GRAND RAPIDS - Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio opened up his first official campaign event as former President Donald Trump by punching back at his Democratic counterpart Kamala Harris.
Mr. Vance said with a simile that Ms. Harris apparently “doesn’t like me”
“Kamala Harris said something to the effect that I have no loyalty to this country,” Mr. Vance said at the first campaign rally since Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt. “I don’t know, Kamala, I did serve in the United States Marine corps and build a business.”
“What the hell have you done?” the 39-year-old said. “What has she done other than collect a check from political offices? We have to give her credit, my friends. She did serve as border security during the biggest disaster, the open border, that we have had in this country.”
Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Vance as his running mate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, days after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The announcement finalized the top of the GOP ticket and came as Democrats continued to consider whether President Biden should withdraw from the race and allow someone else to face Mr. Trump this fall.
Mr. Vance said that it is still “weird” to see his name alongside Mr. Trump on the campaign billboards and T-shirts and that he is honored to be on the ticket.
Sharing a snippet of the biography that the Trump camp will bolster their support across the Rust Belt, Mr. Vance said he was raised by a working-class familiar in southern Ohio and that “Mamaw,” his grandmother, kept him on the “straight and narrow and gave me a chance at the American dream.”
Taking aim at Mr. Trump’s media critics, Mr. Vance said it is baffling that the Republican standard-bearer has been labeled a “radical.”
Mr. Vance said there is “nothing” radical about securing the southern border to stop “the posion and the gangs and the criminals” from crossing into the country or passing trade deals that result in “making more of our own stuff in Michigan, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania.”
“What is radical about telling the drug cartels and the violent gangs across the world you are not welcome in this country?” he said. “There is nothing radical about having a strong national security that when we go to war we punch and we punch hard, but being cautious and not trying to get America involved in every far-flung corner and conflict of the world.”
“Sometimes my friends it is none of our business and we ought to stay out of it,” he said
“That is not radical, that is commonsense,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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