On Wednesday evening, a crowd of over 2,000 people, both at Generation Church in Mesa and in overflow seating gathered by Turning Point USA, greeted Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance for a rally and vote chasing event. During the event, Vance and TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk took to the stage and made a brutal case against a Kamala Harris presidency.
In their conversation before taking questions from the audience, Vance and Kirk discussed the plagues of fentanyl and child sex trafficking and the toll they are taking on not only Arizona, but on the nation as a whole. Vance was highly critical of Harris’ border policy and attempts to co-opt the visual of the border wall constructed under President Donald Trump’s administration for her campaign ads. They addressed inflation robbing Arizonans and Americans alike of wealth, and in particular stealing from Phoenix the coveted title of ‘most affordable city.’
First and foremost however, Vance criticized Harris as “terrified of the media because she’s terrified of the American people because she knows that if she speaks off the cuff, she’s going to let them know just how completely radical she is.” He stressed, “She is exactly what she said she was. She’s exactly what she has governed as, and the reason why she only talks to the American people with a teleprompter sitting in between them is because she knows the American people can smell a fraud, and she is a fraud. And we have to remind people of it.”
Kirk and Vance brought the combined interests of Harris and Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz to the forefront as well, recalling Harris’ donation to a bail fund for those Summer 2020 rioters who burned Minneapolis.
Vance observed, “It’s almost hard to believe Charlie, but I looked this up. It actually is true. Remember when there were rioters in the summer of 2020 that burned down the City of Minneapolis and a bunch of other cities on top of it. Now they didn’t catch a whole lot of them, but they did catch some of those rioters, and guess who was at the front of the line trying to bail them out of prison. Kamala Harris, who now says that she supports police officers. We can never let her forget it. She was bailing out the people who were attacking police officers and burning down a great American city. That is the record of Kamala Harris, and let’s have a President like Donald J. Trump who actually supports our police officers to keep us safe. It’s very simple stuff.”
Perhaps most critically though, Vance skewered Harris for the obvious discrepancy of effectively running away from her own three years as a leading figure in the self-styled Biden-Harris administration. When reminded by Kirk of the disconnect, he answered:
“Charlie, it, it takes a special level of shamelessness. Maybe I’ve only been in politics for two years, so I just haven’t reached that level, but to look at the American people, even though she’s reading off a teleprompter and to say, on day one, we’re going to make groceries and housing more affordable on day one. Kamala Harris says this, ‘We’re going to tackle the American southern border.’ Kamala, day one was 3 and a half years ago! What the hell have you been doing the whole time?”
Vance recovered from the momentary slip of profanity in the Church setting, mentioning that the pastors on hand were “going to have to forgive me because I do sometimes talk like my Mamaw, and she was a woman of a very serious Christian faith, but she did love the f-word every now and then.”
Pressing into the issue of fentanyl, Vance discussed his mother’s struggle with addiction and remarked that when she nearly died from an overdose during his childhood, surely, fentanyl would have killed her. He also addressed the child sex trafficking crisis noting, “This is what our government leaders have done. 320,000 kids, and we know, by the way, a lot of those kids have lost their lives.”
He continued, “A lot of those kids are being sex trafficked by some of the most evil people in the world. This is the wages of Kamala Harris’s disastrous border policy, and it’s happening every day in this country.
We have to remember that they told us that Kamala Harris was the compassionate person when it came to the border. Remember when they said Donald Trump is the person who wanted to separate families? Now the way that you keep families together is to send a message that if you want to come through to this country, you’ve got to come through the proper channels. When you empower these cartels, when you tell everybody that they can come across illegally, that’s what causes family separation on an industrial scale. Never let them tell you that Kamala Harris’s border policies are compassionate. There are 320,000 voices of children crying out telling us, Kamala Harris is not compassionate. She is a disaster, and we cannot promote her to the Oval Office.”
On Wednesday evening, Senator JD Vance, Vice Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, took to the stage at Arizona Christian University in Glendale, Arizona. While President Donald Trump was rallying the crowds in Pennsylvania for the first time since the attempt on his life in Butler, Vance was showing Arizonans that the Senator from Ohio and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” can play on the same field that once brought Barry Goldwater to national prominence.
Flanked on stage by notable conservative Congressmen Eli Crane, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs as well as GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, Vance broke down the stakes for Arizona voters, describing the scenario of a Harris presidency.
“Let us count the ways in which Kamala Harris has screwed up this country over the last 3.5 years,“ Vance began according to CSPAN.
“Now, they’ll all lie to you about it, the media, but she was appointed the border czar and then unleashed the worst border crisis in the history of this country. On her watch, more than 10 million illegal aliens have invaded our country, and it wasn’t by accident. It was by design.”
“They said when they took office that they were going to do exactly what they did. They said they wanted to decriminalize illegal immigration and tear down Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Open up the floodgates and give illegal aliens free health care. And she wanted you the American citizens to pay the bill. That’s what she said.”
“And then, on her very first day in office, they went to work, but not for you. For them. They suspended deportations. They stopped building President Trump’s wall. They reinstated catch-and-release. And that’s how every state became a border state because they just released these people into our country. Then they fly in first class, give them first class hotel accommodations. You guys are paying for that too.”
