LIVE: VP Vance Delivers Remarks in New York on Crackdown on Crime and Fraud

It is great to be here. How we doing Long Island? Now you're going to have to forgive me. I've been selling a book that I came out with for the past two days and I'm also getting over a cold, so I sound like Darth Vader right now. I'm losing my voice a little bit. I apologize for that. Now I'm not supposed to talk about the book, so I'm supposed to be talking about what a disaster Tom Suozzi is, your current congressman. So I'm going to tell you that Tom Suozzi, because I'm not supposed to talk about the book. Tom Suozzi would definitely not buy the book Communion by J.D. Vance, available everywhere books are sold starting yesterday, so go out and get that book, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. We got Brick Suit Man here, a celebrity in his own right. It's good to see you guys. Here's the simple thing. What is going on in this great congressional district? I love Long Island. I love the people of this district. I love everything you stand for and you represent, but you guys have got the worst congressman in the entire United States representing you. You guys have got Katie Hochul, but pretends to be a reasonable moderate. Well, she's the worst governor in America, but it's like she had a brain transplant into Tom Suozzi because he doesn't represent you, he represents her, and let's send him back to Long Island and send LePetre to Washington, D.C. Let me give a shout out, of course, to a few people here. I want to say thank you. We've got the great Mike LePetre. Mike, please raise your hand, stand up, be recognized, you're doing a great job, man. Where is Mike? He might still be backstage. Mike, thank you for everything that you're doing. We actually had, because I was a little bit late coming out here, we've got Bruce Blakeman, the great gubernatorial candidate. Bruce is going to make a great governor, and we've got Representative Nick LaLotta here from New York 1. Nick, where are you? So my friends, I'm here today because our administration is focused on restoring trust in America and restoring trust in the American dream, and we're focused on actually delivering results for all of you using that big, beautiful capitol building in Washington, D.C. to pass legislation that makes you safer, that makes you freer, and makes you more prosperous, but we need a little bit of help from New York 3. Because for the last year and a half, you have had a guy who runs around pretending that he is an ally and an advocate of the people of this district, when he gets to Washington, he votes and acts and thinks exactly like Nancy Pelosi and Katie Hopel. Tom Suozzi, Suozzi, what are you doing, my man? He gets there, and we have the biggest working-class and middle-class tax cut in American history. We've got tax cuts on overtime, tax cuts on tips, tax cuts on Social Security. We had the biggest reduction in state and local taxes that we put in that one big, beautiful bill. And what did Suozzi do? Did he vote for you? No, he voted against you and his masters in Washington, D.C. When we voted, when we cut taxes on tips, Tom Suozzi voted for Nancy Pelosi instead of you. When we cut taxes on overtime, he voted for Nancy Pelosi instead of you. When we cut that state and local tax, when we increased that state and local tax deduction, Suozzi voted for Nancy Pelosi instead of you. So this November, I think we've got a very simple request. If Tom Suozzi is going to vote for Nancy Pelosi, why don't you send him back home with Nancy Pelosi and send a real American to represent this great district? Here's the other thing that we've done. We haven't just cut your taxes. We haven't just seen record job creation over the past couple of months, and of course, we know that because we had to take care of business over there in the Middle East, we've seen a little increase in gas prices. Notice how that's already coming back down, 50 cents down on the dollar just in the last couple of weeks. So what did the president say? The president said, we're going to go take care of business, gas prices are going to come up a little bit, but when we take care of business, you know what's going to happen? Number one, gas prices are going to come down. Number two, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and number three, every single one of you will be safer. But it's not just about that, it's about safety, because what good is money in your pocket if you don't feel safe walking around your own community in order to spend it? What good is money in your pocket if you can't take your family out to dinner because New York City is one of the most dangerous cities in the world? And that was the story before Donald Trump became president. But you know what's happened in the last couple of years? New York City has had its lowest murder rate in many, many decades. And you know why? Because we got illegal criminals out of our country and in prison and stood behind our law enforcement. It was that simple. This is not rocket science. And you would think that Mr. Swazi would support us. You would think he would support us in fighting for law enforcement. You would think he would support us in making the streets of New York and our entire country safer. But what did this guy do? Every single time he had an opportunity to vote for you, he voted for Katie Hochul and Nancy Pelosi. Every time he had an opportunity to defy the Democrat Party bosses and show that he fought for the people of this district, he ignored you and took his marching orders from the most far-left Democrats anywhere in the world. So here's a simple question. When it comes to November, are we going to stand for Swazi? Are we going to stand for a guy who voted with Nancy Pelosi every single time? But are we going to send Le Petri to Congress to fight for you? There he is. I was doing a little reading trying to understand Swazi. I don't know the guy, obviously. I know what he votes for, and most importantly, I know that he votes against every single person in this room. But I was trying to understand, what is it that Swazi cares about? What does he actually stand for? And I see a guy who listens to Democrat Party bosses as that party has just become anti-everything that is good. They're anti-women playing in women's sports. They want men to play in women's sports, the craziest thing. They become anti-Semitic in the Democratic Party. They become anti-Christian in the Democratic Party. They become anti-white in the Democratic Party. And what I love about the Republican Party is whether you're black or white, whether you're a Jew, a Christian, or a person of no faith, the thing about the Republican Party is that if you work hard, you play by the rules, and you love this country, you are welcome on our team. That's not Swazi, but it's the people in this room. But I did, ladies and gentlemen, as much as Tom Swazi is against the lot, and he always votes against the interests of the people of this district, I did discover that Tom Swazi is really good at one thing, trading stocks. This guy, I've got to tell you, if you need a congressman, you've got to elect LePetri. But if you need a congressman, if you need somebody who's going to fight for you in Washington D.C., Mike LePetri is your guy. But if you need a wealth manager, put your money wherever Tom Swazi is putting his money. Because this is a man who hates representing you, but loves sitting at his desk