(The Center Square) – Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance drew on his Appalachian upbringing to connect with supporters at a rally in Virginia on Monday night, focusing on the region’s depleted manufacturing industry, fentanyl and surging immigration crisis.
Vance, senator from Ohio, stopped earlier in the day in his Ohio hometown. He was announced on the ticket with former President Donald Trump one week to the day earlier.
Vance took aim at outgoing President Joe Biden’s legacy, warning the crowd that Vice President Kamala Harris would be worse.
“History will remember Joe Biden as not just a quitter, which he is, but one of the worst presidents of the United States of America,” Vance said. “But my friends, Kamala Harris is a million times worse. And everybody knows that.”
Vance zeroed in on the vice president’s tenure as Biden’s pick to handle the border, describing her tenure as “substantive failures.”
“Remember, on their very first day in office, she and Biden suspended deportations, they stopped construction of the border wall and they reimplemented catch and release. The border crisis is a Kamala Harris crisis,” said the senator.
Vance accused Harris, a former prosecutor, of being more extreme than Biden on immigration.
“Now it doesn’t stop there,” he said. “Harris is actually even more extreme than Biden even though that’s hard to believe. She wants to totally decriminalize illegal immigration.”
Vance switched focus to manufacturing in an attempt to appeal to the region’s blue-collar workers.
“Now I know this area has been affected by a lot of stupid trade deals, a lot of the deals that have shifted good American manufacturing jobs,” said Vance.
The senator accused the Biden administration of “driving up the cost of goods” with green energy initiatives.
“The green new scam destroying energy jobs in Virginia and Pennsylvania is driving up the cost of goods,” Vance said. “That’s why we’ve got an affordability crisis in this country, my friends, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris they’d rather buy oil and gas from tin pot dictators all over the world. I say they should buy it right here from American workers. It’s simple: Drill, baby, drill.
“It’s not that complicated. We’ve got it right here. Our own workers want to get it out of the ground. Why don’t we just let them. It’ll make our country stronger.”
Vance accused Harris of wanting to ban fracking, drawing boos from the crowd.
“She wants to ban fracking,” he said. “She said that she wanted to ban fracking that is going to destroy hundreds of thousands of energy jobs all across our country. It’s going to empower the very worst and the very, most dangerous regimes in the world. This is crazy.”
He accused “Washington insiders” of selling out blue-collar communities, such as Radford, by shipping manufacturing jobs to other countries, including China.
“For years, Washington insiders in both parties have sold out places like Middletown, Ohio, like Radford, Virginia,” he said. “Both parties shipped millions of good manufacturing jobs overseas. They decided that we didn’t need to make anything in America again.”
He then touched on the fentanyl crisis, reiterating the Biden administration’s border problem.
“We’re going to secure that border under President Trump’s leadership,” Vance said. “We’re going to stop the poison fentanyl that’s coming into our country and we’re going to make America safe for Americans again, not the drug cartels and the criminals.”
Vance closed the rally by vowing energy independence and bringing back manufacturing jobs, a cornerstone of the Trump campaign.
“We have the opportunity to reestablish American energy dominance, restore American manufacturing, defeat this crazy inflation and kick the drug cartels the hell out of our country,” he added.
“So to everybody listening, certainly to Radford, Virginia but all across this commonwealth and forgotten communities in Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio. I make this very simple promise to you. I will fight. President Trump will fight. We will fight every single day to restore an America that works for you.”
