AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — No more “Midwest nice.”
Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, back on the campaign trail after his matchup with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, eschewed the debate-stage niceties that marked their relatively cordial meeting and went back on the offensive Wednesday.
Coming off a debate performance that former President Donald Trump described as “fantastic,” saying it “reconfirmed his choice” of a running mate in an interview with Fox News, Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, delved into his recap of the debate within minutes of beginning his campaign remarks in the northern Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills on Wednesday afternoon.
“Now, we, of course, had a debate last night — a vice presidential debate. I thought it went pretty well,” Vance said. He then told the crowd packed into an aerospace company warehouse that he spoke with Trump on Tuesday night after he got off the stage.
“He said that Tim Walz said that he was friends with school shooters twice, and that’s something I actually didn’t notice, that Tim Walz had said that on the debate stage,” Vance said, recounting the conversation. From there, the story quickly pivoted into a new attack on his Democratic counterpart: “That was probably only the third or fourth dumbest comment Tim Walz made that night then.”
It was a far cry from the litany of times Vance emphasized he agreed with Walz onstage in New York. And Walz was not the only member of the Democratic ticket to catch barbs from Vance as he reveled in the traditional VP role of attack dog Wednesday.
He also aimed his fire at Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, calling her an “absolute disgrace” and blaming her for the “rancor” in national politics. Without naming names, he also claimed that many in Washington describe Harris as “insecure.”
Vance, who often assumes the role of a fire-them-up base messenger for the Trump campaign, has previously been dispatched to translate MAGA to the median voter before other types of crowds — separate from the often-polarizing Trump. In a speech before the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston, for example, Vance weaved his family’s struggle with addiction with a pitch trying to frame the Trump-Vance Republican Party as the “party of the American worker.” (The IAFF has yet to endorse in the presidential race.)
Vance brought the same strategy to the debate stage: trying to defend and share the Trump agenda without coming across as too combative to an audience that was more ideologically mixed than those at the campaign rallies he often headlines. He at times agreed with Walz on issues like addressing gun violence and offered sympathies after Walz said his teenage son, Gus, witnessed a shooting at a Minneapolis community center as he was playing volleyball.
At a second event Wednesday on the grounds of a racetrack in suburban Grand Rapids, Vance again opened his remarks with a mention of the debate — this time with a twist.
“In some ways, I’ve got the easiest job in American politics,” Vance said, likening the role of a vice presidential running mate to salesman for the campaign.
“You know, I never worked in sales myself, but it’s always good when you work in sales to have a good product to sell,” he continued, before he took aim at the Democratic ticket with one final wind-up: “Unfortunately for Tim Walz, he’s got the crappiest product to sell in the entire United States of America.”