Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his first appearance as Harris’s running mate and launched a barrage of attacks on former President Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
“I just have to say it. You know. You can feel it. These people are creepy, and they’re, like, weird as hell. That’s what you see,” Walls said to raucous applause from the Philadelphia rally crowd, describing the viral new framing of the Trump campaign as “weird.”
“If Trump gets a chance to come back, he’s going to pick up exactly where he left off four years ago, except this time it’s going to be much, much worse,” Walz said, arguing that the Republican nominee would repeal the Affordable Care Act, undermine Social Security and Medicare, and ban abortion nationwide.
“He never sat at the kitchen table like I did growing up and wondered how he was going to pay his bills. He sat at the country club at Mar-a-Lago and wondered how he could reduce the taxes of his wealthy friends,” Walls said.
The Minnesota governor slammed his vice presidential rival, claiming Vance shares Trump’s “dangerous and backward agenda for this country.”
“Like all the other people I know who grew up in the Midwest, JD went to Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller criticizing that community. Come on! That’s not Midwest,” Walls said, adding, “I can’t wait to debate him.”
Waltz won a fiercely contested “vice presidential” primary to join Harris in the newly formed presidential race, just two weeks after President Biden made the historic decision to withdraw from the 2024 race.
Also seen as strong contenders were Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D), who opened their rally in Philadelphia Tuesday night with glowing praise for both candidates.
Walz’s political star rose last week after a video of him labeling Republicans “weird” went viral online, prompting other leading Democrats to adopt the phrase instead of their usual style of characterizing Trump as an existential threat to democracy.
Harris officially secured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, and the Harris-Wales campaign is poised to take on the Trump-Vance candidate this fall.
