Vice President JD Vance takes the stage this week for a midterm convention that even Republican operatives admit will be an “embarrassing show” over the next two days in Dallas.
That is not the mood of a party proud of its record. It is the mood of a party that knows exactly what Vance has to defend: fraud claims that keep collapsing in court, a safety net gutted to pay for billions in tax breaks for the ultrawealthy, and a costly war the Trump administration has no idea how to bring to an end.
Vance is the face of a fraud crusade that keeps losing in court
- Vance led an effort to freeze $10 billion in childcare and social assistance funding for five Democratic led states, part of a broader push to withhold federal funding to punish Trump political rivals, only to see a federal judge block the effort within days.
- Vance’s task force targeted funding for social assistance programs in Colorado, California, Illinois, New York, and Maine. That same task force ordered Colorado into a SNAP “pilot project” without the state’s consent. A federal judge struck it down, finding the demand violated federal law, the Constitution, and “the bounds of reasoned decision-making.”
- Even as Vance travels the country touting his task force’s claims of uncovering and preventing fraud, a closer look at the administration’s own record shows enforcement moving in the opposite direction: at the start of his second term, Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general who were tasked with preventing and detecting fraud in federal programs and replaced them with his own appointees.
Vance helped shred the social safety net and cut funding for healthcare and food assistance
- Vance personally cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, sending it back to the House with massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP intact.
- The law slashed federal SNAP funding by an estimated $186 billion over the next decade, and more than 3.5 million people have already lost food assistance as states implement its stricter eligibility rules.
- The same law cut federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over ten years, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 11.8 million people will lose their health insurance as a result.
- Families are feeling the squeeze on both ends. Grocery prices have climbed 3.8 percent over the past year, the sharpest increase in nearly three years, while health insurance premiums for millions of Affordable Care Act enrollees are rising by an average of 114 percent this year, forcing some families to choose between coverage and other bills.
Vance supports the Iran war, costing taxpayers billions and squeezing household finances
- Vance told reporters, “I wouldn’t call it a war,” even as the conflict with Iran entered its sixth month with strikes continuing on both sides. He offered no timeline for the war to end and no date when gas prices might fall below pre-war levels.
- Gas prices topped $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 after Trump decided to start a war with Iran, driving the biggest inflation jump of the year, directly tied to the conflict in the Middle East.
“Republicans built this convention to relaunch their midterm message, and instead they’re praying nobody tunes in because they’ve spent the last year and a half failing to deliver on their promises and supporting an agenda that has only made life more expensive for working families,” said American Bridge 21st Century spokesperson Brandon Weathersby. “No wonder the vibes are bad in Dallas. That’s not a record you campaign on; it’s a record you run from, which is exactly what Republicans up and down the ballot are already doing.”
Published: Sep 9, 2026