Two mothers who questioned Sen. JD Vance at a Moms for America town hall at Union League Liberty Hall in Lafayette Hill on Tuesday evening still mourn their sons.
One young man died of a fentanyl overdose, and the other was stabbed to death by thugs in New York City. Another was fresh from the trauma of being caught in the flooding of Hurricane Helene.
Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, offered sensitive and heartfelt responses to their questions.
“My family and I were trapped [in North Carolina] for five days, living a nightmare of Hurricane Helene,” said Donica Hudson. “FEMA was nowhere to be found the first week. And has done almost nothing.” She asked what a Trump-Vance administration would do to restructure FEMA and rebuild western North Carolina.
“First of all, I’m sorry that it happened and sorry, most importantly, that your government didn’t do its job,” said Vance. “If you grew up in the Appalachian portion of the country, whether North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or anywhere else, you often feel like your government doesn’t care about you. Unfortunately, that region of the country was really neglected and left behind by the people who should have looked out for the victims. And I hate to say, but I think there would be less loss of life if the government had responded more quickly.”
Vance grew up in southwest Ohio and spent much of his time in the state’s Appalachian region, an experience he recounted in his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Vance said the new administration would fire the leadership and return FEMA to its proper role and “focus on American citizens” rather than on illegal immigrants.
“Let’s be honest, this was a Biden-Harris shortcoming. As soon as the rivers started to swell up as they did, the 82nd Airborne should have been in North Carolina…We need somebody who is in control, whose only job is to save as many lives as possible.”
Madeline Brame of New York City said her son, Hason Correa, was stabbed to death, and progressive District Attorney Alvin Bragg let two of the four killers go. She asked what the government would do to secure the rights of homicide victims.
“Here’s the big issue, the progressives, and I don’t think it’s true of most Democrats, by the way, but the leadership of the Democratic Party has got into their minds that law enforcement is inherently racist. And I think that’s a real disgrace. It’s led us to frankly dismissing a lot of good cops. And it’s meant that we don’t empower [them] to go after truly bad guys. And what I find so crazy about this is, if you look at the statistics, it is a very small number of people who commit most of the violent crime.”
They need to “empower law enforcement to go after bad guys and lock them up,” said Vance. “I just can’t believe that one-half of our political leadership thinks locking up criminals is a bad thing. Locking up violent criminals is one of the core functions of government.”
Stephanie Turner, whose 19-year-old son, Tucker, died from a fentanyl overdose after being in rehab, asked Vance about education to inform parents and kids about the dangers of this deadly drug that is now in recreational pills that kids can buy online.
“We can’t afford to sit idle while more lives are lost,” she said.
Sen. JD Vance talks with Moms for America Vice President Debbie Kraulidis (left) and President Kimberly Fletcher (right).
Vance said he would pray for her son, noting his own family members have struggled with addiction.
“We want people to have second chances,” said Vance. He noted if they get out of rehab and relapse with fentanyl, “there’s not going to be a second chance.”
“That’s why this poison is so dangerous and so deadly,” he said. “It takes away that second chance, for our families, for our moms, for our dads, for our kids. It’s got to stop. And it’s disgraceful that we have a government right now that’s facilitating it.”
Vance said a Trump administration would stop fentanyl coming into the country “in the first place.”
“It is an unspeakable human tragedy,” said Vance. “A hundred thousand people, many of whom are in the prime of their lives, have lost their lives to this. The human tragedy we’re allowing in this country. It has got to stop.”
When Moms for America President Kimberly Fletcher asked Vance about his former opposition to Trump, Vance said becoming a father changed his worldview.
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s more important to be honest, I think,” said Vance. “I kind of bought into some of the lies in 2016. Then when he was president…inflation was low, the border was secure, and remember they all thought Donald Trump was going to start World War III. And yet we had more peace around the globe than we’d had in a generation.”
Vance said incentives are “mess up” in politics where people do not want to admit they’ve made a mistake, even when it’s obvious.
“The very same thing they said about Trump now, they said in 2015 and 2017,” said Vance. “And I actually think we’ll have an even bigger and better presidential term. We’ve got bigger problems to solve now than we did in 2016. So, basically, he did a hell of a job, and it’s important to say, ‘I was wrong.’”
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