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Vance Speaks At Campaign Event In Key Swing State Wisconsin; Vance Takes Questions From Media At End of Wisconsin Campaign Event. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 07, 2024 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:32:18]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: We want to get you out to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where Senator J.D. Vance is holding a rally. Let's take a quick listen.

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- the vice presidents' plane on the tarmac. We landed about the same time that she did.

And I went over there because I thought it might be nice to check out this plane that's going to be mine in a few months, if we all take care of business.

(LAUGHTER)

VANCE: And I think we will.

(APPLAUSE)

VANCE: But mostly, actually, I want to go and say hello to the journalists who are traveling along with the vice president because I figured they must be lonely because Kamala Harris doesn't take any questions.

And I want to just point this out before we let the media ask me some questions, but I think it's really disgraceful, both for Kamala Harris, but also for a lot of the American media that participates in this stuff.

To have a person who has been the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for 17 days and refuses to take a single question from the American media.

Now, it's well-known, of course, that President Trump and I will go anywhere. We'll answer any question because we respect the American people enough to actually ask them for their vote.

Rather than sit in front of a teleprompter, read scripted lines and run away from every reporter on every actual citizen who's going to decide this election.

I think it's a scandal. And I think the vice president should be ashamed of herself.

So hopefully, our reporters out there in the audience will start doing their job a little bit and going and demanding that Kamala Harris actually answer to the American people.

And what should she answer for? I think that's an important thing to point out here before I kick it over to you guys for some questions.

Well, one thing she should answer for, we're in a great American manufacturing facility here, and I appreciate you all showing up and standing behind me.

But one thing we know is that you cannot manufacture in this country unless you have access to low-cost power. And we happen to be sitting on the Saudi Arabia of natural gas in this country.

We happen to have unlimited oil and gas resources right here in the United States of America. And yet, Kamala Harris would rather get energy from tin-pot dictator in Iran and Russia than from American citizens and American workers.

And not only is that driving up the cost of power for hard-working American families, it's also making it harder and harder to manufacture right here in the United States of America.

And I'm one of these guys who believes that it's important that we make more things right here in the USA. We want to make more of our own pharmaceuticals. What to make more of our own manufactured goods. We want to make more of our own food.

We have to be self-sufficient as a people. And if we're not self- sufficient, it's going to allow the Communist Chinese to run all over us. And that's exactly what they've been doing under the Harris administration.

The other thing that Kamala Harris ought to answer for is this terrible crisis at the American southern border. She has been the borders czar for three-and-a-half years and Americans have suffered because of it.

I know this community has been affected by it. I know I've seen the consequences of it personally.

[14:35:04]

But the fentanyl that the Mexican drug cartels are bringing into our country, it is killing Americans by the bushels, and it is unnecessary. It is happening because of failed public policy.

I talked to somebody just yesterday, actually, two kids, a 19-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, and their mom and dad had died of a fentanyl overdose just five years prior, when they we're 10 and 14- years-old.

These two kids we're orphaned. And they're incredible kids. And I told them I was rooting for them. And I just -- I can't believe what leadership has let what has happened to these children happen...

It's not necessary. There's no American that once the Mexican drug cartels to take advantage of our country and make billions of dollars selling drugs into our communities.

And these kids suffered because of it. You have a little girl whose bounced around for foster homes in just the past four years because of the poison that took her parents from her.

And you ask yourselves, why are we doing this? Why are we letting this stuff come into our country?

I know very personally the pain of addiction. And one of you saw my RNC remarks. But, you know, my mom struggled with addiction for pretty much my entire life and she's been clean and sober for nearly 10 years now.

And that's an incredible blessing for my family, an incredible blessing for kids to be able to get to know their grandmother.

But I really believe that if the poison that Kamala Harris is letting come across the border in 2024 was coming across the border 15 years ago or 12 years ago, I would've never got that second chance with my mom.

And we would never have the opportunity to see her build a wonderful relationship with her three grandchildren.

And if this campaign of Donald Trump's and mine is about anything, it's about preserving the American dream. And the American dream is sometimes a thing of second chances.

We want moms and dads to recover from addiction and get another chance with their kids. We want kids who come from a poor family to be able to stand here and run for vice president United States.

Because it's the greatest country in the world. And we are proud of it. And it provides incredible bounty and incredible opportunity to our people.

We want kids who grew up in low-income families to be able to walk outside and walk down the street without being -- without being afraid of a violent crime because violent crime has skyrocketed under the Harris administration.

