GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — For the fourth time, vice president candidate JD Vance campaigned in West Michigan, hoping to sway voters less than two months away from Election Day.
“We are going to make this country more prosperous again. We're going to make the American dream more affordable again. We are gonna make America great again, and it's gonna start right here in the state of Michigan,” said Vance.
On Tuesday, he spoke with supporters in Sparta about things like the economy. He says Vice President Kamala Harris is to blame for young Americans not being able to afford housing and groceries because of things border control and immigration.
“When Kamala Harris became the vice president and the border czar, she said, 'we're going to suspend all deportations, we're going to decriminalize all illegal immigration, and we are going to stop Donald Trump's wildly successful remain in Mexico policy.' That flooded the United States with a ton of illegal immigrants. And you know what those illegal immigrants did? They compete with Americans for scarce homes,” said Vance.
He also spoke about the workforce in Michigan. When asked by a reporter why states like Michigan may see an increase in residents leaving and an increase in immigrants, he says it’s stopping residents from getting jobs.
“Why have people left Michigan in the last 15 , 20, years? Two things: high taxes and a lack of good jobs. So, the idea that the solution to a lack of jobs is to import a lot more people who are going to compete with Michiganders for the jobs that are here, not create more jobs—that's how you bring people back to Michigan."
Vance also spoke about the import of goods, energy and vehicles from other countries. He said under Harris, the country would continue to use foreign natural energy sources instead of energy sources found in the country. Vance says under Trump, they will create more jobs and increase wages by bringing manufacturing in that industry back to America. They’ll also focus on the auto industry and American-made goods.
“We've got to get out of this mindset, the Kamala Harris mindset, that we can rely on other countries to make the things that we need. You go to a grocery store, you go to a pharmacy, and it is shocking how much everything that we buy in this country is very often made by people, some people who don't even like us. Now, Kamala Harris is trying to make us buy more and more Chinese-made electric vehicles. This is the greatest auto producing state in the whole country, which makes it the capital of the great American automobile. Let's buy more cars in Michigan, not in some foreign country,” said Vance.
When asked about the second attempted assassination of former president Trump, Vance says Trump should have the same security level of the president.
“Donald Trump ought to have the same detail as Joe Biden. That is a policy choice that our federal government has decided that Donald Trump deserves a lesser level of protection, maybe with any normal, formal president. That makes sense. It clearly doesn't meet the challenge of what Donald J. Trump is dealing with. So, we ought to bump up his security,” said Vance.
He also brought up Springfield, Ohio, which has been all over the news because of Trump's claims that Haitian immigrants there are eating cats and dogs there. While Vance didn't speak about that specifically, he did say infrastructures like the city's public schools and hospitals have been stressed from the influx of immigrants.
He also spoke about a number of bomb threats that have been made to this city since these immigrants have migrated there. He claims the threats are from overseas.
Vance joined former president Trump for a rally in Flint later in the day.
Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Detroit on Thursday.