Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump‘s running mate, said on Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to join her ticket shows how “radical” and out of touch she is with struggling Americans.
The comments were made to reporters in the hours after Harris made the selection final.
.@JDVance on @Tim_Walz's selection as @KamalaHarris's running mate: "It just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is." pic.twitter.com/GJiVSoy3qu
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 6, 2024
“My view on it is it just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is. This is a person who listened to the Hamas wing of her own party in selecting a nominee. This is a guy who’s proposed shipping more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to make the American people more reliant on garbage energy instead of good American energy, and has proposed defunding the police just as Kamala Harris does,” Vance said.
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“They make an interesting tag team because of course Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and then the few who got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out of jail,” he added, referring to Harris tweeting support for the Minnesota Freedom Fund. “So it is more instructive for what it says about Kamala Harris: that she doesn’t care about the border, she doesn’t care about crime, she doesn’t care about American energy, and most importantly she doesn’t care about the Americans who have been made to suffer under those policies.”
Walz edged out Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to join Harris’ ticket. Walz and Shapiro were reportedly the final two frontrunners.
Vance was asked whether he believed Harris shied away from Shapiro, who is Jewish, because of anti-Semitism.
“It’s not what I believe, it’s what the Democratic leadership has said. Many, many people said repeatedly that the reason Kamala Harris was going away from the Josh Shapiro selection is because they were worried about anti-Semitism. They were worried about certain voters. They were worried about some of the leaders, and the grassroots activists, and their party wouldn’t take a Jewish nominee. I think it’s despicable. I think it’s disgusting. But that is right out of the words of many members of the Democratic leadership.”
Vance said he called Walz and left a voicemail. The message entailed congratulating Walz and saying he looked forward to a “robust” conversation, Vance said. “Maybe he’ll call me back, maybe he won’t,” Vance added.