The Republican vice president ventured into Maine’s purple congressional district Thursday at an embarrassing cost to the state’s liberal “journalists.”

“We’ve got biased reporters in all states. It’s OK. Trust me, I can handle it,” J.D. Vance told a pro-GOP crowd as they shouted down ‘alleged’ questions from a TV guy.

During a trip to Bangor, Vance took questions from reporters – or, more aptly, ‘alleged’ reporters, especially the broadcast types.

Reps from WCSH-TV and WGME-TV enjoyed trying to counter Vance’s assertion that government fraud under Gov. Janet Mills is real and the Trump administration is cracking down on it – with or without Janet’s cooperation.

On its screen crawl, WGME headlined Vance’s addressing “alleged fraud.”

A WCSH reporter, Phil Hirschkorn, meanwhile, quizzed the vice president as to whether government fraud in Maine is really a problem since it’s not as serious as in California.

“Well, California has a much bigger population so you can’t really compare the two,” Vance said as he tried to gently point out the obvious.

“Vice President JD Vance squares off with a local reporter over the scale of corruption in Maine, warning that current fraud findings are just the ‘tip of the iceberg,’” is how Fox News headlined the exchange on X.

WCSH to Vance: “My question is what else do you got? What else has your task force flagged that we should be concerned about? Because those amounts are a lot, $46 million, $1.7 million, but they don’t really compare to California and Minnesota.”

VANCE: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got biased reporters in all states. It’s OK. Trust me, I can handle, I can handle it… I suspect we are going to find hundreds of millions of more dollars every single month that we look in the state of Maine, because this is not a state that takes it seriously.”

Brittany McHatten, a WABI-TV reporter, inquired of Vance “what Governor Mills could do to begin working with you.”