Vice President JD Vance returned to his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, on Friday and used the backdrop of a steel mill where his grandfather once worked to highlight new investment in American manufacturing.
Vance shared his remarks in a post on X, saying he was proud to return to the same steel mill where his “Papaw” worked for decades to support his family.
“Returning today as the Vice President of the United States, standing in the exact steel mill where my Papaw worked for decades to put food on the table, I couldn’t help but feel immense pride,” Vance wrote.
He said the investment coming to Middletown reflected the Trump administration’s economic agenda and its focus on domestic manufacturing.
“Thanks to President Trump’s economic agenda that puts America First, the future of the United States is not going to be sold out to the highest foreign bidder,” Vance said. “The future of American industry and manufacturing is going to be built in towns all across these great United States.”
At the same podium, Vance also spoke about the story of Kevin Flanagan, a computer programmer whose death has become part of Vance’s broader criticism of companies moving American jobs overseas or requiring workers to train foreign replacements.
According to Vance, Flanagan was working as a computer programmer at a Bank of America training center in 2003 when he was laid off. Vance said Flanagan was told he would receive his severance package only after training a foreign worker who would take over his job.
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“ A computer programmer — was let go at the bank that he worked at, and the bank, they told him, “You’re only gonna get your severance package if you trained a foreign replacement to do your job instead”,” Vance said.
Vance then described what he said happened after Flanagan completed the training.
“And it’s a heartbreaking story because he did it. He dutifully did what he was asked to do, and on his last day, he packed up his things, he walked to the office parking lot, he got in his truck, and he shot himself,” Vance said.
Flanagan was a software programmer and developer. Vance has previously used his story to illustrate what he sees as the human cost of sending American jobs abroad and replacing U.S. workers with foreign employees.
The story was central to Vance’s remarks in Middletown, where he connected his family’s history in American industry with the administration’s push to expand domestic manufacturing.
His appearance also comes as the Trump administration continues to make reshoring American manufacturing and reducing dependence on foreign labor and production a major part of its economic message.
For Vance, the steel mill in Middletown carried a personal significance. He presented the new investment not simply as an economic development, but as part of a larger effort to revive industrial communities that once formed the backbone of American manufacturing.