We want police officers to be able to do their job and maybe receive a thank you from the federal government and not a federal government that makes their job more and more difficult.

And in all these areas, we have a country that's going in the wrong direction thanks to Kamala Harris. And I think that it's important to say we could be doing so much better.

And not just that we could be doing so much better. We were doing so much better when Donald J. Trump was president of the United States. We had somebody who was fighting for American manufacturing, American workers and fighting for their jobs.

We had somebody who was empowering our police and make an easier for them to do their jobs. We had somebody who was stopping the flow of fentanyl and stopping the Mexican drug cartels from taking advantage of our country.

And we had somebody who was pursuing the kind of economic policies where you could build a life in your home without having groceries become unaffordable, without having housing become unaffordable.

The most consistent complaint that I hear from people all across the country -- and I've been to more than a dozen states, I think just since Donald Trump tapped me.

The most consistent complaint that I hear is that it is harder and harder for normal people to get by. And I happen to think that if you work hard and play by the rules in this country, you ought to be entitled to a good life in the country that your grandparents built.

It's a very simple, very simple goal, and it's something that we can get for everybody.

Now, is that possible? Thanks to Kamala Harris, grocery prices are up 30 percent since she took office. Gas prices are up 50 percent since she took office. Rent is over 40 percent since she took office.

Every single thing that Americans need to buy in order to live a halfway decent life has become more expensive because of Kamala Harris' economic policies.

And instead of saying, I'm sorry, instead of saying maybe we should go in a different direction, she is running from the media, refusing to answer tough questions, and hoping that a basement campaign is going to earn her a promotion.

And I think we ought to say to Kamala Harris, you are fired. Your policies didn't work. Your agenda doesn't work. And it's not what the American people want.

So let me just -- let me just recap it here. And then I will turn it over to the media.

On day one, Kamala Harris suspended deportations. On day one, Kamala Harris stopped or is -- Harris stopped deportations for the American people.

On day one, Kamala Harris refused to continue construction of the Trump border wall. On day one, Kamala Harris basically refused to push back against the drug cartels in this country.

[14:40:06]

And on day one, Kamala Harris said that she was going to decriminalize illegal aliens, and she did all of those things. Now, American -- the American people have suffered the consequences because of it.

On day one, Kamala Harris became the border czar. And ever since then, we've had a wide-open southern border.

Now it's not just what she's done on day one. It's what she's done ever since then. She cast the deciding vote for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that sent a lot of our resources to China and sent interest rates through the roof.

She cast the deciding vote for the very policies that made groceries and gas and housing less affordable for American citizens. And I think it's very simple. I think that we can do better. I know that we can do better. We we're doing better when Donald J. Trump was president.

So thank you all for being here. Thanks for standing in support of our president.

And to all the American people out there who are listening these remarks or who will hear them on TV just a little bit later, my very simple request is to think about people who are suffering in this country.

Think about kids who lost a parent to an opioid overdose. Think about families, like mine, who can't afford groceries when they go up by 30 percent.

Think about families that are struggling because the mom and the dad can't get a good job because Kamala Harris would rather build the Chinese middle-class than the American middle-class.

Those people could be doing so much better. And they will, so long as Donald Trump becomes president.

And my final comment I'll say is, it says on our national -- our national currency, "In God We Trust." That is the motto of the United States of America.

I believe that God calls us to hope and not to despair. And I really do hope for this country and believe that this country's best days are ahead of it.

But the most important thing that we can do to give people all across this country hope is to get them a government that actually he works for American citizens. And that is by electing Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump president of the United States.

Thank you all and God bless you. Appreciate it.

(APPLAUSE)

VANCE: And what I'd like to do here -- what I'd like to do is start with the local reporters and then, if we have questions from national reporters afterwards, then I'll call on you.

So if you're a local news outlet, if you throw your hand in the air, and I'll try to call on you.

Sir, right there.

DANIEL GOMEZ, WEAU NEWS: Hi. Daniel Gomez, WEAU News.

So we just talked about the border and everything and talked about addiction. You know, here an Eau Claire, earlier, like five months ago, we lost two hospitals, including an addiction resource center --

(CROSSTALK)

GOMEZ: -- as well.

And as you know, Eau Claire County voted blue in the 2020 election, voting for Biden.

So what can you tell Wisconsinites here in Eau Claire County in western Wisconsin, who are battling addiction, who are battling these sort of things with such limited resources, what can you tell them to help us, you know, see your way and see that you guys are the rightful choice here.

