Vice President JD Vance has often proven to be a smooth talker, but he appeared more flustered than usual on Monday while hitting the stump, where he misspoke, mixed up his words, and the jokes fell flat.
Vance was campaigning for Republican House candidate Paul LePage ahead of the midterms in Brewer, Maine, where he took several questions from reporters.
The vice president was asked about the president’s trade war with Canada and its impact on Maine. Vance acknowledged Maine is a border state with Canada and insisted they’re trying to get a fair deal, but then his response veered off track.
“We have to remember, Canada is a state—sorry, Freudian slip,” Vance struggled. “That was actually an accident. Canada is a country.”
The comment came after Trump had previously suggested Canada should be the 51st state. As recently as Monday morning, he suggested he would treat the country like a state “no longer” as he issued trade threats. Later on Monday, he intentionally mistitled Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as “governor.”
But that was not the only time Vance jumbled his words on the stump on Monday.
The vice president also delivered a message to fraudsters, but he stumbled over his words.
“If you are defrauding the taxpaper—payer—we’re going to do everything we can to put you in prison and send a message to the other fraudsters: the gig is up, commit fraud against America and go to jail,” Vance declared, but the correct phrase would be “the jig is up.”
Vance was also questioned about the deadly shooting by an ICE agent in Biddeford last month. The reporter noted that Democrats have accused the Trump administration of not investigating it, which Vance pushed back on.
But then the vice president took a different approach from when he full throatedly defended ICE after the killing of Renee Good earlier this year in Minnesota, where he called it a “tragedy of her own making.”
On Monday, Vance said of the shooting in Maine: “In that particular case, I don’t want to comment on it; I don’t want to prejudge all the details.”
But then Vance twisted himself in knots, stating, “at least what the law enforcement officers argue is that that person posed a danger to the community” before delivering a word salad.
“Again, I’m not going to prejudge the case because I think everybody is entitled to their, their case not in the court of public opinion but a court trial by their juries, an actual real investigation if that’s what ultimately happens,” Vance said. “Everybody is entitled to understand what’s going on, whether what they’re being accused of is actually legitimate, and ultimately of course, if there is a criminal prosecution, then they’re entitled to a jury by their peers.”
Vance said when he looks at the case he sees a country that is “trying to enforce its laws, and it hasn’t for a long time.” He also accused Democrats of being “far more worried about a shooting involving an illegal alien than they are about the fact that tens of thousands of Mainers died from fentanyl overdoses by that poison brought into our community.”
He suggested Democrats worried about investigating killings by ICE, which he referred to as “that situation,” should “have a little bit of perspective.”
The vice president also tried to win over the crowd during his speech before taking questions with a few jokes. While some audience members laughed, several people standing behind him appeared uncomfortable and looked around after one of his comments while talking about becoming Trump’s running mate.
“The second lady said, ‘Well, you can have one of two things. You can be vice president, or you can have a fourth child.’ Ladies and gentlemen, I must be pretty persuasive, because I got both,” Vance said.
