J.D. Vance Claims 'Dead People Vote for Democrats' in Mind-Blowing Speech 

As his popularity and favorability with constituents and President Donald Trump wane, Vice President J.D. Vance baselessly claimed that dead people "vote for Democrats" during an anti-fraud campaign speech at Bangor International Airport in Maine on Thursday, May 14.

Vance, whom the president appointed to head up his “Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” was promoting the Trump administration’s task force efforts targeting alleged welfare fraud, such as dead individuals reportedly receiving food stamps.

Vance told the crowd, "Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think that dead people eat, so certainly they don't need food stamps."

“It is unbelievable, unbelievable, how much you have been fleeced by your own government over the past 15, 20, 30 years,” Vance said. “Nobody, nobody, was looking at this. Nobody was asking difficult questions like, for example, are dead people getting food stamps? Okay? Call me old-fashioned. I don’t think the dead people eat, so certainly they don’t need food stamps.”

A rally attendee shouted out, "They vote!"

The aspiring 2028 Republican presidential frontrunner responded to the shout, laughing and saying, "Unfortunately, they vote for Democrats. They don't vote for us, my friends."

The comment immediately drew heavy criticism and went viral online.

Critics and political opponents accused the Vice President of weaponizing a joke to breathe new life into debunked conspiracy theories surrounding widespread voter fraud.

"Again, for the paid attendees with J.D. Vance, if Democrats could rig the elections and get dead people's votes, Trump and J.D. wouldn't be in office right now. The education system has failed America if anyone is stupid enough to believe this c---," noted one commenter.

Non-partisan fact-checking organizations, such as PolitiFact, have repeatedly rated claims that dead people widely vote for Democrats as false, noting that documented edge cases of dead voter fraud are exceptionally rare and have historically involved voters spanning multiple political parties.

Vance also baselessly accused "illegal aliens" of stealing millions of dollars in federal funding from state taxpayers.

“I realized that fraud isn’t just about saving money,” Vance said in his speech. “It’s not just about protecting the taxpayers. It’s about protecting you, the money you send to the government, and the services that you rely on. So, for once, for the first time in a very long time, you’ve got an administration in Washington, D.C., that is fighting for you, fighting to protect your tax dollars and fighting to put the fraudsters in prison, which is where they belong.”

Left-leaning organizations, such as the Maine Center for Economic Policy, countered that these characterizations are false fearmongering, noting that undocumented immigrants are legally ineligible for the vast majority of federal welfare programs.

Vance ignored the facts, doubling down on his fabrications, saying, “They’re stealing somebody else’s identity, claiming hospice services, and then when that hard-working American goes to apply for some other benefit, they get tagged by the bank as being a fraudster, even though it wasn’t them... And ladies and gentlemen, that changed the moment Donald J. Trump became the President of the United States.”

The veep also did not mention that the president was found legally liable for fraud in civil court and convicted of a felony for falsification of business records in criminal court.

In September 2023, a New York judge ruled that Trump committed persistent and repeated business fraud by inflating his net worth on annual financial statements to secure favorable loan terms.

Additionally, in May 2024, a New York criminal jury convicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment scheme during the 2016 election.