You know, even just without even mentioning the border because we're far away from the Mexican border. But, you know, what can you do for Wisconsinites up here in the upper northwest?

VANCE: So we are far away from the Mexican border, of course. But we're not far away from the fentanyl that Mexican drug cartels bring into communities like, Eau Claire.

That's why I talk about it. And every state is now a border state because every state is affected by the problems.

But particularly on this question about hospitals, and how do we actually reinvigorate hospitals in some of our small towns and more rural areas in our country?

I think there are two answers to this question. One goes directly to the immigration problem and one doesn't.

Look, first of all, we need to actually invest in our hospital system. We've seen -- since Obamacare was passed, we've seen a lot of rural hospitals, hospitals in small towns close down.

You cannot have a good health care system, you're never going to help people beat addiction if they've got to drive 90 minutes let's to the closest hospital, so we've got to preserve the rural health care infrastructure that exists in this country.

And this is where the illegal immigration issue bears on it directly. Because we know that Kamala Harris wants to give health care benefits, sometimes Medicaid, sometimes Medicare, to illegal aliens.

We also know that when illegal aliens come in, they have to be housed in the jail sometimes, or they have to be housed somewhere else if they're not committing crimes. That costs local taxpayer money.

We know they have to be fed. That costs local taxpayer moneys. We know that they have to be -- they have to be provided shelter, right? That costs money. And you combine all those things, those are tax dollars that are not going to build out our rural hospital infrastructure and support our hospitals.

They're going to people who shouldn't be here. Maybe they're good people, but they shouldn't be here. And we've got to put the interest of our citizens first,

That starts with prioritizing things like hospitals, medical services, food and shelter, that stuff.

I want -- I want us to be a generous country. And I know Donald Trump wants this to be a generous country. But that generosity starts with investing in American citizens and people who have the right to be.

Sir?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A poll from Marquette University that came out earlier today, it shows a virtual tie --

[14:45:02]

VANCE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- between former President Trump and Vice President Harris. There's an old saying in politics, that what can swing undecided voters in a place like Wisconsin, is whether you seem like somebody they would like to have a beer with.

VANCE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why would people in Wisconsin want to have a beer with you?

(LAUGHTER)

VANCE: Well, I guess -- I guess they'd like -- they'd want to have a beer with me because I actually do like to drink beer.

(LAUGHTER)

VANCE: And I probably like to drink beer a little bit too much. But that's OK. I'm sure the media won't give me too much crap over that.

But look, I mean, my -- my -- the reason I'm doing this and the reason I think Donald Trump is doing this -- and I think the media often slanderS him -- but I've never met a guy who likes normal people more than Donald Trump.

I've never met a guy who, when he's got a big decision to make, he will solicit feedback from every single person all over the country.

It's funny, when he was actually thinking about who was going to be his vice-presidential running mate, I met with him actually the morning that -- of the attempted assassination, on Saturday morning. And he said, you know, J.D., everybody asking me what I am going to do for V.P. and I'm asking everybody. He said, in fact this morning, I talked to the gardener at Mar-a-Lago.

And I said, well, sir, what did the Mar-a-Lago gardener say? I mean, this bears directly on my life. I'm very curious here.

And look, I'm -- I'm very much the same way. I mean, I like the people of this country. I like people who work hard and play by the rules.

I like people who just want to take their kids to a ballgame or invest in their community or spend a little time watching TV and making the things that actually make this country work.

They do it. And they do it right here in this factory. And the people behind me do it every single day.

And I just -- I think that to lead this country, you should feel some gratitude for it and you should feel some admiration for the people who actually make the country run.

And I will say, sometimes, I hear Kamala Harris, and she talks about the history of this country and she likes to put it down a little bit. I don't know that she actually admires the people who work in this factory. I hope that she does.

But I don't really see that gratitude. I don't really hear that gratitude when she speaks. I certainly do. And I think that that's one of the reasons why I'd make a good vice president, is because I actually care about the people standing behind me.

And I think they feel like I care for them. And I think they care for me, too.

(APPLAUSE)

VANCE: To the local -- the local. The woman in the red

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tim Walz said that he cannot wait to debate. Your reaction to that? And is there one issue that you would really like to debate him on?

VANCE: Minneapolis. Here, we're trying to focus on Wisconsin. But I'm sure you're reach, I guess, spreads across the border. So why ask the question?

Look, I think -- I want to debate Governor Walz because, nothing to do with Governor Walz, but because the American people deserve to see the people who want to be their vice president stand before them and try to persuade them.

