Is a video of Vice President JD Vance asking for "another chance" and saying "things are bad" real? No, that's not true: The video was made with artificial intelligence, though Vance did ask for "another chance" at a summit. No credible sources have posted about this video.
The claim appeared in a post made by @keithedwards on X (archived here) published on Sept. 20, 2026. The post's caption read:
this has 2 million likes on TikTok
The post included a video of someone who looked like and introduced themselves as Vance, who opened by saying:
Hey guys! It's me, your buddy Vice President JD Vance. Hey look, there's an important election coming in just a few weeks, and I gotta be honest: things are bad. Gas is expensive, we started this stupid war in Iran that we can't seem to get out of. But look: I'm here to ask you for a second chance.
This is what a screenshot of the the video looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @keithedwards on X.)
Summit appearance
It appears that this video is a spoof on real comments the vice president made. Vance appeared virtually at a 2026 summit hosted by the All-In Podcast (archived here) that was published online on Sept. 15, 2026 (archived here). Toward the end of the episode, Chamath Palihapitiya, a co-host of the business and technology podcast, asked Vance what message should be delivered to voters about coming to "the right conclusion" ahead of the midterm elections in November 2026. At 25 minutes and 44 seconds into the recording, Vance said:
You know, I guess I have two basic messages is, there is a lot of good that we've done over the past 18 months. We cut taxes bigly. We cut taxes on overtime, Social Security and tips. Those are tax cuts for middle American workers, not just for the elites in Washington and New York City. We've had an amazing success with the border, with immigration. We've pursued H-1B reform that prioritizes American workers over foreign nationals. There's a lot of good that's been done but there's a lot of work left to do. Don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years.
During this real appearance, Vance was seated in a room with White House insignia. He was positioned between a U.S. flag (archived here) and what appeared to be a flag of the vice president of the U.S. (archived here). A screenshot of the recording is included below:
(Image source: video by All-In Podcast on YouTube.)
AI-generated video
A version of the video examined in this fact check was found on @goodguy.ai, a TikTok account that labeled the video as "AI-generated." The account published the video on Sept. 20, 2026 at 3:15 p.m. EST, a few hours before it appeared on the @keithedwards account on X at 8:05 p.m. EST. The bio of @goodguy.ai reads:
Creator 📽️ AI storyteller 🇺🇸 Patriot
When the first 24 seconds of the video were analyzed by AI detection tools including FauxLens and ZeroGPT, some of the results indicated that the video was AI-generated. Screenshots of the results from FauxLens and ZeroGPT are below:
(Image source: FauxLens.)
(Image source: ZeroGPT.)
There are other indicators that the video examined in this fact check is AI-generated. Unlike the footage from Vance's podcast appearance, an out-of-place image of a couch with a heart surrounding it is shown behind his head. The image may be a reference to a fake claim about Vance's memoir and a nonexistent description of him having sex with a couch. Additionally, the White House insignia on the back wall is different than the real wall, with the seal being directly behind Vance's head and the White House illustration showing differently constructed front columns.
(Image source: post by @keithedwards on X. Red circles added by Lead Stories.)
A comparison image of Vance's real appearance at the All-In summit (left) and the video that is the subject of this fact check (right) is shown below:
(Image source: comparison image created by Lead Stories.)
Searches didn't find relevant results
Searches on Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) for the first few sentences of the video on the question did not generate any credible results about the video.
Searches of Vance's social media accounts did not indicate that he ever posted the video in question. None of the posts from September 2026 on his vice presidential Instagram, X (here and here), and Truth Social accounts, along with his personal Instagram account, matched the video.
