CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Vice President JD Vance is hitting his home state on Monday to continue promoting the GOP’s sweeping tax-and-border bill.
A crowd in neon green, orange, yellow and red hardhats and safety glasses gathered at the steel company Metallus Inc. in Canton, about 60 miles (96.56 kilometers) from Cleveland, to await his visit.
The visit marks Vance’s second trip this month to sell the package, filled with a hodgepodge of conservative priorities that Republicans have dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” as the vice president becomes its chief promoter on the road.
In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, Vance told attendees at an industrial machine shop that they should be able to keep more of their pay in their pockets, highlighting the law’s new tax deductions on overtime.
Vance also discussed a new children’s savings program called Trump Accounts and how the new law promotes energy extraction, while decrying Democrats for opposing the bill that keeps the current tax rates, which would have otherwise expired later this year.
The legislation cleared the GOP-controlled Congress by the narrowest of margins, with Vance breaking a tie vote in the Senate for the package that also sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars for Trump’s immigration agenda while slashing Medicaid and food stamps.
The vice president is also stepping up his public relations blitz on the bill as the White House tries to deflect attention away from the growing controversy over Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced financier killed himself, authorities say, in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and his top allies stoked conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death before Trump returned to the White House and are now reckoning with the consequences of a Justice Department announcement earlier this month that Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that no further documents about the case would be released.
A small group of protesters assembled outside the Metallus plant brandishing signs that spelled out “JD Protects Pedophiles” and indicating that “GOP” stands for “Guardians Of Pedophiles.” Signs also called the Big Beautiful Bill “ugly” and “bulls(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)t.”
Questions about the case continued to dog Trump in Scotland, where he on Sunday announced a framework trade deal with the European Union.
Asked about the timing of the trade announcement and the Epstein case and whether it was correlated, Trump responded: “You got to be kidding with that.”
“No, had nothing to do with it,” Trump told the reporter. “Only you would think that.”
The White House sees the new law as a clear political boon, sending Vance to promote it in swing congressional districts that will determine whether Republicans retain their House majority next year.
The northeastern Pennsylvania stop is in the district represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a first-term lawmaker who knocked off a six-time Democratic incumbent last fall.
On Monday, Vance will be in the district of Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, who is a top target for the National Republican Congressional Committee this cycle.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called it “another desperate attempt to lie to Ohioans about the devastating impact the Big, Ugly Law will have on working families.” in a statement.
In the statement, Katie Smith said Sykes “fought tooth and nail against this disastrous law.”
Polls before the bill’s passage showed that it largely remained unpopular, although the public approves of some individual provisions such as increasing the child tax credit and allowing workers to deduct more of their tips on taxes.
