JD Vance Visits Families of Annunciation Shooting Victims

Under gray skies and the weight of a national tragedy, Vice President JD Vance stood on the steps of Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where a transgender-identifying shooter took the lives of two children attending a school mass.

Vance and his wife, Usha, arrived quietly, each carrying flowers for the slain 10-year-old Harper Moyski and 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel. The couple paused before a statue of the Virgin Mary, laying their bouquets at her feet as thousands of others had done before them. Chalk messages from classmates lined the walkway: “You were so loved,” “We will miss you,” and “God be with you, I’m in your class.”

There were no speeches. No grandstanding. Just somber prayer, silence, and the resolve to remember the innocent not glorify the monster who took them.

Inside the church and later at the Minnesota Children’s Hospital, the Vances met with grieving families parents whose lives were shattered by a moment of unimaginable evil. Harper, proud of her first communion. Fletcher, rambunctious with a head full of curls. Their parents asked the vice president not to focus on the “brutal maniac,” but to speak the names of their children to honor their lives, not elevate the darkness.

“We should talk more about these kids,” Vance said. “Their hopes, their dreams. They had full lives ahead of them.”

Among the survivors was young Lydia Kaiser, who was critically injured while protecting a younger student. Her father, a local gym teacher, shielded children while his own daughter was rushed to the emergency room. Another boy, Weston Halsne, spoke with the vice president by phone. He had just undergone surgery. Vance smiled recalling their conversation. “I told him to tell his big brother the vice president says he has to be nice to him for at least a week.”

The pain and grief were palpable, yet so was the strength and grace of the families Vance met. "I’ve had a lot of good days,” he said. “But I’ve never had a day that will stay with me like this day did.”

Protesters across the street demanded more gun control. A massive transgender flag was draped nearby, an implicit reminder that the shooter like others in recent cases identified as trans. Yet Vance refused to politicize the moment. Instead, he echoed the wishes of the families focus on the victims, not the ideology of the killer.

When asked about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's push for new gun legislation, Vance said he wouldn’t dictate to state lawmakers, but acknowledged, “There is a strong desire across the political spectrum to do something so that these shootings are less common.”

Pressed by The Daily Wire about the disturbing trend of trans-identifying mass shooters, Vance stopped short of naming gender dysphoria but made one thing clear. “This person showed clear signs of derangement, and slipped through the cracks.”

And that is the real issue not guns, not political talking points but a mentally unstable individual, known to be dangerous, who still found a way to carry out a horrific act. Vance made it clear that every parent he met with wanted real solutions, not lectures or political theater. They want safeguards that keep weapons out of the hands of the deranged and they want their children remembered for how they lived, not how they died.

While others rant on cable news and point fingers, JD Vance showed up in person. He didn’t offer platitudes. He offered presence. He didn’t spout political talking points. He listened. He comforted. He prayed. And he promised to take their message one of sorrow, love, and righteous anger back to Washington.

In closing, Vance offered a simple, human call to the American people: “If you are the praying type, say a prayer for the little girl still in surgery. Say a prayer that the death toll stays at two.”

Then, with tears in his eyes, the vice president vowed to honor these families by doing what every father in America should do: “I’m going to hug my kids a little tighter tonight. Because there are two families in Minneapolis who will never get to do that again.”

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