Vance didn’t shy away from taking direct aim at Harris’ recent explosion onto the media scene either, and her stark departure from previous appearances as noted by President Trump when he spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists Conference in Chicago.
“So, you guys want to hear that truth about Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris is a phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her. I don’t know if you saw this. But earlier this week, look up the clip, she went down to Georgia and started talking with a fake Southern accent. I’m serious. Now, what the hell was that all about? Kamala Harris grew up in Canada. They don’t talk like that in Vancouver or Quebec or wherever she came from.”
— News That Matters (@ThatmattersNews) July 31, 2024
“It doesn’t matter. It’s the same new liberal policies, but a different accent, whoever she’s talking to. Now on November 5th, she can go back to using her San Francisco accent because we are going to send her packing, and we’re going to elect Donald Trump President of the United States. “
Senator @JDVance: "She went down to Georgia and started talking with a fake, southern accent…Kamala Harris grew up in Canada! They don't like that in Vancouver or Quebec…on Nov 5 she can go back to her San Francisco accent because we are going to send her packing."🔥 pic.twitter.com/xQAnRAHkmq
Pointedly, Vance drew attention to Harris’ apparent complicity in deflecting concerns over the capacity of President Joe Biden to serve as well as criticizing the thoroughly non-democratic method of her nomination by DNC leaders without a primary vote.
“Now after they covered up for Joe Biden’s incompetence for 3.5 years. This is a scandal from both the Democrats and the media,” he began. “Now they’re gaslighting us about Kamala Harris’ radical record. The media likes to portray her, all of a sudden, she’s a sensible moderate. That’s what they say. Now, the same media that told us for 3.5 years, Joe Biden who couldn’t finish his sentence was Albert Einstein. Now they tell us Kamala Harris is Abraham Lincoln but anyone who is too blind to see Biden’s incompetence, or more likely too dishonest to admit it, is not fit to serve as our commander in chief.”
"…The media calls it a coronation; I think we ought to call it a coup! In America, we don't crown our leaders; we vote for them." – VP Nominee, @JDVance
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 31, 2024
Vance added, “The Democrat party bosses have decided to install Kamala Harris as their new nominee, but think about this, she has not received a single vote for President of the United States. Now, the media calls this a coronation. I think we’d call it a coup and in America we don’t crown our leaders. We vote for them.”
Vance also prefaced his planned trip to Arizona’s southern border and called Harris out on her radical leftist record and the failure of the Biden-Harris regime to rein in the out-of-control border with Mexico.
He told rallygoers, “Now I’m going to the border tomorrow and her record of disaster is clear. 500,000 kids have been trafficked by the Mexican drug cartels because of her policies, hundreds of thousands of our citizens are dead from fentanyl overdoses because of her policies, hardworking Americans cannot afford groceries because of her policies. Now, the media wants to call her a moderate. But here’s a fact check for the fake news. Kamala Harris was the most liberal senator in the entire United States Senate. She is a dangerous San Francisco liberal, and thanks to the people in this room, she is never going to be the President of the United States of America.”
On Monday, former President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, at 39 years of age, will be his running mate. Vance would become the youngest Vice President in over a century if he is sworn in as the 50th person to hold the second-highest office in the United States.
(For anyone keeping score Vice President John C. Breckenridge was sworn in at age 36 under President James Buchanan in 1821.)
In President Trump’s announcement, he explained that he made the contentious decision, “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others.” Indeed fellow Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgam, and even former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were in consideration.
But Trump continued, “I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the Great State of Ohio. J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association. J.D.’s book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country.” As Trump alluded, to it was Vance’s nationwide bestselling memoir later adapted for film, “Hillbilly Elegy,” that propelled him to national prominence.
He added, “J.D. has had a very successful business career in Technology and Finance, and now, during the Campaign, will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
The move came as a surprise to many recalling Vance’s vocal opposition to Trump in 2016, although his gradual pivot from a harsh critic to a stalwart ally has been extremely well documented. In an interview with Fox News in June, Vance told Brett Baier, “Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn’t think he was going to be a good president. He was a great president, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.”
During a Trump Townhall in Phoenix last month, as reported by the New York Post, Vance seemed to deflect questions on his potential selection. He told reporters, “First of all, I’m thankful it’s not my decision because I think that Trump has a lot of different things that he’s weighing, and he’s the guy who’s gonna make the decision. My view is the most important thing is you need somebody who’s gonna help govern.”
Laughing with reporters in footage captured by AZ Free News, he was asked if he had any information on Trump’s choice, and he joked, “Yeah, sure. But I’m not going to tell you guys!“ He then quipped, “Any other questions about this event or about Arizona because I think I’m exhausted by the VP conversation and I’ve been here five minutes.”
Despite his initial disagreement with Trump’s policies in 2016, Vance has, for the last three years, been seen as one of the President’s most ardent defenders and allies in the Senate, spearheading efforts to prevent a renewed mask mandate on airlines, as well as efforts to block politically driven appointments to the Biden DOJ in light of the ongoing utilization of that department’s assets to pursue the political prosecution of Trump.
