'You know what really p**ses people off?' Vance identifies what's at heart of 'populist resentment' in Appalachia

Vice President JD Vance joined Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Make America Healthy Again summit on Wednesday in discussing the Trump administration’s revolution against the unworkable state of affairs and orthodoxies that have left so many Americans sick, censored, poor, and behind.

After the duo discussed President Donald Trump’s penchant for taking “a bulldozer to Overton windows,” Kennedy raised the matter of the dire health and social conditions in Appalachia, noting that Vance’s incredible success serves as a “tragic reminder of the lost potential of almost everybody else in Appalachia.”

‘Their loved ones are dying much sooner than everybody else.’

“It’s got the worst health data of any region in the country — the highest cardiac disease, the highest obesity, the highest diabetes, the highest stroke rates — but also addiction, alcoholism, and suicide,” said Kennedy.

Although dubbed a “golden child of Appalachia” by the HHS secretary, Vance emphasized his firsthand familiarity with the bleak conditions experienced by so many in the region, noting that he was hard-pressed to identify a single important male family figure who lived past the age of 70.

“You want to talk about, like, ‘populism’? And you want to talk about people being pissed off? Well, yeah, people are pissed off when they don’t have good jobs; and people are pissed off when things disappear and move overseas; and people are pissed off when they feel like, you know, other countries are being prioritized over the United States of America,” said Vance. “All of that is part of the populist resentment of the past 20 or 30 years in American politics.”

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Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

“But you know what really pisses people off?” continued the vice president. “When they realize that their loved ones are dying much sooner than everybody else.”

Life expectancy has long been lower and infant mortality higher in Appalachia than in the rest of the country.

Vance noted that while on the one hand, he feels guilty that so many of his fellow Appalachians have not enjoyed the opportunities for economic and familial stability that he has enjoyed, he also feels “a great sense of anger because we never should have gotten to the point that we are today, and the reason that we have is because of failed leadership — and it’s failed leadership over generations.”

The vice president stressed that one of the reasons he strongly supports Kennedy’s health initiatives is because therein lies a major opportunity to do right by Appalachian residents who have been “left behind by this country’s leadership.”