you know, right? What all we can do is negotiate in good faith, try to find a pathway that accomplishes the president's objectives, that accomplishes the national security interest of the American people, and gets this thing in a good place.

I think somebody earlier asked this question. I am not certain, and I'm not going to be certain until we sign a deal that we have a deal, but I feel confident enough to keep on doing the work and to try to find a good deal for the American people and that's what I'm going to do.

[14:25:00]

So, the guy with the real purple tie. I will give you the final question, and then I'm going to have to hit the road.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: Sorry, this guy and then the very tall guy here. Sorry, I can't get to everybody. Marco is right. This really is chaos. This is crazy. You guys got to behave yourself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. The president's financial disclosures were released recently, and they showed a lot of stock trades in companies that he has talked up at events, official events at the White House, on his Truth Social account, sometimes even putting the stock ticker symbols in his posts and encouraging people to buy their stock.

Americans, according to recent polling, are increasingly describing the president as corrupt, and trading stocks --

VANCE: This is a hell of a question.

(LAUGH)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir. Trading individual stocks is something that you said that public officials should not be able to do when you ran for Senate all those years ago, and yet the president, who arguably has access to more non-public information than your average Senator, is not only buying and selling individual stocks, either through his trust --

VANCE: OK. What's the question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question, sir, is how can you and your administration argue to Americans that you're cleaning up corruption, you're preventing fraud, you're fighting the sorts of things that harm people and people's financial situations, when the president seems to be talking up stocks that he owns, selling them, and enriching himself?

VANCE: OK, so here, let me answer your question here. That was a doozy. Before I answer your question, I want to just observe. There are different ways to ask a question, OK? You could just ask a question and try to get your answer, or you could do like a speech where you say, you know, Mr. Vice President, you're a terrible human being, and so is the president, so is the entire cabinet. And then I'm like, what's your question? And then your question is, how dare you?

Come on, man. Have a little bit of objectivity in the way that you ask these questions, because there were a lot of things in that speech, masquerading as a question, that didn't actually get asked, OK? Number one, the president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his like Robin Hood account, buying and selling stocks. That's absurd. He has independent wealth advisors who manage his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business. He's not making these stock trades himself, and your question imputes that. It doesn't say it exactly, but a reasonable person listening to that question would assume the president is sitting around and doing that. He's not.

Second of all, you're right. I'm a big fan of banning members of Congress from trading stocks. So is the president of the United States. All of us believe that nobody should be taking proprietary information gained from public service and buying and selling stocks. We want to ban -- we want to ban that. We want to ban that process, and I think the way to lead by example is banning that process, banning that approach, and making it illegal, which is exactly what the president has proposed doing.

(CROSSTALK)

VANCE: OK. Yes.

JORDAN CONRADSON, REPORTER, THE GATEWAY PUNDIT: This is Jordan Conradson with The Gateway Pundit.

I'll try to make this short. There was -- you might have seen this, there was a massive United Kingdom rally in London just last weekend. They were protesting mass illegal immigration and the replacement of British culture.

What message do you think this should send to globalist European leaders and to leaders here? And also, I wanted to ask about several House members are revamping this push to pass a -- it's called the Dignity Act, but it's really just an amnesty bill giving work visas and allowing millions of illegals to stay in the country. Is that something the White House wants to see stopped in the House?

VANCE: Well, number one, I don't like giving amnesty to anybody. Number two, since you asked about Great Britain and the United Kingdom rally, one of the ironies when -- one of the great ironies of this job is that for the past couple of years, you see these protests break out all over the country, and sometimes, you know, they're fairly well attended, and sometimes they're very poorly attended.

Everybody holds these signs saying no kings, right? And how many Democratic lawmakers have I seen holding up signs that say no kings? They are very, very insistent that we not have kings. And then King Charles comes to the congressional chamber, and these guys break out in rapturous applause. So maybe they don't care so much about kings as they pretend that they do.

Maybe they just don't like the agenda that we're implementing that's actually making American workers and American families safe and prosperous again. But to answer your question about this immigration issue, look, one of the problems that we have in all of Western societies is that we have a lot of people who have decided Wall Street bankers, corporate lobbyists, and government officials that what the United States and what the West need is more and more cheap labor. What we believe in this White House is what we need more and more of --