Vance’s pitch to Arizona: Make America affordable again

With 14 days until Election Day, former President Donald Trump is courting voters in the swing state of North Carolina, while his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, traveled to the two toss-up states in the West — Arizona and Nevada.
Vance spoke for about 20 minutes to a crowd at TYR Tactical in Peoria, Arizona, where he touted the Trump administration’s success in securing the southern border and creating a thriving economy.
He also encouraged voters to keep the momentum going, saying, “We wake up on November the sixth, and Kamala Harris is barely elected president of the United States by a 700-vote margin in the state of Arizona. Think about that and ask yourself what you can do from now until then to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Polling shows Arizona is a toss-up state in this presidential election, and the result is expected to be within a razor-thin margin. Both campaigns understand this vulnerability and have consistently put boots on the ground to keep voters engaged and energized.
This week is no different; the Grand Canyon State expects visits from Trump and vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz as well as President Joe Biden, former president Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump Jr.
At the Tuesday event, Vance jokingly said he wants everyone to go and vote for Trump 10 times. “Now, I know, I know, we’re Republicans. We only vote once. … We do it the legal way,” he said before directing the attendees to take people they know with them to the polls.
Vance pointed fingers at Harris for casting the deciding vote in favor of “trillions of dollars of new spending,” in her role as president of the Senate.
“Arizonans are paying $1,000 more per month to buy what they could have bought when Donald Trump was president,” Vance said, before blaming Harris for “one of the worst housing crises we’ve ever seen in this state.”
“When she stands before the American people and says, ‘On day one, we’re going to tackle the affordability crisis,’ or, ‘On day one, we’re going to secure that southern border,’ our response to Kamala Harris is ‘Day one was 1,400 days ago, Kamala, what the hell have you been doing the whole time?” Vance said.
The Ohio senator said Americans — especially senior citizens who were hardest hit by higher inflation — will see lower grocery bills and housing prices if Trump is reelected.
“We’re going to get back to an affordable American nation,” Vance said.
The Republican vice presidential nominee also zeroed in on the claim from the Harris campaign that Trump wants to cut Social Security and Medicare. He said the former president plans to “protect” these benefits, but the Trump-Vance ticket only wants to “make sure that those benefits go to the people who paid for them, and not illegal aliens.”
He also pitched Trump’s proposal to eliminate taxes on Social Security checks to help senior citizens.
Ahead of Vance’s visit, a spokesperson from the Harris-Walz campaign in a statement cited a nonpartisan report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. It stated that Social Security will run out in six years, roughly three years ahead of schedule, if Trump’s policies are enacted. The policies include executing a mass deportation law and codifying the Trump-era tax cuts of 2017.
“Arizonans are looking for leaders who will stand up for their families — not sell them out,” the statement added.
Vance recalled Walz saying they want to be “compassionate” toward migrants at the vice presidential debate earlier this month.
“Look, I don’t disagree with that,” Vance said. “But our compassion as American leaders belongs first to American citizens and people who have the legal right to be here.”
He argued that the Biden-Harris policies are the opposite of compassionate because they allow Mexican cartels to profit from human and drug trafficking.
“We are a compassionate people, which is why we want to secure the damn border and the only way we’re going to do it is if we elect Donald J Trump,” Vance said. He also highlighted Trump’s plan to deport migrants who illegally entered the country.
Vance is expected to speak in Tucson later on Tuesday. The next day, he will head over to Reno, Nevada, where he will tout Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” policy.