A Message From President JD Vance

April 26, 2026

My fellow Americans,

It’s four weeks since the passing of President Donald Trump, our dear leader. He sacrificed so much for us, working day and night, every day of the week, to make America great again...and then again. If he had one fault—and I’m not saying he did—it was that he cared too much for us and not enough for himself. The jackals in the media who remain at large keep demanding an explanation for his death. But we will not insult his memory by releasing irrelevant and private records. I can tell you this: He died for us. Who will ever forget that day we said goodbye to our president? The full military parade. Tanks on Pennsylvania as far as the eye could see. The F-35 fighter jets in the sky. More than 100,000 troops in the nation’s capital. A new generation of generals snapping their salutes to their fallen commander-in-chief. The biggest crowd ever on the National Mall. And the journey from the White House to Trump Arlington Cemetery.

But now it is time to end our federally imposed Month of National Mourning and return to the job he started and that we inherit: restoring our national greatness. After we saved the nation from the 2024 election, under the guidance of his majestic hands, we once again became a great nation. But as he told us in his State of the Presidency speech, “Our greatness can be greater. We will achieve what I call greater-ness.” Indeed, we will. As his humble servant—as we have all been his humble servants—it is up to us to carry forth the glorious programs he bequeathed us.

We will continue to expand the construction of Departure Camps, as our Criminal Migrant Collection/Expulsion Program expands. The military will continue its Subversion Suppression exercises, as well as maintain the Intrusion Zero Program at the border, where we routed enemy troops to create the Zone of Safety. The roll-out of the across-the-board Trump Tariffs will proceed, and we will continue to root out the bureaucrats in government agencies who are disseminating fake numbers on inflation, unemployment, and wages, seeking to dispirit the nation. We will maintain the Keep America Growing program that removes anti-business ideologues who promote fake science from government positions in which they use their power to stymie energy production and other business development. The White House Make America Healthy Again working group will continue developing a health care plan to replace the failed programs of the past, and it’s expected to release its findings sometime in the future.

I am pleased to report that on June 14, the birthday of President Trump, the MAGA Loyalty Oath—which was declared constitutional by seven Supreme Court justices—will go into effect for all federal workers and members of the military. We encourage states to follow suit. That day will also become a national holiday. And I will fly to Moscow next month, as President Trump planned to do himself, to meet with President Putin and attend the ceremony marking the end of the fighting in Ukraine and the peaceful addition of the new territories to Russia. I will not attend the upcoming NATO summit, but we will maintain our observer status. I have instructed the Justice Department to continue its Enemies Within investigation and prosecutions.

But as we proceed and carry the torch that will forever bear his flame, I will be adding to President Trump’s historic and magnificent agenda. This week, we will be unveiling a national program to encourage women under the age of 40 to give birth. This will include tax incentives for businesses that encourage female employees to leave the workforce to have children. We will also send to Congress our Make American Families Great Again Act, which will end quick-and-easy divorces for couples with children or that include wives of child-bearing age. Divorce is a serious matter. And family, along with a belief in an almighty God, is the foundation of society. Families or potential families should not be allowed to be disbanded by just one of the parties involved.

We will launch our Bibles for All program. For any school district that receives federal education assistance, Bible instruction will become mandatory—now that seven justices of the Supreme Court have ruled this program fully constitutional. In addition, a new White House Task Force on American Values will oversee the formation of action plans at every federal agency and department to combat the twin nightmares of DEI and secularism. All federal contractors will have to certify they are free of any race- or gender-conscious policies. The US Mint will be producing a special “Merry Christmas” $10 coin that will feature images of Donald Trump and a manger. I expect to have an announcement about Mount Rushmore in the coming weeks.

There’s more. Today I am announcing the formation of a Post-Democracy Commission, which will study whether there are more effective ways of governing than our current system. The world is changing fast. We need to ensure that our government keeps up with the creative disruption that has become an essential tool for the heroic and visionary business leaders who work to keep our economy strong and prosperous. This commission will be chaired by Elon Musk, who has just finished his task of eliminating unnecessary, business-strangling regulations in 23 different federal agencies and departments; Peter Thiel, an accomplished entrepreneur and impressive political philosopher; and Tulsi Gabbard. In this age of technological advancement, do we really need the bloated and inefficient government interfering with our health care and retirement?

