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Vice President JD Vance ended AmericaFest 2025, Turning Point USA’s first convention since the death of founder Charlie Kirk, by telling a fired-up crowd that the “America First” movement is open to people who love their country and are free thinkers.
Vance showed up not long after Erika Kirk, who took over TPUSA after her husband died in September, spoke with Nicki Minaj, who was a surprise guest. The vice president told the crowd that the political coalition President Trump built is strong enough to get past any disagreements that may arise.
“People of every faith come to our banner because they know that the America First movement will make our lives better,” he went on. “They know Democrats don’t care about anything other than trans-ing their kids.”
Vowing to stand with “every patriot in this room to defend the country we so dearly love,” Vance dismissed conservative infighting that had gone on earlier in the conference, while not naming any of the podcasters or subjects involved.
“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance said, as some of the earlier speakers name-dropped each other amid divisions over Israel, Ukraine aid, and other controversial issues on the right.
“We don’t care if you’re White or Black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring, or somewhere in between… [P]eople of every faith come to our banner because they know that the America First movement will make their lives better. And they also know that the Democrats don’t care about anything other than maybe trans-ing their kids.”
“So if you love America, if you want all of us to be richer, stronger, safer, and prouder, you have a home on this team. I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform, and I don’t really care if some people out there — I’m sure we’ll have the fake news media — denounce me after this speech,” Vance declared.
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Later in his speech, Vance said that such infighting is not necessarily a sign of a weak or fractious movement.
“Some of you are impatient at the pace of progress and my response to that is ‘Good.’ I know some of you are discouraged by the infighting over any number of issues. Don’t be discouraged. Wouldn’t you rather lead a movement of freethinkers who sometimes disagree than a bunch of drones who take their orders from George Soros?” Vance said, appearing to refer to criticisms of the Republican Congress’s progress on the America First agenda.
The vice president said Charlie Kirk once told him that politics is not a “dress rehearsal or a game” but a series of decisions that will shape the future of a country.
“My friends, commit to these things, and I promise you victory: I promise you closed borders and safe communities. I promise you good jobs and a dignified life. Only God can promise you salvation and heaven. But together we can fulfill the promise of the greatest nation in the history of the earth,” Vance said, as he closed his speech.
“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other — we have got to build, and President Donald Trump is a builder,” he said. “We’re building a better country right now. We build by adding, by growing, not by tearing down.”
Vance declared that 2025 represented the first year in more than half a century with negative net-migration and that millions of illegal immigrants have either left the U.S. or been deported.
“When you restore sanity at the border, it shows up everywhere else,” he said, pointing to rent costs, gas prices, inflation, and unemployment declining.
“We made it clear that in the United States we believe in hard work and merit –we don’t treat anybody [a certain way] because of their race or their sex, so we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history which is exactly where it belongs,” the VP said.
