Flanked by law enforcement personnel in Michigan, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance blasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate as confirmation that the Democratic ticket is anti-police.
Vance, 40, pointed to Harris’ and Walz’s responses to the 2020 riots that engulfed Minnesota — and soon after, the rest of the country — following the death of George Floyd.
“Our new vice presidential nominee on the Democratic side makes an interesting dynamic duo with Kamala Harris because as he was promoting rioters and looters burning down the city of Minneapolis, Kamala Harris was helping to bail the rioters and looters out of jail,” Vance chided Wednesday.
JD Vance homed in on law enforcement concerns during his stop in Michigan Wednesday. Getty Images“I promise you, in just six months, the cavalry is coming,” he later added. “You’re going to have a federal government who makes your life easier, not harder.”
Walz, 60, was the governor of Minnesota when a storm of rioters wreaked havoc on Minneapolis and St. Paul, lighting buildings on fire and looting businesses. Harris promoted the Minnesota Freedom Fund in 2020, to help post bail for some of the protesters.
The Trump campaign and its allies have zeroed in on both Walz’s and Harris’ records during the 2020 upheaval. Both of the Democrats have returned fire by zinging former President Donald Trump over the four criminal indictments he’s faced.
Harris, 59, in particular, has begun crowing about her time as the top prosecutor in California and has needled the 45th president, saying she knows “Trump’s type.”
Vance accused Harris of backing efforts to defund the police, something she expressed support for back in 2020, but her team insists she’s opposed to now.
“It is a policy choice to defund the police, which is what Kamala Harris wants to do.”
The GOP VP nominee also spoke about the public safety effects of the Biden-Harris administration’s “policy choice to open up the American southern border and allow migrant criminals to come into this community.”
“I’m the father of a 2-year-old girl. I cannot imagine having a government that cares so little about you that they’re letting people who come into our communities get deported and come back in and then they rape our children,” he added. “That is a policy choice of Kamala Harris.”
Vance held his rally Wednesday in Shelby Township, Michigan. Before delivering remarks, Vance was briefed by the Shelby Township Police Department and touted the Police Association of Michigan’s endorsement.
Kamala Harris hailed Tim Walz’s history in the military, as a high school teacher and as a governor during his debut Tuesday. Sarah Puleo /London Entertainment / SplashNews.comThe 40-year-old’s appearance marked a continuation of the Trump-Vance campaign’s recent habit of shadowing Harris on the campaign trail. She and Walz had an event slated in the Detroit area later in the day, roughly 30 miles away.
Later Wednesday, both Vance’s plane and Air Force Two touched down in Eu Claire, Wisc. around the same time as the two had rallies in the area.
Vance boldly approached the veep’s plane on the tarmac after landing in an apparent attempt to confront Harris and Walz, but the two had already deplaned and gotten into a motorcade.
Instead, he approached reporters covering the vice president to ask whether Harris had given an explanation for why she has not publicly taken questions from reporters since securing the Democrats’ presidential nomination.
“I figured I’d come by and, one, just get a good look at the plane because hopefully it’s going to be my plane in a few months, but I also thought you guys might get lonely because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days,” Vance told traveling campaign reporters on the tarmac.
He highlighted the same fact at his Minnesota rally, noting that “President Trump will go anywhere, into hostile audiences, and friendly audiences, and answer tough questions.”
Harris unveiled Walz as her pick for VP during a rally in Philadelphia, but Vance posited that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was passed over as the veep selection in part because of progressive backlash against his Jewish heritage.
NY Post compositeShapiro had made some on the left uneasy because of his support for Israel. Harris’ allies have suggested that she picked Walz because she felt a stronger personal connection with him.
“I do not want to live in a country where we’re choosing who the next VP is based on skin color or ethnic heritage. Choose based on merit, and the fact that so many prominent leaders [on] the far left felt empowered to talk about Shapiro’s ethnic heritage is a disgrace. And I think it’s a scandal, for the Democrat Party,” Vance said.
Walz had pioneered the Democrats’ recent line of attack against Vance and Trump, calling them “weird.”
“I can’t wait to debate the guy … that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz quipped Tuesday.
JD Vance has kept up a higher tempo of campaign trail appearances than Donald Trump. APThat comment was a nod to a debunked internet hoax alleging that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his 2016 book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” Walz also bashed Vance for touting his ties to Appalachia but going off to Yale University.
Vance countered that Wednesday by ripping into Walz’s record in the military. Walz served in the National Guard for about 24 years and left just before his 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion deployed to Iraq.
He ran for Congress the following year, but several veterans have accused him of “embellishing” his military service. Walz has pushed back against that.
Vance served in the Marines from 2003 to 2007.
“What bothers me about Tim Waltz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something that you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud of the fact that my mamaw supported me; that I was able to make something of myself. I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service,” Vance said.
