Vice President JD Vance speaks to workers at the Nucor Steel Berkeley in Huger, South Carolina.
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00:00A hell of a crowd, a good-looking crowd behind me. Thank you, guys.
00:06Now, the CEO told me you guys run four shifts at this plant, so after I talk, do you have to go back to work or are you done for the day?
00:14You gotta go back for work?
00:15Well, what if I give a seven-hour speech? Do you have to go back to work then?
00:19You give a politician a microphone, you never know exactly what's gonna happen, my friends.
00:23I want to thank all of you for being here. I want to thank Lee Zeldin for the kind introduction,
00:28but most importantly, I want to thank Lee Zeldin for doing a hell of a good job at the Environmental Protection Agency
00:34because one thing that we believe, you know, there was this idea that happened under the last administration
00:43that you couldn't have clean air, clean water, a solid environment, but also growing American industry.
00:49President Trump rejects that idea, and he put Lee Zeldin as the guy in charge of implementing that agenda.
00:55We can have beautiful skies, we can have clean air, we can have clean water, we can also have good American manufacturing jobs.
01:03There's no tension between those two things. Lee Zeldin is the man making it happen. Thank you, Lee.
01:13I want to thank the great Lieutenant Governor of the state of South Carolina, Yvette LG, where are you?
01:18There you are. Thank you for being here.
01:20I want to thank Congresswoman Mace and all the state and lawmakers and other elected officials who are joining us here today.
01:27You guys have got great public officials in the state of South Carolina.
01:32We're proud of them, right? They're doing a hell of a job.
01:33Now, let me just, one other note of thanks here, because I just got the tour of a lifetime here at Nucor Steel.
01:45So I want to thank Leon and everyone here at this incredible facility here, Nucor Steel Berkeley, for hosting us.
01:54For decades, Nucor has been an engine of American industry.
01:58The products this company and other steel makers create form the literal foundation of American society.
02:06And I know I speak for many in the administration, certainly I speak for the President when I say we're grateful for that.
02:12We're grateful for the billions of dollars in new capital investments Nucor has announced in just the last few months.
02:18And most importantly, we're grateful to the steel workers at this incredible plant.
02:24Thank you all for doing what you do, for building America and for making America proud.
02:33Now, I have this great speech prepared, and I'm very excited to give it, but it's also, it's very windy out here.
02:41And you see this teleprompter here, it's waving like a beautiful American flag.
02:45And so we'll see if I have to go off script here.
02:48It'll make everybody, it'll make the communications staff a little bit nervous.
02:53But I got to tell you, you all know the reason why I'm here.
02:56Number one, it's to celebrate the great steel workers behind me, in front of me.
03:00But it's also to celebrate 100 days of the Trump administration.
03:04We hit the 100-day mark and what 100-day mark it was.
03:07Now, to me, that marker means a lot of things for the state of South Carolina.
03:17It means a lot of things for this plan.
03:19It means a lot of things for America.
03:21Number one, 100 days means energy dominance.
03:25We have started drill, baby drilling.
03:27It means cheaper gas, and it means America that is self-reliant.
03:30This 100 days marks a new thing in the United States of America, something we didn't have
03:41just a few short months ago, secure borders in the United States of America.
03:46I know we're all proud about that.
03:47It means safer streets and an American people once again encouraged to feel pride in our
03:58great American history and our great American values.
04:01But most importantly, 100 days under Donald Trump's leadership begin marks the beginning
04:07of the industrial renaissance in the United States of America.
04:11I believe that a golden age of American manufacturing started 100 days ago, and we're building it
04:18right here at Nucor Steel in South Carolina.
04:27And I want to celebrate everybody here.
04:30I want to celebrate the work you do.
04:31I want to celebrate the investments this business has made in the United States of America.
04:36I want to celebrate the incredible things you build for the United States.
04:39And it's funny, I got a great plant tour here, and I went to a couple of different places,
04:45and one of which they said, you know, if things start to go wrong, press the red button.
04:49And I looked over at John, and I looked at Seth, who was giving me the tour, and I said,
04:54man, I'm going to cost you guys a lot of money if the vice president comes here and screws
04:58up and doesn't press the red button when he's supposed to.
05:00And you know what?
05:01The leadership of this facility told me, they said, you know what?
05:04Even if the vice president screws up a little bit and costs us some money, we're going
05:08to make so much money from Donald Trump's golden age of American manufacturing that you guys
05:13will end up ahead in the bargain.