And I will be sending to Congress a proposed constitutional amendment to make voting family-friendly. Under this amendment, all people, regardless of age, will be granted the right to vote. But for anyone under the age of 18, their parents will be given a proxy to cast their vote. Not since the Civil War has there been such an expansion of voting rights. We will expand our Family Protection Program to include the criminalization of puberty-blockers and gender-changing surgeries for children that allow misguided and malevolent doctors to play God. This expansion will also include the monitoring of abortions at the state level to ensure that pro-family state laws are honored and the evil of “infanticide tourism” is ended. We will continue to explore ending Medicaid and Medicare payments to states where abortion remains legal. I look forward to the pending Supreme Court decision on this.

I am also today announcing the formation of Project 2028. This will be a gathering of respected policy experts who will draft a comprehensive plan for government action across a wide array of issues—including energy development, social policy, education, and criminal enforcement—that can be implemented by 2028.

The first year of the Trump Restoration was marked by peace and prosperity. We have returned to a nation of values and strength. Hard-working Americans, forgotten and dismissed by elites serving the destructive forces of wokeness, are now no longer forgotten or dismissed. We will not heed the naysayers who spread disinformation about our economic progress to sow discord and chaos. Troublemakers who threaten societal order are being taken care of. Criminals who poison the lifeblood of the nation are being removed. Enemies of the family are being neutralized. We are winning. As President Trump liked to say, “So much winning, so much winning.” He showed us the way. Now it’s our turn.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

After Bob Woodward reported in his new book that Donald Trump has had up to seven phone conversations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since he left the White House, Trump refused to confirm or deny this. He said he doesn’t talk about his chats with foreign heads of state—a lie, given that he has mentioned his calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And Trump added, “If I did, it’s a smart thing.”

Really? According to US intelligence officials, Putin is once again mounting clandestine operations targeting a US election to help Trump win. He is also trying to conquer a US ally. So what might Trump be discussing with this foreign adversary and war criminal? Is he telling Putin to cease his meddling in US politics or thanking him? Is he demanding Putin withdraw from Ukraine or is he encouraging Putin to hold tight until Trump possibly wins the White House and can lean on Ukraine to cut a deal that favors Moscow? These are vital question, and voters deserve answers. Trump’s refusal to address this should spark a campaign controversy, even within the clutter of all his outrageous remarks and actions. Yet as with so many important matters, this issue seems to have come and gone, with no sustained media attention. I wrote an in-depth piece on all this and why the continuing bond between Trump and Putin remains a damn important subject. You can read it here.

As promised, there will be a Zoom get-together of Our Land readers on Sunday, November 3, at 7 p.m. ET. This will obviously be our last such shindig before Election Day. And it’s actually not a gala. It will probably be more of a therapy session. You can wear whatever you want. As you probably know by now, these Zoom sessions are only open to folks who subscribe to the premium edition of Our Land. (You can do that here.) On the day of the event, premium subscribers will receive a Zoom invitation. Click on that at the appointed hour, and our well-trained Our Land bouncers will let you in. Until then, remember to breathe. And once more, a mighty thank you to our premium subscribers. Without your financial support, this newsletter would cease to be. I encourage all our readers to join this noble crew so Our Land can continue to go strong after Election Day, no matter what happens.

As we move through the final days of this intense election that could determine whether the United States, an imperfect democracy, slips toward authoritarianism and fascism, we all need to find moments of relief and delight. So...

This week, this entire feature could have been devoted to how Trump devotees reacted to John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, telling us that Trump is indeed a “fascist” and recalling that Trump said Hitler did some “good things,” as well as to how they responded to the Atlantic’s report that Trump, when he was president, told aides, “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.” The judges had the stomach to only consider a few.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who once presented himself as an independent-minded, non-MAGA Republican, was asked on CNN whether Trump praising Hitler caused him to reconsider his support for Trump. He replied:

I respect General Kelly…When you get into the final weeks, it’s all about results…Independents want results. They don’t want that kind of ultraliberal extremism...They want to get their cost of living down…They just need a cultural change coming out of Washington. Look, we've heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump from Donald Trump. It’s kind of par for the course…With a guy like that, it's kind of baked into the vote.

