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Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks in Kansas City, Missouri, May 18, 2026

May 18, 2026 · The White House · 0:31:53

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Vice President JD Vance delivered remarks in Kansas City, Missouri, on May 18, 2026, on the anti-fraud task force’s enforcement work. He opened with cases as he told them: a fraudster prosecuted in the Western District of Missouri who is “going to prison,” and a retired teacher in assisted living whose court-appointed power-of-attorney holder slowly stole the $750,000 she had saved over a lifetime of service, paying himself instead of her bills until she was evicted.

“When somebody steals $1.4 billion from the Medicare program, [it] is theft from you and theft from people who deserve to see a doctor,” he said. “When somebody steals from a program meant to benefit autistic school children, [it] is theft from you and from the children who depend on those services.” American generosity, he argued, “depends on leaders to protect your money… now we have leaders who promote you and fight for you and your tax dollars.” He also credited the administration’s law-enforcement posture with bringing the murder rate to, as he stated it, “the lowest level in 127 years” in 18 months, and closed on his own upbringing — raised by a grandfather who was a union steelworker for 40 years — and on jobs lost to China and Mexico under prior leadership.

Why it matters

Kansas City became a recurring fraud-task-force stage in 2026 (see the September 14, 2026 task force press conference there), and this May address is the Vice President’s moral framing of the effort in its early months: individual victims named, a Medicare theft figure stated, and prosecution — “send the fraudster to prison” — as the policy. It sits on the Fraud hub as the framing speech for the enforcement record that followed.

Scoreboard watch

The $1.4 billion Medicare figure and the 127-year murder-rate low are recorded as stated by the Vice President; the Western District of Missouri prosecution he cited is checkable against court records.

Sources: The White House, “Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks in Kansas City, Missouri,” Kansas City, MO, May 18, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by Vice President Vance at the event. The available broadcast transcript begins partway into the remarks.