05:15And I thought, that's not too bad.
05:23Now, a lot of you may know this is a particular meaningful stop for me as vice president of
05:28the United States.
05:28I've actually never had a tour of a steel mill, even though my grandfather, the man who raised
05:34me worked in the steel industry.
05:36He was, for 40 years, a welder at Armco Steel in Middletown, Ohio.
05:42Now, he was part of the Appalachian wave of migration, people who came from West Virginia,
05:48eastern Kentucky, and east Tennessee to the rapidly growing industrial towns, which had
05:53factory jobs that promised three things for their workers, generous wages, stable hours,
05:59and a good pension.
06:01Now, in the wake of both world wars, millions of Americans traveled to towns like Middletown,
06:07Ohio, in search of the same, hoping they'd be fortunate enough to score such a role, such
06:12a good job.
06:14Now, my Papaw, he was not a proud man, but he would beam when he'd talk about his work
06:19at the local Armco mill.
06:21I remember that.
06:22Driving around with Papaw, he could name the make and model of every single car made with
06:27Armco steel.
06:28I remember that as a little boy, how much pride he had in what he did.
06:33And having met a few workers here at Nucor, I hope you all feel the exact same pride in
06:39the steel you produce and in the products that come out of it.
06:43When you see bridges you drive over or the foundations of the buildings that our families
06:48live and work in, when you see a lawnmower, a water heater, a kitchen appliance in your
06:53neighbor's homes or in your home, I hope every single one of you, you guys and you guys in
06:59front of me, feel a sense of pride, however small, because these are the products that
07:05actually make America work.
07:07These are the products that make our citizens' lives better.
07:16And I hope you feel not just pride in the work that you do.
07:19I hope you feel a little patriotic too, because this is America's national heritage.
07:25It's making things.
07:27From Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay, from Ford's auto workers to the steel workers here
07:32this very afternoon, America has always been a nation that builds.
07:38The Empire State Building, the Hoover Dam, the Saturn V, every single one of those great
07:43accomplishments were impossible without the might of American industry and, yes, the hard
07:49work of American steel workers.
07:58But let's be honest, for a couple decades, though, our leaders forgot about that core part of
08:03American national identity.
08:05They decided that America would no longer be a manufacturing power.
08:09Instead, we'd let the rest of the world make the necessary things that we needed for our homes
08:15and for our families, and when a nation decides to de-industrialize, my friends, you know what
08:20else it stops using?
08:22The intermediate goods, central to that manufacturing, the things like steel that you all make right
08:28here at Nucor.
08:30So we stopped making the things that we needed.
08:32We stopped making as many cars.
08:34We stopped making appliances.
08:35We stopped building new homes and buildings so the cost of housing skyrocket in our communities.
08:41And even this company, Nucor Steel, you know what the leadership told me just a couple
08:45of short minutes ago?
08:46That there was a West Virginia facility, a beautiful, high-tech, Nucor manufacturing facility
08:53making great American steel and giving workers good jobs in the process.
08:58That steel facility, that project, sat idle for years under the Biden administration's crushing
09:04environmental regulations and environmental rules.
09:07So when our leadership decides that Americans don't want to make anything, you know what
09:11we do?
09:12We cost great businesses and great corporations like Nucor a lot of money.
09:16We cost great workers their wages, and we cost a lot of people their jobs.
09:21And that was the policy of the administration that came before us.
09:25But I'm proud that we are now 101 days into an administration that wants to invest in you,
09:32that wants to build the future with you.
09:34And when Americans see a beautiful bridge or a beautiful building, we all ought to look
09:39at it and say that was made with American hands and built with great American steel, right?
09:52And that is exactly what the Trump administration promises to do.
09:57Now, I want to say that recently we should have learned a very hard lesson about what happens
10:03when you ship all of your industries and all the things you need to countries that don't
10:08like you.
10:08Now, I learned that lesson very personally, not with steel, but I remember a few years
10:12ago, I got three little kids.
10:15And as you know, sometimes little kids get sick.
10:17And one of my kids had an ear infection.
10:19I went into a pharmacy and I said, hey, I've got a prescription here for amoxicillin.
10:24And the pharmacist told me that they didn't have any amoxicillin, a drug in some ways invented
10:31by the United States of America.
10:33We didn't have enough of it for American children.
10:35That's what happens when you lose the ability to make your own stuff.
10:39You've got parents who can't get the medicine they need for their own children.
