Vice President J.D. Vance, during a campaign speech in suburban Atlanta, defended the Trump administration’s tough-on-crime policies. “I never understood this – American leaders decided it was compassionate to allow people to fester on the streets, yelling at our young families, instead of giving them the medical care they need and getting them off the streets,” Vance said.

VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE: I went to Union Station in Washington, D.C. yesterday. Anybody here ever been to Union Station? Okay. It’s a beautiful, beautiful building – really, a monument to American greatness. I was walking around, looking up at it – these beautiful high ceilings. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. And I remembered that two years ago, when I took my kids to Washington, D.C.’s Union Station, I actually had a crazy person screaming at my three-year-old kid. Because for some reason – and I never understood this – American leaders decided it was compassionate to allow people to fester on the streets, yelling at our young families, instead of giving them the medical care they need and getting them off the streets. Which, by the way, makes it easier for us all to enjoy these great public spaces in our country. And I haven’t been to Atlanta in a little while – at least not walking around with the Secret Service detail. But I bet, as great as Atlanta is, and as beautiful of an American city as it is, there are places in Atlanta where you wouldn’t take your family today. Isn’t that correct? Just like in Washington, D.C. – the national capital of the greatest nation in the history of the world – there are no-go zones where you would not take a young family or young children. And that’s true, I’m sure, all across the state of Georgia, all across our country – because our leaders decided they would make our streets safe for criminals instead of safe for the people who pay our taxes and keep our communities going. And I think that, of all the things I’m most proud of the president for, the thing I’m most proud about is that he finally put the government to work for the people who actually make this country function and run in the first place. We’re cutting taxes for American taxpayers. We’re securing the border. We’ve got a 99% reduction in illegal border crossings in this country, because we’ve got a president who empowered Border Patrol to keep us safe. And we’ve got a president who is standing with law enforcement to make it easier to clean up our streets and make them safe for our young families. If you’re a person – I don’t care what your political party is – but if you’re a family and you want to take your kid to a nice meal in downtown Atlanta, about a 40-minute drive, you ought to be able to do that without being harassed by a criminal. We’ve got to take America’s streets back for the American people. And that’s what the president of the United States is doing every single day. And as a person who grew up in a family where we often struggled with money – you know, it is never the rich people who lack public safety in this country. When we go to war against our cops, when we flood the border with illegal immigration, when we close down great American factories, it is the people the Bible calls the least of us who struggle the most and hurt the most. So I’m proud to be here as your Vice President. I’m proud to be here as a representative of President Trump. Thank you. But I’m most proud that we have an administration that is making it easier – whether you’re rich or poor – to walk down the street with a semblance of public safety. I’m most proud that we’re fighting for the jobs of the people behind me, and the jobs of every single working person in this country. And I’m most proud that we’re fighting to make sure you pay low taxes instead of handing a bunch of garbage to the federal government.

Here are his full remarks:
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