Dallas, night two

Republicans closed out their midterm convention at the American Airlines Center on Thursday. Vice President JD Vance was one of the final speakers on the bill.

A flag in the stands

Mid-speech, Vance turned to his right and looked up into the crowd. A protester was waving a Mexican flag, he said, though the person never appeared on camera.

The line of the night

Vance offered to pay for the trip, and the room ate it up. The clip became the takeaway from the whole evening.

“If you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I'll buy you the plane ticket.”

One heckler, whole party

Chuckling, Vance framed the protester as proof of what the radical left has become, faulting the choice of flag rather than the interruption itself.

“An idiot waving a Mexican flag at a protest when he should be waving the flag of the United States of America”

The live-here argument

Vance pushed further, claiming the protester would rather be in Dallas or Cincinnati than anywhere in Mexico. Waving a foreign flag, in his telling, is a pose.

“as much as that person might wave around a foreign flag, he'd much rather live in Dallas or Cincinnati”

A jab at NY-14

Returning to his script, Vance came back for another swing, joking the protester was the new congressional delegate for New York's 14th and was out campaigning. Security walked the person out.

“Primary after primary we have watched the few reasonable Democrats lost to extremists who openly hate our nation”