Talk about sidestepping. Trump praises Hitler, and Sununu says the real issue is to obtain “cultural change” in Washington. Is that achieved by returning to power a former president who is dubbed a “fascist” by his former top aide? There is no part of the GOP that has not been thoroughly corrupted by Trump and the hunger for power.

Over at Fox, Brian Kilmeade did his best to help Dear Leader. He explained that Trump had been frustrated that the top military brass—namely, retired Gen. James Mattis, the defense secretary, and Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—tried to rein him in. That’s apparently why he yearned for Hitler’s generals. Kilmeade said:

I can absolutely see him go, you know, it'd be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals, who were Nazis or whatever. But he was frustrated.

That is, Trump had forgotten Hitler’s generals were Nazis. Otherwise, he was right on.

Howard Kurtz at Fox also attempted to do cleanup on Aisle Trump. After noting his respect for Kelly, he said, “However, at the same time, Trump may have just been letting off steam about the loyalty he wanted from his generals compared to what he thought about Hitler’s generals.”

Trump was merely venting. But here’s the question: Why was Trump’s point of comparison not FDR’s generals or Winston Churchill’s generals? Why did he turn to the generals who served a dictator as his ideal? Back to you, Howie.

Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro shared a rather dumb thought when hyping Trump’s phony appearance at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania: “Why are Leftists losing their minds over Trump's McDonald's campaign appearance? Because it demonstrates that he likes and cares about regular Americans. That's genuine. As opposed to Kamala, who must receive a briefing session to pretend to care.”

Trump, who has opposed raising the minimum wage and whose administration dramatically cut back a proposed expansion of the pool of workers eligible to receive overtime, is no champion of American workers. It’s tough to believe that someone who claims to be intelligent would cite a photo-op stunt orchestrated to ostensibly show that Trump cares about regular folks as actual proof that Trump cares about regular folk. Is Shapiro a dupe or a gaslighter?

In this week’s hard-fought contest, Richard Grenell, who was a diplomatic envoy and acting director of the office of national intelligence in the Trump administration, is the winner. Bemoaning the national discourse, he exclaimed, “Why can’t we have a calm respectful DEBATE with dissenting views in the media?”

Was Grenell, a highly combative Trump partisan who was an active promoter of Trump’s 2020 election BS and who is angling to be secretary of state if Trump wins, serious? He’s been a pit-bull surrogate for a man who calls his political rivals “the enemy within,” “evil,” and “scum” who are trying to destroy America and who has vowed to use the military against his critics and opponents. Trump has demeaned Kamala Harris as “low IQ” and baselessly suggested she slept her way to prominent positions in California. And Grenell, who has cheered on Trump through Trump’s campaign of sleaze, insults, and disinformation, now wonders why there cannot be a “respectful” debate in the media? For this display of hypocritical idiocy, he bags the prize.

What an outpouring of mail there was regarding the recent issue on polling, in which I pleaded with people to stop asking me about each new poll in the presidential race. (The title: “I’m Fed Up With the Obsession Over Polls.”)

Mechelle Schneider wrote in:

This was the best piece I’ve read in a while! I used to obsess over the polls every election cycle, but after Hillary Clinton’s loss, I have begun to ignore much of the polling. I am convinced that polling this election is doing Americans a real disservice. Yesterday Kamala Harris was in Michigan. Her rallies were packed. She had five governors with her. I can feel the support for her in the air and at ground level. Trump comes to Michigan and goes to safe events in small red pockets. Then he still screws up with his negative comments. The big Harris rally yesterday was in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids is a predominantly Republican area.

