Maria Bartiromo’s interview Sunday on Fox News with Vice President JD Vance covered many topics, including those with a connection to Ohio.
Early on, the interview discussed the hot topic of redistricting. Ohio is among those states going about the process, with new maps due at the end of last month.
Bartiromo asked Vance about the process as well as Democrats’ responses, and the vice president did not hold back.
Speaking to how illegal immigrants are included in the census, Vance called out how a state like California “has way more House seats than it should, because they have such a high population of illegal aliens. So they get rewarded for welcoming illegal aliens into their state, giving them federal benefits, actually asking the taxpayers of states like Ohio to give subsidize them, and then those same taxpayers in Ohio and Indiana and elsewhere, they have fewer congressional representatives, because of what California has allowed to happen.”
The vice president emphasized that “that is ridiculously unfair,” adding that “the only real way to fight back against it in some ways as aggressively as these hard blue states have done.”
Vance previously targeted California, resulting in Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., calling out the vice president by sharing a map claiming Ohio is among the “Most Gerrymandered States 2025.”
The outdated map leaves out Illinois, where Texas Democrats have fled to avoid participating in a special session to redraw maps. Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, further called out the members on “Fox News Sunday,” describing their actions as “the most un-Texan thing.”
Vance’s comments about a new census also involved further implications for Ohio.
“Even Democrats actually admit this, that the census in 2020 had a major statistical error, and what that meant is that you actually undercounted a few states that are Republican like Florida and Ohio, you overcounted some blue states,” he explained. “So, what I understand if you actually did the census anew, right now, you would have 10 additional Republican seats and nine fewer Democratic seats.”
He explained, “We’re living with the consequences of 40 years of institutional control of the Democratic Party,” adding how “these guys have fought very dirty for a very long time” and have “tried to rig the game for Democrats and against Republicans.”
Newsom made clear Democrats will continue to fight.
Vance offered hope that “thankfully under President Trump’s leadership you finally see some spine, you finally see some backbone in the Republican Party to fight back against these very aggressive Democratic tricks.”
The vice president once more laid out what “fight[ing] back” entails.
“But the only way for us to do it is to actually go and do the hard work, to reset the scales a little bit,” Vance said. “What we want to do is redo the census, but importantly we want to redistrict some of these red states, and we want to make the congressional apportionment fair in this country again.”
This requires that Republicans be willing to act. “You cannot do it unless Republicans actually take some very decisive action in the months to come.” He is hopeful, pointing out that “we think they will and we’re obviously supporting them every step of the way.”
When asked by Bartiromo if he’s concerned Democrats will redistrict even more in response, Vance pointed out that “the Democrats have already gone as far as they possibly can” and “you cannot gerrymander these far-left states anymore.”
Vance described how and why the Republicans must not continue to lay down to Democrats.
“We have said to the Democrats, ‘If you want to rig the game in your favor, in blue states, go ahead, we’re going to do nothing to fight back against it,’ that’s crazy!” Vance offered. “It makes it harder for us to pass our agenda, it makes it harder for us to win elections, and most importantly it gives Democrats this ability to run roughshod over the country without any pushback from the American people! The democratic system in this country is broken because who you vote for doesn’t necessarily get reflected in who your representatives are. We’re just trying to rebalance the scales and frankly push back against a very unfair system created by the Democrats.”