WEST PITTSTON, Pa. — Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday made the Trump administration’s first big pitch to sell the public on President Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania.
The vice president, whose tiebreaking vote got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation’s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation.
Democrats, who’ve decried the wide-ranging law’s cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, along with other provisions, will try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year that will determine control of Congress.
The GOP plans to use it to make their case as well, something the Republican vice president asked the crowd in working-class West Pittston to help with.
“Go and talk to your neighbors, go and talk to your friends, about what this bill does for America’s citizens. Because we don’t want to wake up in a year and a half and give the Democrats power back,” he said.
As Mr. Vance spoke at an industrial machine shop, the vice president was quick to highlight the bill’s new tax deductions on overtime.
“You earned that money,” Mr. Vance said. “You ought to keep it in your pocket.”
He also promoted the legislation’s creation of a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury Department. Recognizing the significance of the coal and gas industry in Pennsylvania, he also talked up the ways the law seeks to promote energy extraction, such as allowing increased leasing for drilling, mining and logging on public lands, speeding up government approvals and cutting royalty rates paid by extraction companies.
“We are finally going to drill, baby drill and invest in American energy,” Mr. Vance said. “And I know you all love that.”
The historic legislation, which Mr. Trump signed into law earlier this month with near-unanimous Republican support, includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips but also cuts Medicaid and food stamps by $1.2 trillion.
Democrats recently held a town hall in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana to denounce the legislation as a “reverse Robin Hood — stealing from the poor to give to the rich.”
Vance’s office declined to elaborate on plans for other public events around the U.S. to promote the bill. After his remarks, he visited a nearby diner where he picked up food and spoke to some of the patrons.
It’s unclear how much Trump plans to promote it himself. He told NBC News last week that he would travel “a little bit” to help champion the measure he dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“But honestly,” he said, “It’s been received so well I don’t think I have to.”
But later Wednesday, during a signing ceremony at the White House for a separate fentanyl-related bill, Mr. Trump said Republicans will need to promote the law and acknowledged that Democrats may have found an effective message.
“We’re going to have to start speaking about it because the Democrats use it, they say, ‘It represents death.’ How effective is that, right? That’s pretty good,” Mr. Trump said.
The battle for control of the messaging on the bill could be critical to how well the measure is ultimately received, as some of the most divisive parts of the law, including Medicaid and food assistance cuts, are timed to take effect only after the midterm elections. The bill was generally unpopular before its passage, polls showed, although some individual provisions are popular, like boosting the annual child tax credit and eliminating taxes on tips.