and trading stocks. I can just imagine him voting against working family tax cuts. I can just imagine him voting to raise your taxes, but sitting at his beautiful congressional desk on his Robin Hood account, trading stocks, because that's all this guy does, is he trades stocks and he doesn't disclose them. He uses inside information, because here's the thing about being a congressman or a vice president, is you get information that nobody else has. Now if you're a patriotic and decent person, you use that information to try to make informed decisions about what legislation you're going to support, about what foreign policy decisions you're going to support, but no, no, no, no. What Swazi does is that he uses that information to trade stocks. So he gets rich with the very public trust that you gave him, while you get poorer because he votes to raise your taxes. Is that a good trade for New York 3? No. Of course not. So I happen to think whether you agree with us on every issue, of course nobody's ever going to agree with us on every issue. One of the things I love about this district is it's full of independent people, Democrats who might vote for Republican, Independents who make up their own mind. My pitch to those Americans is not that you're always going to agree with the vice president or the president on every issue. My pitch to them is that you need to have somebody like Mike Lepretri who's fighting for you. You need somebody who goes and doesn't trade stocks, but tries to get legislation passed that makes your life better. You need somebody who is not getting rich off the public trust, but is trying to make you rich with every single decision that he makes. That's Mike Lepretri. Send Swazi Pak in. Send him somewhere else but Washington, D.C. And there's apparently one more thing that Swazi really likes. He likes fraud. Because unfortunately, the story of this state has been that your government, your leadership, and too many of your congressmen have allowed the government to rip you off and give your money to fraudsters. Just yesterday, we announced something. You know I'm the leader of the Fraud Task Force. And people ask me, is it hard to find fraud? And I'll tell them, it's not hard to find fraud in the U.S. federal government. Unfortunately, it's hard to root it out, it's hard to fight against it, but it is not hard to find fraud. Just yesterday, we announced a Department of Justice lawsuit against the state Medicaid director of this state. So here's what the state Medicaid director in New York would do. Facilitated fraud by using a sham bidding process. This person was actually inviting fraudulent bidders to come in and take advantage of your tax dollars so that we could send it to fraudsters instead of you. And that's disgraceful. You do not want your government facilitating fraud, you want your government fighting against fraud. And one of the things that I love about Mike Lepetri is that he cares about this fraud issue just as much as I do. He happens to believe in an old-fashioned good government concept that when you pay your taxes, it ought to go to the services and the national security needs that it's meant to go towards. It shouldn't go to fraudsters. It shouldn't go to fraudsters who take advantage of your tax dollars. It shouldn't go to fraudsters who will literally steal money out of the Medicaid fund in order to enrich themselves. It shouldn't go to people who would steal food out of the mouths of poor children. It should go to the people who need it. One of the things I love about our country, ladies and gentlemen, is that we are a generous people. When we see a kid who can't afford food, sometimes my family growing up would benefit from these programs. When we see a kid who can't afford food, we say, you know what, we're going to help you. When we see a person who has a treatable illness but can't afford medical care, you say, you know what, we're going to help you, whether it's the Medicaid program or a local charity. You know what these fraudsters are doing? They are taking advantage of American generosity to enrich themselves, and we need somebody who's going to put them in jail and protect your money, and that's exactly what we're doing under the administration. And that's where I want to take a break here and leave you all, and I just want to say, first of all, this is an amazing place, an amazing district, driving around here. This is your home, and you love it because it's your home, you love it because of its beauty. I mean, this is just, I've always loved Long Island, I've always loved the culture, I've always loved the accents. Your accents are a little bit different than mine back in Ohio, that's right. But here's the thing I love most about this district, is you love this country as much as I do, and what makes America a great country, it's not politicians, it's not public policy, it's you all. It's America's people. But what you need in Washington, D.C. is people who make your life easier. Nobody in Washington is going to fix all your problems. Nobody in Washington is going to solve everything that's wrong in the United States of America. We're going to do that together, as an American community working together. But you know what's not going to help you? When fraudsters are taking advantage of your money, and that's what SWAZI has voted to protect. You know what's not going to help you? When people raise your taxes, when they take your hard-earned money and give it to those fraudsters, and that's what SWAZI has voted for every step of the way. You know, I grew up in a family where I couldn't afford personal security. We barely had enough money to put food on the table some months, but you know what we did have? We had public safety. We had safe neighborhoods, because everybody, Democrat and Republican, agreed that whether you were rich or poor, you deserved to be able to walk down the streets with safety and security. Don't we want that for every kid in America, rich or poor, black or white? We believe that you shouldn't have to get rich off of Tom SWAZI stock trades before you have access to public safety. It is the birthright of every man, woman, and child in this country. So when you go to the polls, look, ladies and gentlemen, I know this is a diverse district. You guys have got a whole host of opinions, and I love that about you. I'm not asking you to vote for us. I'm not asking you to vote for Mike Lepetri because you're going to agree on every single issue. I'm asking you to vote for him because unlike SWAZI, he's going to fight for you. Unlike SWAZI, he's going to lower your taxes. Unlike SWAZI, he's going to help our police throw those bad guys in prison so you can walk down the street in safety. And unlike SWAZI, he is going to fight for every man, woman, and child of this district. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great country. All we need to do to protect it is to stop sending crazy people to Washington, D.C. So from one vice president to the people of the New York's third congressional district, what I'm asking you is to kick crazy Tom SWAZI the hell out of Washington. Send us somebody we can work with in Mike Lepetri. Thank you all. It's great to be with you. This is for the one who swings the hammer. Driving home the nail. For the one behind the counter. Ringing up the cell. For the one who fights the fire. The one who brings the mail. For everyone who works behind the scenes. You can see...