When President Donald Trump announced he had chosen Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance to be his vice president at the Republican National Convention in 2024, there were some folks who were skeptical that he was the right person for the job. It’s only been a week since Trump and Vance were sworn in, but I think it’s clear already that the president most definitely made the right decision. The Ohio Republican compliments Trump very, very well.
A good case in point comes from an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Vance was having a conversation with liberal journalist Margaret Brennan, who kept constantly, with an air of smugness, kept confidently repeated liberal lies such as the classic “this is a country founded by immigrants.”
According to The Western Journal, Vance displayed top tier character by systematically dismantling Brennan’s garbage, but doing so with patience, albeit firmness. She kicked things off by saying, “This is a very unique country.”
“This is a very unique country, and it was founded by some immigrants and some settlers,” Vance answered back. “But just because we were founded by immigrants doesn’t mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world.”
And already he’s toasted Brennan on both sides.
As for the context, Brennan had asked Vance about President Donald Trump’s executive order last week ending birthright citizenship. Thus, Vance elaborated on the Trump administration’s position.
“No country says that temporary visitors — their children — will be given complete access to the benefits and blessings of American citizenship. America should actually look out for the interests of our citizens first. And that means, again, if you’re here permanently and lawfully, your kid becomes an American citizen. If you’re not here permanently, if you’re not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and don’t plan to be, why would we make those people’s children American citizens permanently?” Vance further explained, there by bringing his highly articulate and quite brilliant reply to an end.
“I obviously disagree with that judge,” Vice President JD Vance says of a federal judge, who this week blocked on constitutional grounds, President Trump’s order attempting to eliminate birthright citizenship.
"Just because we were founded by immigrants, doesn't mean that 240… pic.twitter.com/rrO9QfsDSa
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 26, 2025
Prominent conservatives on X applauded Vance for injecting the word “settler” into the conversation. For instance, Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire thought it crucial to distinguish America’s forebears from mere immigrants.
Glad he got the settler part in there. The whole liberal premise is wrong: at a fundamental level, America was not founded by immigrants! https://t.co/V18PFOCP7H
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) January 26, 2025
Kurt Schlichter, a columnist for Townhall, posted a prediction saying that Brennan would just change gears and begin to whine about “settler genocide.”
“Have you noticed how you can never win? But you can win. You can refuse to play the game and ruthlessly exercise your power,” Schlichter stated in the post.
In the next breath, she’ll complain that this country was built on settler genocide. Have you noticed how you can never win?
But you can win. You can refuse to play the game and ruthlessly exercise your power. @KeenanPeachy https://t.co/x1aWHOceLm
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) January 26, 2025
“Knowles and Schlichter, of course, had it right about settlers. But we need not go even that far in order to refute Brennan’s claim as easily as Vance did. The preposterous argument that ‘immigrants’ founded America depends on a deliberately muddled version of history,” the report explained. It went on to stated that our country wasn’t founded by immigrants, but “revolutionary patriots” who were actually born on American soil and were part of the colonies established by Britain. However, that’s an inconvenient truth that flies in the face of the narrative pushed by progressives, so it gets ignored.
Through the 1776 Declaration of Independence, American patriots proclaimed their pledge to establish a self-governing republic. The U.S. Constitution fulfilled that pledge in 1787-88. Then, immigrants came to the new United States because the sovereign people permitted it. “We the People” invited the world’s oppressed masses to emigrate legally, not to sneak into the country and remain indefinitely. Thus, “immigrants” did not “found” the United States. Sovereign citizens did.
For the most part, however, the American Revolution drew its statesmen and soldiers from among the native-born. That included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and host of lesser-known American patriots.
Vance is a rather sharp cookie. He specifically used the date of 240 years in our nation’s past, which takes us to the 1780s, around the time the Founders signed and ratified our Constitution. The vice president cited the moment that our Founding Fathers actually fulfilled their promise to create a self-governing republic. He didn’t need to go back to the very beginning. That was enough.