VP Pool Report #5

After an introduction by Chris McGowan, the GOP’s nominee for Iowa’s fourth congressional district, the VP started speaking at 12:06 pm CST.

Vance called McGowan a “rock star."

The acoustics were poor in the largely concrete room, but the VP initially focused his remarks on talking up Zach Lahn, the Republican candidate for Iowa governor. “Zach knows Iowa does not exist, the United States does not exist without strong families and that's why he is committed to put parents in charge of their kids education,” the VP said.

The VP also spoke about job growth under the Trump administration and got cheers for the administration’s work on immigration and border security. The VP talked about the administration’s work to get “most favored nation” prescription drug prices and highlighted the policies on not taxing tips, overtime and insulating Social Security income from taxes.

The VP then complimented farmers as “patriotic and hardworking” and focused on agricultural issues.

“Whenever you hear me talk during this midterm campaign, I’ll say Rome was not built in a day because we know there's a lot of work to do,” the VP said.

The VP said that the Democrats are not the party of his “grandparents,” nor the party of FDR, JFK or Bill Clinton.

The VP also criticized Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, then criticized Rob Sand, the Iowa Democratic nominee for governor.

"He's a professional Democrat who now says he doesn't believe in political parties,” the VP said. "Rob Sears has spent this whole campaign running away from the things he spent the rest of his career fighting for, and now he's banking on voters being too dumb to see what's happening."

Speech ended at 12:37 pm CST.

Josh Boak

White House Reporter

Associated Press

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