Hours before Vice President Kamala Harris came to town to introduce new running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) to Americans, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) held a rally with some 500 supporters at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia to make his case for the Trump-Vance ticket.
It’s part of a counterprogramming strategy by former president Donald Trump’s campaign. As Harris and Walz barnstorm swing states over the next five days, the Vance campaign blitz won’t be far behind.
While Vance didn’t address the Walz pick in his speech, he did discuss it with reporters afterward, noting Harris’ snub of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who had been widely viewed as the frontrunner for second spot. According to Vance, Harris caved to pressure from within her party not to pick a Jewish running mate.
“The biggest problem with the Tim Walz pick, it’s not Tim Walz himself — it’s Kamala Harris,” Vance said. “That when given an opportunity, she will bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party, and that’s exactly what she did here.”
Vance added that he “felt bad” that Shapiro “had to run away from his Jewish heritage because of what the Democrats are saying about him,” calling it “scandalous and disgraceful.”
Democrats dispute that claim.
Citing the wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas along with the current instability in the stock market, Vance told rally attendees Harris brought chaos wherever she went.
“Everything that Kamala Harris touches has been a disaster and we’ve got to kick her out of the United States government, not give her a promotion,” he said to cheers and applause.
Vance used most of the time to criticize the Biden-Harris administration’s policy on the southern border. The White House gave Harris the task of addressing the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico and the “northern triangle” nations of Central America, earning her the moniker “Border Czar” from the media.
Vance said Harris was an abject failure when it came to securing the border. The result, he added, was a flood of deadly fentanyl into communities across the country, including Pennsylvania.
The event featured several Pennsylvanians who said they had suffered from the Biden-Harris administration’s bad policies.
Denise Trask discussed how her 26-year-old daughter died of an accidental overdose at a Philadelphia mall after buying fentanyl-laced heroin.
“Fentanyl is killing thousands and thousands of people every day,” she said. Trask added the administration ignored the “border travesty” and caused families to lose loved ones.
One South Philadelphia woman told rally attendees that her mother has Narcan in her closet because her brother is an opioid addict.
“I feel compelled to address the opioid crisis that’s affecting our community,” Denise Briggs said. “Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies have led the city I once knew to become unrecognizable.”
Vance took time to answer questions from the press — something Harris has yet to do since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Asked about Harris choosing Walz to be her running mate, Vance quipped, “They make an interesting tag team because Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and the few that got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out of jail.”
Vance also said he called Walz to congratulate him on the selection because he wanted to be nice. Walz didn’t answer so he left a message, Vance said.
He was noncommittal on when the pair would be on the debate stage together. Vance said it was important to make sure Democrats didn’t try to pull a fast one at their convention this month and nominate someone else.
“Of course, we want to have a robust debate again because we believe the American people have the right to have their political leaders try to persuade them,” he said.
Rally attendees liked what they heard and expressed support for Vance and GOP presidential nominee Trump.
“He’s the definition of the American Dream. If you work hard, you can do anything,” Downingtown resident Kate Collins told DVJournal.
“They bring a level of normalcy back to the country,” said Bryan Shine of Phoenixville.
Shine said the previous Trump administration was good for the economy with lower gas and grocery prices. He noted he works two jobs now to pay bills. “I can barely survive. It’s really difficult,” he said.
Others at the event pointed to the Biden administration’s foreign policy as extremely problematic.
Philadelphia lawyer J. Matthew Wolfe told DVJournal he still gets sick when thinking about the Afghanistan withdrawal that left the Taliban in charge. “My stomach still tightens up when I think about the vision of people holding on to the airplanes,” he said. “It’s seared into my mind.”
For Vietnam-era Army veteran Frank G. Criniti, it was Biden not remembering the 18 service members who died under his watch, including the 13 in Afghanistan. “That put a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of us veterans,” he said.
