Vice President J.D. Vance strongly criticized the pre-Trump political establishment during a policy discussion in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night, stating that the United States was “governed by complete morons” prior to President Donald Trump taking office.
His remarks were delivered during the fifth anniversary gala for American Compass, a conservative economic think tank.
Speaking with American Compass founder Oren Cass at the National Building Museum, Vance explained how the previous administration failed to even ask basic questions about the country’s supply chain vulnerabilities before Trump took office.
“If I on Jan. 21 — in fact I did ask this question — ‘where are the biggest deficiencies in our supply chains? What are the 100 products that we’re completely reliant on some other entity to make for us?’” Vance said.
“We don’t know,” he added, referencing the response he received at the time.
He went on to say, “What was so crazy about the hyper-globalized era is that you had these basic questions about the brittleness of our supply chains that were completely uninvestigated by the very people who supported globalizing those supply chains. We were actually governed by complete morons, and we didn’t even realize it until the Trump administration started to get underneath the hood.”
American Compass, founded in 2020, hosted the event with approximately 12 staff members and has grown into a key player in reshaping conservative economic thinking.
The event featured remarks from both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who are among the organization’s most prominent supporters.
Rubio reflected on the shift in national security and economic priorities since the end of the Cold War.
He spoke about growing up during the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and how expectations quickly shifted in the early 1990s.
“Literally the entire world was transformed before my very eyes,” Rubio said.
“We believed the Cold War was over, we won, and now the entire world was going to be just like us.”
Both Vance and Rubio argued that those assumptions turned out to be flawed, and said the country must now refocus on rebuilding its domestic industrial base, not only to strengthen national security, but to create better opportunities for American workers.
Rubio emphasized the need to reorient U.S. foreign and economic policy toward national interest, rather than global integration.
“The number one foreign policy of the United States needs to be the United States and what’s in the best interests of the United States,” he said.
“This is going to be the work of a generation.”
Vance agreed, noting that “normal people who work hard and play by the rules” deserve an economy that rewards them, not one skewed in favor of elites and foreign interests.
“I just want normal people who work hard and play by the rules to have a good life,” Vance said.
He credited President Trump with being the first post-Cold War leader to recognize that the promises of globalization had failed many Americans.
“That’s fundamentally why Donald Trump is the President of the United States. He was the first mainstream American politician to come along and say, ‘This isn’t working,’” Vance said.
“These trade deals are not working for the normal people who power our economy … I think the best way to summarize it is we just want normal people to have a good life.”
Vance also argued that production should return to the U.S. not only to regain manufacturing jobs, but to revive innovation.
“The places that make products tend to become good at designing them,” he said.
He acknowledged that reversing the effects of decades of offshoring and misguided trade policies will not happen overnight, calling it a “20-year project” to return the U.S. to commonsense economic policy.
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