And it's one of the things that's really frustrating to me about Kamala's campaign is that she seems totally uninterested in actually talking to American voters and persuading them.

If there's a single issue around which I think Governor Walz has to answer when it comes to his record, this is a guy who says he stands for public safety, but actively encouraged the rioters who burn down Minneapolis.

And I think that if you want to say you've stand for public safety, you cannot look the American people in the eye and say, well, I welcomed the people who caused $13 billion of damage to Minneapolis because I encourage them to burn my city to the ground.

Rather than exercise some basic self-control and rather encouraged law enforcement to do what they can do and keep us all save.

I'm just -- I'm scandalized by this guy pretending that he stands for working people. Working people need to live in communities with public safety.

Working people need to be able to build a business and know that some hoodlum isn't going to come along and burn it to the ground because of a political issue.

Working people need the police to be supported in their communities. And Governor Walz has been a total failure on all those things.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I am local.

VANCE: Great. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you believe elections in Wisconsin are conducted fairly and securely? Obviously, you're running mate had some issues with that in the last election.

VANCE: Well, one of the things that Wisconsin did very poorly in the 2020 election is that it actually allowed a lot of big tech billionaires to spend a lot of money, I think, putting influence on local boards of election.

And as I understand it, Wisconsin has actually stopped that. And kudos to Wisconsin for stopping that. Because that's -- that's ridiculous.

You cannot have private billionaires, who own social media companies, buying up public boards of elections, influencing public boards of elections.

And again, as I understand it, that stopped. So I see a lot of reason to be optimistic about the election in Wisconsin.

Of course, President Trump and I want there to be a free and fair election because we want every legal vote to count. That's the hallmark of America's constitutional republic.

Is that everybody's vote has to count. But for everybody votes to count, everything has to be safe and secure. I feel a lot of confidence about Wisconsin.

But it certainly as a campaign. And we're going to continue to monitor things. We're going to continue to make sure that people are doing things the right way.

And I think the voters of Wisconsin should have some confidence that the Trump campaign is on top of this stuff and focused on this stuff.

And we think we're going to have a great election in Wisconsin. And I think we're going to win.

Sir?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE), Eau Claire.

[14:50:00]

As you know, Kamala Harris is also speaking in Eau Claire now --

VANCE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- with her new running mate, Tim Walz. Why did you choose to speak here in Eau Claire today, at the same time as Harris.

VANCE: Well, we wanted to make sure there was a contrast. In part, because the media has been so dishonest about Kamala Harris' record.

And, in part, because they refuse to ask her questions. We wanted to make sure that there was at least somebody out there providing an alternative story.

We have to remember, President Trump delivered a closed border and rising wages. What has Kamala Harris delivered?

A promise to defund the police, a promise to ban fracking and offshore drilling, a promise to destroy the American energy sector, a promise to increase the prices of the goods that the American people rely on.

She has not been a good vice president for the American people. And I don't think she deserves a promotion. I think she deserves to be fired.

And that's what we're here talking to people about because the media needs to tell the other side of the story. And unfortunately, I think unless you have somebody here, they're not going to do that.

Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: We've heard a lot from Democrats using the word weird, calling you, calling former President Trump weird. What do you make of that weird argument?

VANCE: I think that the weird argument, honestly, came from a bunch of 24-year-old social media interns who are bullied in school. And they decided they're going to project that onto the entire Trump campaign.

And the reason it doesn't make sense is because, you ask who's weird, right? Is -- I think it's pretty weird to be the border czar and to open up the border and allow fentanyl coming into your community. I think it's pretty weird to try to take children away from their parents if the parents don't want to consent to sex changes. That's something that Tim Walz did.

I think it's pretty weird to want to defund the police. I think it's pretty weird to pretend that you're a tough-on-crime prosecutor, even though you pursued the policies that made San Francisco such a disaster when it comes to crime and public safety.

So if they want to call me weird -- look, I've got my wife here. I've got three beautiful kids at home. I'm a normal guy who wants to live the American dream and wants all of you and your kids to be able to live the American dream. That's I'm in it.

If those people want to call me weird, I think it's a badge of honor.

Yes?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST; You've been listening to J.D. Vance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Just to be clear, Tim Walz did not try to take children away from parents if they would not consent to sex changes.

But just a few other things to fact check here. I think specifically on the border, which is an issue that really animates voters. And not just Republicans. A lot of voters. And that's why you hear J.D. Vance really hammering on it.

