Vice President JD Vance paid a visit to Kansas City, but some locals were decidedly unimpressed by his preparation for the event.
The 41-year-old vice president stopped by Milbank Manufacturing Company on Monday, ostensibly to talk about the manufacturing sector that President Donald Trump has long promised to rebuild, but Kansas City Star opinion columnist Mará Rose Williams was shocked by how little Vance knew about the topic or the area he was visiting.
“I don’t think he cares one iota about Kansas City, or Missourians for that matter, except that Republicans want Missourians to send one of their guys from the state’s 5th District to Washington D.C.,” Williams wrote. “But even at that, I would have thought Vance might have taken the time to learn a few things about the state’s redistricting map, who holds the congressional seat now, and who’s vying for it. He did not, or at least it seemed he didn’t.”
Vance claimed Gov. Mike Kehoe had “moved quickly” to produce a redistricting map favorable to Republicans after the Supreme Court’s ruling against a similar map in Louisiana, but Williams noted the Missouri map was drawn up a year ago, and the vice president pretended not to know the name of Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who has represented Kansas City in Congress over 20 years.
“Really? Missourians have voted Cleaver into Congress 11 consecutive times,” Williams said. “You mean to tell us that you came into our state, our city, and didn’t care enough to find out who represents us in Congress? That would be lazy and dismissive.”
“Of course, Vance did say he is rooting for ‘any good’ Republican running for the seat,” Williams added, “but then had no idea which candidates are in the race.”
Vance toured Milbank, which makes weather-resistant enclosures for electrical distribution equipment, but his team never reached out to Michael Eaton, the executive director of the Missouri Association of Manufacturers, who said he hadn’t even been aware the vice president was coming to town.
“If I had JD Vance standing right in front of me, I would tell him we are the voice of manufacturing in Missouri,” Eaton told the columnist, adding that many of the workers in plants he represents are staunch Republicans. “Where is their voice? You forgot to invite manufacturing to the table. We are never invited to the table. We are not even on your radar.”
Vance only briefly touched on the manufacturing industry’s workers “for a hot second of his 30-minute speech,” Williams wrote, saying only the Trump administration was working to bring those jobs back, but the columnist said his speech was woefully light on specifics.
“I don’t blame Eaton for being frustrated and confused. But I am not,” Williams wrote. “I feel certain the reason no one reached out to make sure Eaton was in Kansas City to talk with the vice president about the needs of manufacturing workers is because, let’s not get it twisted, Vance didn’t come to talk about manufacturing.”
“That plant just happened to be the backdrop for a campaign speech,” she added. “It was never intended to be a ‘we really care what the workers need’ speech.”
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