10:44And as we learned during the COVID pandemic, remember, you know, this terrible virus comes,
10:50a lot of people are falling sick with it.
10:53And we need hospital gowns and we need hospital masks.
10:56We need the things that are necessary to operate an American medical facility.
11:00And it turned out all of those supplies came from the very country that set the virus loose
11:07on the entire world.
11:09Remember that those lessons, the lesson that you can't become dependent on foreign adversary,
11:15the lesson that you've got to make your own stuff.
11:18That is the lesson that the Trump administration has put into place in the first 100 days.
11:23And I'm telling you, I bring this word straight from the president United States.
11:27We're so proud of every single one of you.
11:30We're so proud of what you do.
11:31We're proud of the hard work you do.
11:33We're proud of the beautiful products that we make with American steel.
11:37And we are never going to allow your job to get shipped off to a country that hates us.
11:43We want to protect your jobs.
11:44And most importantly, we want to protect the great work you do right here in South Carolina
11:48and all across the United States of America.
11:52Now, you heard – I'm sure you've heard some criticism of the president's trade policies
12:03from people who ought to know better.
12:05Because if you listen to the American media or you listen to a lot of politicians in our
12:10own country, they seem desperate to forget the very lessons that made Donald J. Trump the
12:1645th and 47th president of the United States of America.
12:20Now they attack us when we implement trade policies that do a very simple thing – rebalance
12:26trade in favor of American workers and American businesses, instead of foreign workers and
12:32foreign corporations.
12:33I've talked to people here today who talk about expanding facilities, building new steel-making
12:40facilities because of the trade policies that Donald J. Trump has implemented.
12:45And I'll ask all of you, the workers and the corporate leadership assembled here today,
12:49a very simple question.
12:51Do you want to ship American jobs off to the People's Republic of China?
12:55No.
12:56Do you want to rely on foreign corporations to make the things that you need in your homes
13:02and your families need every single day?
13:03No.
13:04So why don't we rebuild America's middle class?
13:07Why don't we rebuild American manufacturing?
13:10And why don't we rebuild American industry, just like you're doing right here?
13:14And isn't it nice to have an administration that supports you for a change?
13:20So, you know, you see these media personalities, they're pulling their hair out.
13:28They're saying, well, you know, you guys, you're going to make it harder to manufacture
13:34in China.
13:35Isn't that bad?
13:36No.
13:37It's good.
13:38That's exactly what we want to do.
13:39They're saying you're going to make it harder for people to bring products in from overseas
13:44and undercut the wages of American workers.
13:47Exactly.
13:48That's exactly what we want to do.
13:49They're saying you're going to make it harder for foreign corporations, but you're going
13:53to make it easier for American businesses to build great things in America.
13:57And I say that's exactly right.
13:59That's not something to be sad about.
14:01That's not something to complain about.
14:02That is something to be proud of.
14:04And thank God we've got an administration that's finally looking out for American businesses
14:08and the American workers who employ them.
14:10Ain't that right?
14:14So I'm here today, and I've got to tell you, it is just – it is such a personally
14:22amazing thing for a guy who was born in Middletown, Ohio, who was raised by a 40-year welder at
14:30a steel mill to be able to come to this beautiful facility as the Vice President of the United
14:36States.
14:37And I can't help – thank you.
14:44I can't help but pinch myself, pinch myself that I get to spend the day in beautiful South
14:47Carolina with you fine people, pinch myself that I'm the Vice President of the United
14:52States, and pinch myself, of course, because I know that this country is still a place
14:59of great big American dreams.
15:02But it's only going to stay that country if we fight for it, if we fight for the jobs
15:06of the people here at this facility, if we fight to make it easier to build upon it and
15:10to build great things in the United States of America.
15:13I've got to be honest with you.
15:14The American dream was not built by people selling digital advertisements in Silicon Valley.
15:21The American people was built by people like you.
15:24The American dream was built by steel makers and auto workers and people who worked with
15:30their hands.
15:31And I think another thing we've got to do is we've got to send a message, ladies and gentlemen.
15:34I think you all know this better than I do.
15:36But I learned a little bit today that you all don't just work with your hands.
15:40You work with your heads in amazing ways.
15:43This is an incredibly high-tech facility.
15:46I'm sure you all are amazed at how much you can do – you've got about 1,000 workers
15:51here and they're earning great wages and doing a great job – how much those 1,000 workers
15:57can do to build the American dream of the future.
16:00It's an amazing thing.
