Vance wants to turn the tables against Walz

CNN
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Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance tried to turn the tables, claiming to his Democratic rival Tim Walz that the Minnesota governor was the one acting “weird.”

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash The Ohio senator referred in the show, which airs Sunday, to how Walz shook his wife’s hand before hugging her on stage at the rally in Philadelphia where Vice President Kamala Harris introduced him as her running mate.

Vance accused the Democrats of “a little projection,” pointing out that he hugged and kissed his own wife after his first speech as the Republican candidate for vice president.

“Tim Walz gave his wife a nice, firm Midwestern-style handshake and then tried to correct it in a somewhat awkward way,” Vance said.

“I think it’s two people, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who are uncomfortable in their own skin because they’re uncomfortable with their political positions with the American people,” he said. “And so they’re calling others names instead of actually telling the American people how to make their lives better. I find that funny, Dana, but they can call me whatever they want.”

When asked if he was suggesting that the governor had no affection for his wife, Vance said Walz was “acting strangely, which he did, on a national stage in front of his wife.”

Vance’s comments come as Democrats are seizing on a message from Walz, who – weeks before his nomination as Harris’ running mate – called former President Donald Trump and Vance “just weird” in an interview on MSNBC.

In his State of the Union interview, Vance dismissed the taunts as “basic schoolyard tactics.”

The characterization of Vance as “weird” was fueled in part by comments he made in a 2021 interview in which he claimed the United States was run by “childless cat ladies.” He specifically mentioned Harris, who is a stepmother, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who would soon adopt children with his husband. Vance said he “of course” recognized Harris and Buttigieg’s families and argued his comments had been taken out of context.

With less than three months to go before Election Day, Trump and Vance face a very different campaign than last month, when Trump named Vance as his vice presidential candidate and Republicans met in Milwaukee for their convention.

The resignation of President Joe Biden and his replacement as Democratic nominee by Harris has led to a much closer presidential race than the one in which polls showed Trump leading for much of 2024.

Vance admitted in the interview that “it’s different.”

“But the difference is that we are running against another person that many Americans simply don’t know,” he said.

The Ohio senator said the Republicans’ goal is to contrast the policies Trump advocated during his time in office with those of the Biden-Harris administration.

“That was easier to argue when Joe Biden was in office because people associate Joe Biden with the policies. But I think Kamala Harris is clearly responsible for the policies of the Biden-Harris administration, especially when we consider the fact that Joe Biden, as we have all learned over the last few months, is clearly not capable of doing the job,” Vance said.

He also claimed that Harris was “really in charge” in the Biden White House.

“I mean, how could she not? I don’t think Joe Biden really knows where he is,” Vance said.

In the interview, Vance also accused Walz of lying “about his own career” in military service.

He criticized the Minnesota governor for claiming he had carried weapons “in war” – a Harris campaign spokesman said Walz had slipped up – and for failing to correct descriptions of him in the past in which he allegedly served in wars.

“I’m not criticizing Tim Walz’s service; I’m criticizing the fact that he lied about his service for political reasons,” Vance said, accusing Walz of “scandalous behavior.”

“It’s not right to misrepresent or whitewash what you did, and I believe that’s exactly what he did,” Vance said.

Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring in 2005 to run for Congress. He and his unit deployed to Italy in 2003 to support U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan, but was not deployed to a combat zone as part of his service.

Vance pointed out that retired Command Sgt. Maj. Doug Julin, Walz’s superior and a longtime critic of the Minnesota governor, told CNN’s Laura Coates on Friday that Walz avoided deployment to Iraq by retiring months before his scheduled deployment. The deployment announcement was made in the fall of 2004, before Walz’s retirement, Julin said.

“He knew he was going to Iraq,” Vance said. “He decided to retire – to retire, whatever you want to call it … because he wanted to run for Congress. He lied about it. He said when he decided to retire, he didn’t know he was going to Iraq. That’s another untruth, as even his highest-ranking military officer said.

“I am not criticizing his service. I am criticizing dishonesty – dishonesty expressed out of favor and for political gain.”

He also said Harris’ decision to select Walz was “a serious error in judgment.”

“And I don’t want to hear from a Kamala Harris campaign spokesman; I want to hear Kamala Harris herself address what I just said,” Vance said. “He said he served in the war, but he didn’t. That’s dishonesty. … The truth is Tim Walz wasn’t telling the truth, and what’s important, Dana, is Kamala Harris’s judgment is at stake here.”

Vance said that if re-elected, Trump would not try to block access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

However, he said the former president would “leave abortion policy to the states to decide” – a stance that he acknowledged would lead to a patchwork of different policies, including Democratic states with fewer restrictions and Republican states with more restrictions.

When asked about Kate Cox, the Texan who had to leave the state to have an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with a rare and fatal genetic disease, Vance said, “My heart breaks for that woman.”

He said Trump was not trying to “deny women with non-viable pregnancies access to the medical care they need.”

“But President Trump has said we’re going to let the voters make those decisions. … You have to let the voters make those decisions,” Vance said. “I think we have to let the voters decide, and when they voice their opinion, you have to be respectful.”

Vance said he personally “makes no judgment about what these laws should look like.”

Vance said he agreed with Trump’s comment in a press conference last week that presidents should have “at least some say” in Federal Reserve policy – a position that would undermine the central bank’s historic autonomy.

“The political leadership of this country should have more say in the monetary policy of the country. I agree with him. This should fundamentally be a political decision. Whether you agree or not, we should let America’s elected officials have a say in the most important decisions facing our country,” Vance said.

“Whether the country goes to war, what our interest rates are – these are important questions that American democracy should have important answers to,” he said. “I think all President Trump was saying was: It’s kind of odd that so many bureaucrats are making so many important decisions. If the American people don’t like our interest rate policy, they should elect someone else to change that policy. When it comes to the big questions facing the United States, nothing should be above democratic debate in this country.”

After Trump sparked controversy by questioning the ethnicity of Harris – whose parents were immigrants from Jamaica and India – Vance said he believed Harris was “what she says she is.”

However, he again called Harris a political “chameleon” and argued that this was exactly what Trump was trying to convey with his false remarks at the recent National Association of Black Journalists convention.

“She is not running a political campaign. She is running a movie. She is just talking to voters from behind a teleprompter. Everything is scripted. She is not representing her political positions,” Vance said.

He also pointed to the liberal positions Harris took in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, a race she dropped out of in 2019 before the first votes were cast.

“She has not answered why she wanted to ban fracking but is not doing it now; she wanted to defund the police but is not doing it now; she wanted to open the border but is not doing it now,” Vance said.

“She should be held accountable for why she presents different political views to one audience and another audience,” he said. “And I think that’s what President Trump was getting at. She’s fundamentally the wrong person. She’s different depending on who she’s standing in front of.”