Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks to the International Association of Fire Fighters, Mar. 9, 2026
March 9, 2026 · The White House · 0:19:43
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
Vice President JD Vance addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters’ 2026 legislative conference in Washington, D.C. on March 9, 2026. IAFF President Ed Kelly introduced him with the union’s account of the administration’s record: White House support that, in Kelly’s telling, cleared the way for the Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act, backing for federal firefighters’ collective bargaining rights, support for the Social Security Fairness Act and for AFG and SAFER grant reauthorization, and Vance’s earlier Senate work on rail safety after the East Palestine derailment.
Vance opened on a somber note: he had participated in the dignified transfer of six American soldiers killed in the conflict with Iran — the first time, he said, he had done so — and asked the hall to pray for “the six souls that we lost, for the seventh soul who will be coming home tonight, and for all of their families.” He made the administration’s pitch to organized labor explicit — “we have been unique among Republicans in that we haven’t turned away organized labor” — and told the roughly 700 firefighters present, as he estimated the crowd, that the administration would keep working with them.
On delivery, he pointed to the Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act, which, as he stated it, President Trump signed into law a few months earlier: where a firefighter dies of cancer developed through line-of-duty exposure, their families are entitled to the federal benefits “that they earned.” Taking care of the people who take care of us, he said, “is the legacy of the Trump administration when it comes to our firefighters.”
Why it matters
The address is the administration’s labor-outreach case made to a first-responder union — benefits delivered, grants backed, bargaining rights protected — delivered by the Vice President two days after he stood at Dover for the fallen. It is recorded on the Justice & Crime hub.
Scoreboard watch
The Vice President’s statements that a seventh fallen service member would come home that night, and that the Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act’s cancer-benefit entitlement is now law, are recorded here for the weekly scoreboard. The scoreboard entry itself remains review-gated.
Sources: The White House, “Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks to the International Association of Fire Fighters,” The White House, March 9, 2026 (official upload, embedded above; Washington, D.C., per the official description). All figures and characterizations as stated by Ed Kelly and Vice President Vance at the conference.
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