The rival candidates for vice president brought their familiar messages to Tucson Wednesday, with Ohio Sen. JD Vance pledging mass deportations and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz contending “these guys are way more interested in sowing division than solving problems.”
Vance, like Donald Trump before him when he spoke in Tucson last month, blamed migrants for a pile of social woes.
“You know what our message is, you know what President Trump’s message (is) to illegal aliens who are in this country without any right to be here — ‘Pack your bags, because in four months, you’re going home,’” the Republican vice presidential candidate told a crowd of a few hundred people at the Tucson Speedway race track.
Sen. JD Vance speaks at Tucson Speedway, 11955 S. Harrison Road.
“The wide-open southern border has affected Tucson maybe more than any other community in our country,” Vance said, adding, “Latinos in particular ought to be pissed off.”
Across town several hours later, Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz said, “At the only debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Donald Trump stood on that stage and said (of Haitian immigrants in Ohio) ‘they’re eating dogs and they’re eating cats.’ If this guy was an entertainer on TV it might be funny. But it’s not funny as someone who wants to be president of the United States. It’s dangerous.”
“I believe and I think you believe, a president’s words matter. Character and leadership matter,” Walz told hundreds at Palo Verde High Magnet School, when he finally took the stage at about 6 p.m. for a rally that was scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m.
Vance, meanwhile, spent a good deal of time in his 25-minute speech blaming Harris for a “wide open border” that he said has fed into problems including a lack of affordable housing and a rising cost of living.
“Think about what an insult it is to Latinos who came to this country, whose parents or grandparents came to this country, who waited in line, who paid the fees, who worked hard, who did it the right way. It’s an insult to them to have Kamala Harris welcome people who break our laws.”
For her part, Harris, speaking last month in Douglas, Arizona, said of border policy: “I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry. We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators, and if someone does not make an asylum request at a legal port of entry, and instead crosses our border unlawfully, they will be barred from receiving asylum.”
And Walz said in Tucson, “This issue should not divide us, it should unite us. She wants a solution, we had a solution, we had people working together on it. ... and the only reason it didn’t get done was Donald Trump knew it was an electoral problem for him and he wants the problem, not the solution,” referring to the bipartisan immigration bill that failed in Congress this year.
Vance told the crowd Wednesday that despite her claims of a fresh start, Harris would mirror the policies of President Joe Biden.
He played a clip of Harris’ interview this week on ABC’s The View, in which the vice president said “not a thing comes to mind” when asked what she’d do differently than Biden.
“We got conflicts breaking out all over the world and Kamala Harris has the audacity to say that on day one she’s gonna work to make the world more peaceful and more secure,” said Vance.
“Well Kamala, day one was 1,400 days ago. What the hell have you been doing the whole time? Stop talking about fixing these problems and start actually doing something.”
Speaking of the recent and current hurricanes in Florida, Vance contended FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is offering services of “resettlement and relocation for illegal immigrants,” claims the White House said are “absolutely false,” as ABC News reported Monday.
Walz said it’s important to set political differences aside during natural disasters such as Hurricane Milton that’s hitting Florida.
Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a rally in Tucson at Palo Verde High Magnet School.
“We have always been a great country,” he said.
“Kamala Harris has a vision of bringing us together and getting stuff done. She wants to be president for all Americans. And here’s the thing, she’s got a record of it. From her first time as a prosecutor to vice president of the United States, she’s had one client: the American people.”
“One of the reasons she gets it is because she grew up in the middle class. We have a saying in Minnesota, you all probably have it too. It’s pretty simple: ‘we all do better when we all do better’.”
“Donald Trump asks us to be afraid of the future. When have Arizonans ever been scared of the future? You aren’t afraid of the future, you are the future,” Walz said, adding: “We can’t afford four more years of Donald trump. Our world can’t afford four more years of Donald Trump.”