16:01And so I think we've got to send messages to our young people that the most interesting
16:06work, the work that's going to challenge your mind but also allow you to work with your
16:10hands is found at American Steel Mills right here at Nucor Berkeley in South Carolina.
16:17You know, I was sitting down at Seth's terminal.
16:24I thought, this guy is not a steel mill worker.
16:28He's operating a spaceship.
16:30Because there's like 14 very complicated screens in front of me and I felt like Homer Simpson.
16:37I had no idea what I was going to do.
16:39I was like, Seth, you've got to get back in this chair or we're going to cause some serious problems.
16:43What it made me realize is that technology – you know, technology, we use this term, we think
16:48about it as the iPhones that we have in our pocket or the screen that we stare at when
16:53a lot of our knowledge workers are going to work.
16:56But technology is happening right here at a steel-making facility in Nucor, in Berkeley,
17:04in South Carolina.
17:05That's – that's – that's technology of the future.
17:08The great technology of the future, I don't think it's going to be people, you know,
17:12sitting around staring at their iPhones.
17:14The technology of the future is going to be building great things but doing it in a
17:18new way.
17:19Doing it with new, incredible facilities, with safer facilities, with people who know,
17:25again, how to use their minds but also use their hands.
17:28And I think that is the high-tech future.
17:31You know, people criticize.
17:32I get sick sometimes in the press.
17:34They say that Donald J. Trump wants to bring back the jobs of the past.
17:38And I don't think anything could be further from the truth because I, again, was raised
17:43by a man who worked at a steel mill of the past.
17:46But I guarantee if I went to that steel mill today, it's owned by Cleveland Cliffs.
17:50Sorry, that's a competitor.
17:51But they're a good company, too.
17:53We could spread the love around.
17:55But I guarantee if I went to that facility today or when I go to this facility here in
18:00Berkeley, I don't see the steel mill jobs of the past.
18:04I see the steel mill jobs of the future.
18:06I see technology allowing us to do something today that my grandfather, God love him, wasn't
18:11doing 40 years ago at Armco Steel in Middletown, Ohio.
18:15And I know that's how we're going to win the future.
18:18That's how we're going to beat the Chinese.
18:19That's how we're going to beat every single competitor that America faces.
18:23It's going to be by doing great things like what you're doing here at Nucor Steel.
18:28And never let anybody tell you that this is not high tech.
18:32This is the highest tech industry maybe that I've ever seen.
18:35And you're building the America of the future, not the America of the past.
18:39So let me just close by saying, my friends, I think that the great American manufacturing
18:52comeback has begun, and the world has started to take notice.
18:56In just 100 days, the President has attracted trillions of dollars in commitments for new
19:02investment in America, including some from Nucor Steel.
19:05Just yesterday, we saw that business investment in the first quarter of the United States economy,
19:12business investment grew by 22 percent.
19:16That was just in a few short months.
19:18That's a big number.
19:19And we know that with all this additional investment is going to come hundreds of thousands of new,
19:29high-paying, high-quality jobs.
19:31We're going to see new jobs in artificial intelligence, in deepwater oil production,
19:36in chip fabrication, in pharmaceutical factories, research labs, supercomputing facilities,
19:42and, of course, in great American-made steel.
19:45But the idea is very simple, and the principle is even simpler, that we want to grow up in a country.
19:53We want our children to grow up in a country where the things that they need are made by their neighbors
19:59and not by foreigners who hate their guts.
20:02Where the critical components of American industry are built right here in the United States of America,
20:08not in some far-flung region of the world that we can't depend on.
20:11And where American jobs, for people who are willing to work hard and play by the rules,
20:16pay a solid wage, allow you to buy a home and start a family,
20:20and where you're proud every single day, just like my grandfather was,
20:24of the things that you built with your hands, but also with your minds.
20:28I hope that you all are proud, because I am certainly proud to stand here with great American steelworkers,
20:34and every single day, from this day forward that I go out as Vice President of the United States,
20:38when I look at those tall skyscrapers, or I look at those beautiful bridges,
20:42I'm going to remember this day and remember that you guys are building the future of this country.
20:48I'm proud of you. We're rooting for you.
20:50The President of the United States is going to make your life easier every single day.
20:54We had a good start, 100 days. But for the next 1,300 days, President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Vance,
21:01we're going to be fighting for you, fighting for your jobs, and fighting for the future that you want to build for your families.
21:06God bless you all. Thank you for having me.