Vice President JD Vance will visit Michigan on Wednesday, March 18, in the wake of last week’s attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
The White House on the evening of March 16 sent out a notice that Vance will travel to Auburn Hills on Wednesday, March 18, and visit a manufacturing facility. While at the facility, Vance will deliver remarks. He will be joined by Second Lady Usha Vance and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin.
Zeldin was recently front and center at a White House announcement where the Trump administration terminated a finding that for nearly two decades has been used to justify the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, including those made by Michigan’s iconic automakers.
Watch Vance’s remarks in Michigan live
You can watch Vance’s remarks live below.
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Immigration crackdown
Vance touched on the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, during which two U.S. citizens have been killed in Minneapolis.
“We need to get the people that are making our cities less safe the hell out of our country and focus on Americans first,” Vance told the crowd.
Trump ‘impatient’
Vance blamed former President Joe Biden for high inflation while acknowledging, more than a year after Trump took office, that “a lot of our families are still struggling.”
He said Trump is impatient to accomplish more and regularly asks Vance and other officials: “What have we done today?”
Bringing jobs home
Vance said to applause that President Donald Trump “decided that we were sick of shipping American jobs overseas.”
He said that instead, “we are going to build right here in Michigan, right here at home.”
So far, manufacturing jobs in Michigan have been mostly flat since Trump took office for the second time in January 2025, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics up to December 2025.
At U-M, the March 11 Michigan Economic Outlook from U-M’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics is projecting Michigan’s manufacturing sector to “lose 2,100 jobs this year before adding 4,900 next year, as lower interest rates and the effective elimination of vehicle mileage standards both spur growth.”
Vance takes the stage
Vice President JD Vance has taken the stage in Auburn Hills, introduced by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Vance started by praising Zeldin’s work.
“We all want to have a safe environment for our kids, but we can do that while still having a strong economy,” Vance said. Zeldin is helping to do that by getting rid of “all these crazy regulations,” he said.
Vance arrives in Michigan
Air Force 2 landed at Oakland County International Airport in Waterford Township at 10:56 a.m.
Vance’s motorcade left the airport at 11:07 a.m.
Vance leaves Washington
As Vance left Washington on Wednesday morning, he told reporters he was “very excited” to make the trip. “I think the president’s policy agenda has been great for Michigan auto workers, and that is what we are going to go talk about,” he said.
No information about whether there would be any public access, though tours such as these are typically restricted to invited guests and the media.
Vance visit comes amid war in Middle East, West Bloomfield synagogue attack
Vance comes at a time when President Donald Trump and his administration are weeks into waging a war in the Middle East alongside Israel against Iran which has sent oil prices higher and the stock market lower in recent weeks. It also comes less than a week after a Dearborn Heights man rammed a truck carrying fireworks and gasoline into the West Bloomfield synagogue on Thursday, March 12, later shooting himself. Some 140 workers and children were at the facility at the time of the attack. No one else was killed, however.
When was Vance last in Michigan?
Vance, originally from neighboring Ohio, last appeared in Michigan on Sept. 17, 2025, when he made headlines by raising the possibility National Guard troops could still be deployed to fight crime in Michigan, something that has not come to pass. He also actively campaigned in the state in the lead-up to the 2024 election, visiting a dozen times.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
This story has been updated with new information.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Vice President JD Vance to visit Oakland County
Reporting by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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