But while there are many things that the Biden and Harris administration have to answer for on that, some of what J.D. Vance said just does not ring true.

For instance, he said that, right now, there's a terrible crisis at the southern border.

Just to be clear, border numbers are actually down right now. They're at a three-year low since January of 2021, since that executive order that President Biden signed. They have fallen for four months in a row.

He blamed Biden and Harris for the fentanyl crisis in America. And it is a crisis to be clear. I think, look at any community, you see that. But he left out that it started during the Trump administration during Covid.

It was really an issue of closures at the border and drugs coming over in a more concentrated way. Less could get through. It became more concentrated. That persisted into the Biden-Harris administration.

But certainly, he also seemed to allude as well to it being a root -- the root cause of it being illegal immigration. He was kind of alluding to that.

And that's just not the truth. It comes through legal ports of entry. And it is almost entirely being brought by American citizens. He also seemed to allude to, if Kamala Harris we're in charge, if she

we're the borders, as he put it, which is not a correct characterization, when his mother was struggling with addiction, and that his mother would be dead.

So he is certainly trying to play on the emotions of this crowd.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And look, the fentanyl crisis, it goes without saying, it did not just start over the course of this administration.

KEILAR: Right.

JIMENEZ: This is something that goes back years. We even start to see the rise of it back to 2015. And we even saw some numbers start to drop a little bit from over the past two years. But still at a level that is killing so many Americans at a rate that no one wants to see.

I also want to pick up on one other aspect that he talked about, saying that Governor Tim Walz actively encouraged rioters to burn down the city of Minneapolis.

That didn't happen. In fact, while there is some question about how quickly the National Guard was called in and whether they should have been called in a day earlier or not.

This was the first instance in decades that the entire contingent of the National Guard was activated to try and deal with it.

And there was a legislative report that concluded that -- that Governor Walz did not realize the severity of events as they unfolded, resulting in a delayed reaction and increased violence.

But we didn't see an encouragement of the rioters to burn down the city of Minneapolis.

KEILAR: Yes, that's right. Yes. It was a bipartisan report.

Let's bring in Alayna Treene on this.

It's a bipartisan report. There are lots of questions that I think can be asked, certainly, of these topics, but he's really stretching it here.

[14:55:06]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Yes. And I think -- I mean, overall, we could go through everything he said and have to fact-checked the majority of those remarks.

But I think, if you take a step back and you think about what the strategy is here -- and this is something I know from my conversations with the Trump campaign -- they want to be focusing on policy.

And even if the policy that they're putting forward is not necessarily the truth, that is what they want to be in voter's minds. And part of this, and the reason you're hearing J.D. Vance himself

talk about this, is because they've been trying to get Donald Trump to talk about immigration, crime and inflation for the entire election cycle.

He's struggled to do that. We've seen his speeches. He riffs. He goes off script. He ends up going into more personal attacks.

What they have told J.D. Vance to do specifically, and what his goal has been for this week and beyond in all of these battleground states, is to try to talk about these exact things.

And of course, we are hearing some of the fear mongering that is very reminiscent of the 2016 campaign. It's exactly what the Harris campaign is trying to point out.

We're trying to have an optimistic message, try to look toward the future. This is looking backward.

But this is J.D. Vance's goal. And I also find -- something that I found interesting, just comparing the speech here in the same city, Eau Claire.

That we're hearing from Harris and Walz, he also was in Michigan this morning. And in both of these speeches, he focused more so on Harris and going after Harris.

And this comes, as we know, that the Trump campaign has been struggling ever since Joe Biden ended his campaign a couple of weeks ago on how to define him.

And that's what you're trying to see him do. The problem is they still do not know which of these attacks work best and how they can best frame this message to a lot of voters.

They're still trying to figure out what this playbook looks like for someone like Harris, and now Harris-Walz versus Joe Biden. And so that's a lot of what we we're hearing and in that speech.

JIMENEZ: And look, there are -- as we talked about, there are legitimate areas to ask questions on that we've seen. We don't have to say the border situation.

Of course, even with Harris herself sort of switching positions from when she first ran for president to now. There are legitimate questions. But clearly, it is part of a strategy that we're seeing.

And you see it almost in every answer that he gave there to the members of the press.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly did.

Alayna, thank you so much for that. We do appreciate it.

And any minute now, Vice President Kamala Harris will be taking the stage not far from where you just saw J.D. Vance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. She'll be there with her new running mate, Governor Tim Walz. So don't go anywhere. Well bring that to you.

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