(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the GOP vice presidential candidate running alongside former President Donald Trump, came loaded with one-liners at a townhall event in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday.
The discussion was moderated by former race-car driver and model Danica Patrick—who admitted shockingly that she had never voted before but became politically active last year following Turning Point USA’s AmFest.
“Afterwards, I posted a bunch of photos, and I said ‘I love my country,’ and there was backlash,” she noted. “… And, really, what it did, as a result, was it just really lit a fire, lit a fire in my heart to do whatever I could to make this country the kind of country where I could say, ‘I love my country. I want to fly an American flag if I want to fly one. And I want to say I want to make America great again!'”
Patrick is not alone in her newfound discovery of patriotic American principles, and an appreciation for the values embodied by Trump, after having bore witness to four years of the alternative under the Biden–Harris administration and its radical leftist policies.
Polls this week showed the Trump–Vance ticket pulling ahead in several key swing states, and overall momentum potentially shifting back in favor of the Republicans for the first time since the Biden coup in July, meaning there was a lot to be high-spirited about.
With a decisive win in the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate having positively impacted the perceptions of many about Trump’s running mate, Vance’s confidence seemed to have blossomed since a series of trips to the Tar Heel State last month. He was more at ease and jocular—although the casual format and a recent half-day off may have helped too.
Vance made reference to what has been largely seen as a disastrous PR media blitz by Vice President Kamala Harris this week, during which she has bombed several softball interviews at friendly outlets including The View and 60 Minutes.
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“So, The View asks Kamala Harris a total softball: ‘Would you have done anything differently from Joe Biden over the last four years?’ and Kamala Harris says, ‘Nothing comes to mind,'” Vance recounted.
“It blew up the whole lie at the heart of her campaign in one interview answer,” he continued. “I will say though, I will say—when she says nothing comes to mind, that’s probably true… maybe she was just being honest about her state of mind.”
Of course, since Vance’s last visit to North Carolina, his own political fortunes were not the only thing that had changed dramatically.
The devastating effects of Hurricane Helene caught the western part of the state off-guard in the final week of September, leaving a path of destruction and a death toll that may prove worse than 2005’s Hurricane Katrina when all is said and done.
Adding insult to injury, many have reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other government groups responsible for providing relief had been altogether absent.
Outrageously, in areas where they did respond, FEMA and government officials were reportedly interfering with the constructive efforts by community members, putting up blockades and administrative red tape, even threatening to arrest pilots on rescue and recovery missions.
In the first question of the night, one of the pilots involved in those operations, Adam, was in no laughing mood but noted he was “exhausted” before asking Vance about “revamping the national disaster strategy in the United States so that we can make it more effective.”
The question came as Harris, President Joe Biden, Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas, FEMA Director Deanne Criswell and others in the inept leftist administration have all repugnantly attempted to gaslight the public about their failed response, accusing the hurricane victims of spreading disinformation and worse for daring to call attention to the issue.
However, Vance cut to the quick of it, offering equal measures of empathy for those suffering from the devastating impacts of the natural disaster and outrage over the man-made government disaster that has has exacerbated it under the stewardship (or lack thereof) of his political adversaries.
“We’re never gonna let the people of that region of our country—the region that really built our country—we’re never gonna let them be left behind or forgotten, I promise that to you, man,” said Vance, who wrote of his Kentucky roots in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
After thanking Adam and the other pilots in attendance, Vance also touched on the failed disaster response.
“I know we’re still recovering a little bit, and that’s an unfortunate tragedy here, but I think once we get past that—hopefully in the next few days, where we’ve gotten everybody, saved everybody that we can save, then it’s time to focus on the disastrous federal response to this incredible crisis,” he began.
Vance said that Biden and Harris should have immediately dispatched the Army’s 82nd Airborne division out of Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) to lead the rescue operations, said Vance, a U.S. Marine veteran.
“Instead, of course, we had a president at the beach and a vice president at a fundraiser in San Francisco—what you need, in times like this, is you just need leadership,” he said.
“Because I think, sir, you put it so well—it’s not any one agency,” Vance continued, addressing the pilot, Adam. “And there are a lot of people working on the federal effort who are doing a good job—or at least are doing as good as they can—the problem is all the bureaucratic incompetence.”
Vance recounted that he was talking with billionaire Elon Musk about the problem, likely at the past weekend’s rally in Butler, Pa.—where Musk, who has volunteered to oversee a government efficiency commission if Trump is reelected, was a featured speaker.
“I think what happened was, look, you’ve got the [Federal Aviation Administration], you’ve got FEMA, you’ve got all these relief agencies, and you’ve got people who have been trained by the government bureaucracy that their job is not to cut the B.S. and help people, it’s to basically act like the DMV,” Vance said, suggesting that the notoriously inefficient Department of Motor Vehicles existed to actively create Kafkaesque barriers and obstacles.
“And unfortunately, what that means in this case is you’ve got a lot of people that could have been helped, a lot of lives that could have been saved that weren’t,” he continued. “And there’s a lot of details to figure out—I’m sure that we’re gonna learn a lot about how corrupt and incompetent our government is, but I think the most important thing here is we try to get to the bottom of how we had such a massive failure.”
Vance concluded by saying that the only way to restore the government after the stunning erosion of standards had played out on such an epic scale was to work at reinstating the same consequences for bureaucrats and civil servants who have become callously indifferent as to whom they work for.
“The only way to fix this is by accountability,” Vance said. “It’s true in the private sector, it’s true in the public sector. If you don’t have accountability—in other words, if you don’t fire the people who screwed up—it’s never going to get better.”
He pointed out that the contrasting views on accountability marked a fundamental difference between the Trump and Harris philosophies on leadership.
“Donald Trump—I mean, hell, he got famous saying ‘You’re fired.’ He believes in accountability in our government,” Vance said.
“Kamala Harris just doesn’t,” he added. “I think it’s this attitude of go along to get along, of ‘yeah, you screwed up and maybe even you got people killed, but we’re not gonna fire ya.’ That’s not gonna do good for our people in the 21st century.”
Vance the Marine capped it off with one final thanks to Adam and the hero pilots who had stepped up to do the job that the Biden–Harris administration had been derelict in doing.
“I just want to say, man, I want to be the kind of vice president where you feel like I have your back and that I haven’t left you behind,” he said.
“And I know that Donald Trump wants to be the kind of president that will always have your back and never leave you behind,” he continued. “We are so proud of you, we’re so grateful for you, and we’re gonna fight for you when we’re in the White House.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
