For the fourth time in three weeks, Berks County was the focus of the presidential election on Saturday.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance flew into Reading Regional Airport in Bern Township to hold a town hall event for more than 2,000 people who gathered inside an airport hangar decorated with an American alag draped above a stage.
Vance previously visited Berks in September to rally supporters at the Berks County Fairgrounds in Bern Township, which was followed by a brief visit by Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and a rally last week at the Santander Arena led by former President Donald Trump.
Pennsylvania is a battleground state and is expected to play a pivotal role in determining who wins the presidential election on Nov. 5.
Vance, who was a venture capitalist before entering politics, has served as a U.S. senator representing Ohio since 2022. He catapulted onto the national political scene following the release of his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” about growing up in a troubled family in a small town.
“We have to get out there and make our voices heard, because if we do we’re going to win this state, my friends,” he said in brief introductory remarks.
He said that on the campaign trail he has met a lot of people in a lot of different places, and while he has found that the American dream means different things to them, the unifying thread is that everyone wants to be able to give their children and grandchildren a better life.
“Sometimes we get so frustrated with the broken leadership in Washington that we can’t let that frustration make us forget that we have the greatest country in the world and we are going to fix that broken leadership,” he said.
Following his initial remarks, Vance fielded about a half dozen questions from people in the crowd.
The session was moderated by former ESPN anchor Sage Steele. The wide-ranging discussion touched on issues such as bolstering American manufacturing, helping small businesses and solving the current housing crisis.
Here are some of the questions Vance was asked and how he answered them.
What would you do to make homes more affordable?
Vance said there are three ways to address the nation’s home affordability crisis.
He said that the first is to reduce the cost of constructing a home, and that can be done by increasing domestic production of oil — lowering the cost of transporting building materials.
He would also be in favor of ending what he described as ridiculous regulations that make it hard to build homes in the first place.
“Between permitting and environmental regulations that have nothing to do with clean air and clean water, but are just about giving a bureaucrat a job, we have made it way too hard to build in this country,” he said.
Vance said the final step is making sure American homes go to American citizens, claiming that because Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris “let in” millions of undocumented immigrants, which drove up the price of homes.
How will you make the manufacturing industry more competitive?
“I think the whole reason why President Donald Trump ran in 2016, and the thing I’m most worried about when I wake up, is protecting America’s manufacturing sector,” he said. “We have to wake up and we have to fight back.”
Vance said there are a few things that can be done to do that.
“One of the major costs of manufacturing is energy,” he said. “And the commonwealth of Pennsylvania is sitting on the Saudi Arabia of natural gas; we’ve just got to unleash it.”
Vance also said that it’s important to make sure that the U.S. combats the advantages other countries have.
“OK, America has a lot of advantages — we have the best workers, we have great energy, we have the best markets in the world,” he said. “But let’s be honest, the one thing that the Chinese have an advantage over the United States — and I don’t think it’s an advantage they should be proud of — is that they are willing to use slave laborers. And in America we want middle-class wages for middle-class work.”
Vance said the way to compete with that is to impose tariffs.
Trump has proposed a 60% or more tariff on goods from China — and a tariff of up to 20% on everything else the U.S. imports.
“Sometimes you don’t even have to do the tariff, you just have to threaten it,” he said. “And that’s what President Trump understood about this more than anybody. He is a business guy and you have to be willing to use your leverage in a negotiation.”
How are you going to support small businesses?
Vance said a Trump administration would do several things.
First of all, they would lower energy costs for small-business owners because that’s hurting small businesses the most.
Vance said Trump will reduce regulations to make starting, running and expanding a small business easier. The administration would focus on supporting businesses that directly support the local economy, he added.
“The final thing I would say is that Trump has proposed an incredible economic set of ideas that really rewards people who build and hire in the United States,” he said. “We are going to lower business taxes for only those companies who are hiring American workers.”
Democratic response
Ahead of the town hall event, the Harris campaign issued a statement that Vance will defend Trump and his extreme agenda every step of the way.
“Pennsylvanians are sick and tired of Trump and Vance’s extremism and divisiveness, which is why they are ready to back the only candidate in this race who is fighting to take our commonwealth forward: Vice President Kamala Harris,” the campaign’s Pennsylvania Rapid Response Director Onotse Omoyeni said in a statement.
