Vice President JD Vance returned to Ohio July 28 to tout President Donald Trump’s agenda in a congressional district that Republicans hope to flip in 2026.

As Vance visited Ohio to tout the Trump administration’s economic agend a on Monday at a steel mill, a small group of protestors assembled across the street from those gathered, holding a sign that read: “JD protects pedophiles,” in a nod to the president’s association with accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

They decided “to go easy on the guy,” Vance claimed, saying that Trump should be commended for pursuing the case. Despite a 2008 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Miami, the Epstein case wasn’t widely known until The Miami Herald published its investigation in 2018, during the first Trump administration.