Vance makes embarrassing gaffe about Trump’s push to get criminals off the street

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Vice President JD Vance has made another unfortunate gaffe, this time in an interview about President Donald Trump’s safer streets policies.

His slip of the tongue, the latest in a series of recent blunders, came during an interview with Newsmax host Greg Kelly Monday.

When talking about how the Trump administration differs from previous White Houses the VP said: “I go back to, fundamentally, I think Barack Obama, unique among presidential candidates in my lifetime until Donald Trump came along, had a mandate to do something big.

“And what he did, fundamentally, is that he doubled down on the failed policies of the past.”

“This is a guy who took 40 years of offshoring American jobs, replacing Americans with foreign labor, of fundamentally making America streets less safer, and decided with a historic mandate, “Let’s do more of that rather than let’s go in the other direction.”

“And until Donald J. Trump came along, I’ve never seen a president with that kind of a mandate,” Vance continued, before making a notable error.

“Luckily, President Trump has used that mandate to make American streets less safe.”

Vance appeared to stumble as he recognised his mistake, before quickly adding: “Or has used that mandate to make American streets more safe.”

Crime, particularly the national homicide rate, has fallen since its all-time recorded high in 2020. According to the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), the homicide rate in 2026 is expected to end at a historic low. Drug offences, however, have risen by 12 percent between the first half of 2025 and 2026.

This is the second gaffe the VP has made in the same week after he accidentally called the far left the “Fart Left” on Monday.

While speaking to the crowd at a rally for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Vance said: “And because we need somebody who will actually fight back against the ‘fart left,’ we need Michael Whatley in the United States Senate.”

Vance, who is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, added: “Now, you may not have even heard that, but I actually - I usually don’t misspeak - but I just called them the ‘fart left,’ not the ‘far left.

“So to the fake news, who will accuse me of bad language, I promise I did not mean to call them the ‘fart left.’ I meant to call them the ‘far left.’”