Vice President Vance Visits The Golden State

My wife and I were off on a morning stroll in Oceanside this past Sunday when we soon encountered a growing police presence with corresponding road closures and detour signs. Just a couple blocks from our home, we could move no farther as police had halted all vehicular and pedestrian traffic. We inquired of another stranded pedestrian what was happening, and she said, “VP Vance was in town.”

Within moments a large procession of black Suburbans, police cars, motorcycles, fire engines and EMS vehicles came westward on Mission Ave. in the heart of our downtown.

Our timing was fortuitous to see such a cavalcade, especially when we now knew who the guest of honor was. I paid attention to the gathering stymied pedestrians to gauge their reactions and observed a smattering of applause and essentially zero negative comments about the surprise visitor or the present administration. I, for one, was about as giddy as a schoolgirl in the front row of a Taylor Swift concert.

Once we had confirmed that it was JD Vance, the wheels began to turn. Why would the vice president be in Oceanside, CA?

Was he here for high level meetings with the Governor to discuss California’s $50M effort to “Trump-proof” the Golden State?

Was VP Vance on a fact-finding mission to discover where $17B in taxpayer dollars have gone for a California high speed rail project that has essentially nothing to show for it?

Perhaps there was a press conference called at the Mexican border just a handful of miles to our south to highlight the progress this administration is already realizing in stemming the tide of illegal immigration into our country?

Maybe Vance was in town for a Republican fundraiser?

Alas, no. It was none of these things. As it turns out JD Vance and his wife Usha had “quietly” crept into town for a friend’s wedding. 

Yet, perhaps this visit portends something bigger not only for the Vice President but also for California and the nation. A boy can dream, can’t he?

There is little question that JD Vance has become the most compelling voice in the administration to date and this includes the president himself. 

He has been at the forefront of perhaps the most important issue of our time which of course is reestablishing sovereignty over our borders—especially the one to our immediate south. In a now infamous interview with CBS News, the vice president got into a heated exchange with Margaret Brennan who challenged Vance on one particular unvetted immigrant as to when he might have become radicalized to have committed a terrorist attack in Oklahoma. Vance’s now meme-worthy response was as follows:

“I really don’t care Margaret. I don’t want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.”

Touché. And more of Ms. Brennan in a moment.

More recently and perhaps more notably, the vice president was in Germany as the administration’s representative to the Munich Security Conference, a venue where it was expected that the major focus would be the ongoing war in Ukraine. There, Vance took the opportunity to scold European leaders for embracing policies that run contrary to their historical values and correspondingly jeopardize America’s relationship with European nations. He said:

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

In his speech and in subsequent X posts he went on to site the legal crackdown in Germany and elsewhere on political free speech emanating from opposition parties or just the public in general under the guise of Hate Speech Laws. He labeled this “criminalizing of speech” by German prosecutors “Orwellian” in nature and lamented that this effort would ultimately hamper Europe-U.S. relations.

In his Munich address, Vance not only cited a crackdown on speech, but also took issue with the cancelling of a presidential election by European Union member Romania and the arrest of Christians praying outside abortion clinics in the United Kingdom.

“I believe deeply that there is no security if you’re afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail.”

Bold, powerful rhetoric coming from Vice President Vance.

And that rhetoric did not go unnoticed—not only by supporters of the present administration, but also by their detractors, especially in the mainstream media. 

Back to Ms. Brennan of CBS.

In a subsequent interview on Face the Nation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Brennan challenged the secretary on the vice president’s speech in Munich. She asked Rubio on what Vance accomplished by meeting with a leader of the far-right political group Alternative for Germany (AfD) and saying the biggest threat to Europe is censorship.

Rubio matter of factly responded: 

“I thought it was actually a pretty historic speech, whether you agree with him or not. I think the valid point he’s making to Europe is: We are concerned that the true values that we share, the values that bind us together with Europe, are things like free speech and democracy and our shared history in winning two world wars.”

Amazingly, Brennan countered by alleging that it was free speech that opened the door for Naziism to take hold in the 1930’s and its resultant genocide in the very country where the security conference was taking place. Rubio would have none of that. He said:

“I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews, and they hated minorities.”

Margaret Brennan certainly has a peculiar, if not dangerous read on world history, and I suspect we have not heard the last from her. Both Rubio and Vance were unabashed in dealing with Brennan and that will no doubt continue from these articulate stars in this administration and the Republican party moving forward when interacting with a hostile mainstream media.

Unlike Donald Trump, who historically shoots from the hip, lip, and keyboard with at times cringeworthy reactions even from supporters, his second in command JD Vance has been measured yet forceful in articulating on behalf of this administration and certainly in support of his party, conservatives in particular. 

The Trump/Vance administration is off to a whirlwind and historic start, and yet we are only a month into this 4-year term. That said, in American presidential politics it is never too early to look toward the next election. Anything can happen and usually does when it comes to Donald J. Trump, and JD Vance will be no doubt be inexorably tied to everything that Trump says and does over the duration of this term with inevitable repercussions for Vance’s political future (see Mike Pence). That said, JD Vance is beyond just a “Rising Star” in national politics and no doubt will continue to be a focal point for not only this administration but for the next presidential election of 2028.

And that in no small part is why it was so refreshing and exciting to see the Vice President in Oceanside last weekend, albeit for a personal visit rather than an official one. Even though Trump/Vance made some significant electoral inroads in California in 2024 compared to Trump’s two previous presidential campaigns, it might still be foolhardy to believe that California would be considered to be in play for Republicans in 2028 regardless of who the candidate might be. Once again, a boy can dream, can’t he?

I think it is still reasonable to expect that Sunday was not the last we have seen of JD Vance in California. I, for one look forward to future visits.