In a part of J.D. Vance’s interview that did not air on this morning’s “Meet the Press,” the vice president makes the case that California has five more House seats than it would if illegal aliens were not counted in the census used for apportionment:

KRISTEN WELKER: This week you were in Georgia. You were there to talk about and promote the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ and it was also in the same week that Texas Republicans approved five new Republican seats. So they expanded the map for Republicans in their state. If President Trump’s agenda is so popular, why do Republicans need to add additional seats to the map? VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Well, first of all, Kristen, you have to ask yourself, why have Democrats gerrymandered their states aggressively over the past 10 to 20 years? If you look, for example, at the popular vote in a lot of these states-and Massachusetts, where 32% of the residents voted for Republicans-zero Republican federal representatives. So what we’re doing, frankly, is trying to make the situation a little bit more fair on a national scale. The Democrats have gerrymandered their states really aggressively. We think there are opportunities to push back against that, and that’s really all we’re doing. KRISTEN WELKER: And yet, Mr. Vice President, you were able to win the House and the Senate in 2024. Why can’t you do it again without adding additional seats? JD VANCE: This is a very important question, Kristen. We had way fewer House seats than we should have. One, if the Democrats hadn’t aggressively gerrymandered. And two, if illegal aliens weren’t counted in the census for purposes of apportioning congressional seats. The best estimates I’ve seen is that California, for example, has five additional congressional seats than it should have because they count illegal aliens for the purpose of apportioning representatives. Meanwhile, Ohio, my home state, lost a representative. We’re literally losing representatives for American citizens in order to give congressional representation to illegal aliens. Republicans are trying to balance out the scales a little bit for basic fairness and for the integrity of our democracy, which the president cares about as much as anybody in the country. KRISTEN WELKER: But of course, people who are here and who are not documented are not eligible to vote. JD VANCE: They’re not eligible to vote, but they do go in the congressional apportionment. That’s why California has so many more seats-because they count illegal aliens. So even though they don’t vote-well, some of them actually do vote, but hopefully most of them don’t-they end up getting congressional representation that ought by right to go to Americans.

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