Driving in rural areas, there are lots of Trump signs. Any house with a Trump sign usually has at least six signs. Harris signs were hard to obtain for a while and are frequently stolen. I hesitated to put mine out until a week ago because in 2020 I had seven Biden signs stolen. This week at the grocery store, I approached a man in the parking lot who was loading his groceries into his trunk. I asked if I could have the cart when he was finished. In his trunk, he had several Vets for Harris signs. I told him I liked his signs. He explained that he had to pick these signs up from his son’s house because the son’s Trump-supporting neighbors were complaining so much. Part of my “do something” effort was to approach my neighbor to ask if she had a plan to vote. I was hesitant because I have not gotten to know her very well. But she told me she was registered; her son was registered, and she liked my signs! Definitely ground support for Harris that is not reaching the polls. Thank you for talking us all off the ledge!

Glad you appreciated the article, but just as we shouldn’t get too focused on polls, we also shouldn’t be too taken with the vibes we pick up about this election. It’s hard to assess ground support from the ground. Anecdotal evidence is often unreliable. When Mitt Romney and his aides saw large, energetic crowds at the end of the 2012 campaign, they were convinced they couldn’t lose. Trump and his crew said the same thing in 2020. Trump flotillas!

Sarah Morenon emailed:

The dumbest question on any poll is, “Is the country going in the right or wrong direction?” How stupid is that? If I answer it as “wrong direction,” it’s because I detest the surging nastiness, white supremacy, fascism. Another person could give the same answer, but because they hate the Affordable Care Act, a woman of color running for president, LGBTQ+ people, whatever. Can’t stand that question.

Good point. There was polling this year in which a significant majority said that protecting democracy was a key issue for them. But what did that mean? Were these Trump voters who believed the Big Lie and errantly thought democracy had not worked in 2020? Or were these voters who feared Trump’s authoritarian impulses and his assaults on democratic norms? It could be both.

My old pal William Klein, a writer and political consultant, sent me a piece he wrote about a basic problem with polling: It often compels respondents to offer opinions on subjects they don’t have clear opinions on because they don’t care that much about them. He added, “Here’s that nugget I like to quote from the National Journal”:

The entire concept of polling depends on having a set population from which one can take a random sample and get a generally representative snapshot. Pre-election polls have no existing population—the election hasn’t happened yet, and voting isn’t compulsory in the U.S., so we simply don’t have a population of who voted until all the polls have closed on Election Day.

We can’t remedy that. The population of voters will never exist prior to the election. Expecting polls to be able to consistently, accurately predict an election is asking more than is statistically and theoretically possible.

Charly Hulten shared this recollection:

I really enjoyed your piece on polling. I put myself through graduate school working for a political survey research organization at Stanford. So I know what you’re talking about. I wanted to share an anecdote from January 1965, when my professor in journalism took a handful of us up to the state capital to a luncheon meeting with Lyn Nofziger, newly elected Gov. Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, formerly his campaign manager. Nofziger’s take on the polls came when I had just taken a bite of my salad. I remember it word for word, because I almost choked on a piece of lettuce. Here it is: “The polls are the essence of democracy. They tell the candidate what the people want to hear.” Key word being “hear.” All this was ages ago. But the situation has hardly gotten better.

Ernie Drown had a question:

Would you talk about the scenario in which Trump wins, is declared incompetent by his handlers under the 25th Amendment, and we end up with President Vance? Is this a bridge too far? Seems like an ideal plan, from their point of view.

Very imaginative. However, these schemers may not have to declare the 25th. How long will Donald Trump last? (See above!) But I don't think that's an actual plan. If Vance and his crew try to do this, there would be a bloody civil war within MAGA and the GOP, especially if Trump is well enough to contest it. 

Aaron Jones found an error in the issue that looked at the reelection effort of Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who was a key player in Trump’s failed conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election:

Great piece on Scott Perry. Just a note that the first paragraph refers to him as heading the House Freedom caucus, but he does not. He stepped down as chair at the beginning of 2024 and was replaced by Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who then resigned the chairmanship after losing his primary. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) is now the chair. Excellent item on an interesting race that I have certainly been watching!

Damn. Sorry I got that wrong. Apologies to Messrs. Perry, Good, and Harris.

“C’mon, Moxie, let’s play with ball. Don’t just sit there.”
“I’m worried about the new Michigan poll. Did you see the cross-tabs?”
“Not much we can do about that. And whatever happens, you’ll be fine.”
“But there were no dogs in the White House for four years. We can’t go back.”