Doug Emhoff in Tucson: Reproductive rights on the line

The Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket will protect women’s rights and personal freedoms, Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, told a downtown Tucson crowd during a campaign stop Thursday night.

Emhoff focused primarily on reproductive rights in a speech before to an enthused crowd of about 450 people.

He warned that former President Donald Trump will seek a national abortion ban even though a majority of Americans say they don’t want one.

“We’ve seen ever since Dobbs, every time this issue has come on the ballot, in red states (or) blue states, it doesn’t matter, the people speak. The majority, 60, 70, 80 percent vote for freedom. Because we all don’t want this, we do not this extremism,” he said, citing what he said was a Fox News poll that shows 73% of Arizonans say they want reproductive rights enshrined into the state’s constitution.

“We are living in this Dobbs-ian hellscape for the past two-and-a-half years, caused by Donald Trump,” Emhoff told the crowd, referencing the Supreme Court’s decision giving states increased rights to limit and even outlaw abortions.

Emhoff said that actions during the Trump administration “set us back over 50 years.”

“Kamala has said that this election is not only the most important election of our personal lifetimes, this is the most important election in our nation’s lifetime. And one of the reasons why is this issue of reproductive freedom, and that Donald Trump and his little sidekick JD Vance . . . wants to continue this extremist crusade that none of us want,” Emhoff said. “To dismantle women’s reproductive rights, and somehow make women less-than, less-than citizens. And it’s just not fair, and it cannot stand, and it will not stand.”

Emhoff also took jabs at Trump, especially for his debate performance Tuesday night.

Trump, who held a rally in Tucson earlier in the day, says he will not debate Harris again.

“ He said he will not debate her again, because he’s too afraid,” Enhoff told the crowd. “But she’s going to keep bringing the fight right to him, right to his face.”

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Emhoff also noted a widely shared social media post by Tucson icon Linda Ronstadt, blasting Trump’s campaign stop in her hometown and at her namesake venue, Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. “I guess he found out today not to mess with Linda Ronstadt,” he said, to which the crowd erupted. “What was that song? ‘You’re no good, you’re no good...’”

Emhoff, who stepped onto the tarmac of Tucson International Airport shortly before 5:30 p.m., was greeted by Verlon Jose, the Tohono O’odham Nation chairman, Adelita Grijalva, the chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors and Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, who along with Grijalva spoke at the campaign event.

Grijalva cited “misogynistic and racist” rhetoric from the crowd at the former president’s downtown rally.

“We’re all here because we don’t want to deal with that kind of hatred anymore. We are tired as a community, we are tired as a nation of dealing with people who are just so intolerant that there’s no willingness to work together,” Grijalva said.

“I don’t know of any regulation that dictates the laws about he reproductive rights of men. But, the reproductive rights of women are on the line this election. They’re on the line in our state,” Grijalva said. “We have to make sure we are the ones making the decisions about our own bodies, and not letting a bunch of legislators make those decisions for us.”

Romero, the lead-up to whom she called “the future First Dude,” said the clear choice that “preserves our freedoms, especially our reproductive freedom” is voting Harris-Walz in November.

“His ridiculous and inaccurate statements about late-term abortions are unhinged,” Romero said, referring to a repeated false claim Trump has made that some states “do allow abortions even after birth in some cases,” which he also said at his Tucson rally.

Romero said that Trump is “coming after all of our freedoms” with the implementation of Project 2025, a conservative political blueprint that the former president has repeatedly refuted being involved in its creation or even knowing what it says. However, during Tuesday night’s debate, Trump did say that the group behind the political doctrine “came up with some ideas.”

Romero told the crowd that if elected, Trump would cut social security and Medicare, eliminate the Department of Education, force states to report on abortions and would “resurrect the Comstock Act of the 1800s,” which outlaws the United States Postal Service from mailing “obscene matter,” which includes things “designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion,” according to the United States Code database.

Also taking the stage on Thursday night was Patrick Robles, southern Arizona political director for the Harris-Walz campaign and vice chair of the Sunnyside Foundation; Oren Jacobson, president of the activist group Men4Choice; Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All; Dr. Cady Harrel, a Tucson physician and Josh Zurawski, a “national storyteller” and advocate for women’s reproductive rights.