“That would go viral, and not in a good way, my friends,” he tells military service members in Ramstein aircraft hanger

Thursday, April 24, during a refueling stop on their return flight to the United States from India, Vice President JD Vance and his family visited with U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base. Vice President Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, and their children were greeted by U.S. Air Force General James B. Hecker and his wife, Mrs. Terrie Hecker. The Vice President poured beers for service members and gave a toast thanking them for their overseas deployment.

White House pool reporter Natalie Allison of the Washington Post passed along these notes to the press pool distribution list.

Pool entered a hangar where 100 or so members of the Air Force, Army and Space Force were waiting, enjoying beer in plastic cups, cans of soda and what appears to be paper plates filled with hot dogs, chips and cookies. “Gloria,” a staple song on the Trump rally soundtrack, was playing over the sound system as pool ran into the hangar. Next on the playlist was “The Power of Love,” which confirmed to your pooler that this is not the Trump rally playlist.

At one point before VP came out, Merle Haggard’s “America First,” which Vance adopted as his walk-up song during the 2024 campaign, also played.

The Vance children received a tour of a C-130 aircraft, though your pool was kept outside the plane and did not see the tour take place.

The vice president began speaking at 2:20 p.m., staying in the hangar just under an hour. The otter linked below started recording a couple moments after he began speaking due to a technical issue, but the thing he said before was that he and his family had just completed a trip to Italy and India, and “I have no idea what the hell day it is, what time it is, but we’re glad to be here with you guys.”

More quotes/color:

“I guess as a small token of appreciation, I’m going to serve you guys some beers.”

The VP held up a classic German painted stein with a metal lid, preparing to give a toast. He joked that he should chug the beer.

“That would go viral, and not in a good way, my friends.”

He took a regular sip. “To the airmen of this base, the airwomen of this base and all of our troops serving overseas, God bless you guys. Cheers.”

VP Vance then began serving drafts to them form a keg, shaking service members’ hands as he handed them plastic cups of beer.

Your pooler could hear some of his conversations with airmen and airwomen. Some asked to take photos with the VP, who is in a dark green Patagonia jacket.

One man asked him about how the flight had been. “It was 9 hours and 20 minutes with three little kids and as good as it could be,” Vance said as he pulled back the lever on the tap. “I’m not giving everybody a full pour here.”

“What’s up man?” Vance said to another. “Drinking on the job here, now that your tour’s over?”

He asked another airman where he was from, and Vance could be heard replying, “New York City?”

To another: “Are you old enough to drink this beer?” The young man revealed he was also from Ohio.

*To another man, the VP sounded as if he were mentioning how hot it was in India yesterday at 104 degrees as his family was outside sightseeing. (Your pooler is including at the bottom an addendum with some color about how hot the kids were saying it was yesterday…)

Pool was also just told that last night at his hotel in Jaipur, VP posed for photos with US and Indian law enforcement officials and others who assisted with providing security on the trip. To illustrate the heat and sun VP was referring to, when they were at the Taj Mahal, VP was trying to get his kids to pose for a photo (he also posted on X about this), but they were saying it was too sunny.

A staff member behind the photographers were trying to get the kids to look forward.

“Hey Miry, can you put your hands down?” he said to his daughter, who was squirming on his lap and rubbing her eyes as photographers were snapping shots. (VP seemed to be using a nickname for Mirabel, though your pooler is unsure of the correct spelling. The person behind the camera called her Mira, as well!)

On his right, Ewan squinted too, and said he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

“You can. I know, buddy, it’s hard. Just do it for a few seconds. OK, 1, 2, 3 …”