Sen. JD Vance blames VP Kamala Harris for inflation at campaign stop in western Michigan
BYRON TOWNSHIP — Donald Trump running mate U.S. Sen. JD Vance sought to retool the Trump presidential campaign attacks Wednesday, taking aim more directly at Vice President Kamala Harris during a visit to western Michigan.
Vance sought to directly tie the nation's inflation problems to votes taken by Harris, speaking to several hundred people at Cordes Inc., a family-owned trucking company in Byron Center, an unincorporated community near Grand Rapids.
"Inflation happens when the U.S. government spends money we don't have," Vance said.
He then noted that Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate both to open debate on the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 — two huge spending bills that critics say contributed to inflation, despite the name attached to the latter bill, which included significant allocations related to energy and combating climate change.
Still, Vance delivered his speech the same day the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. prices rose 2.9% year over year in July, which was the smallest increase since April 2021.
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Michigan is a key battleground state in the November election. Trump and Vance are scrambling to refocus their message amid recent polling showing that Harris has erased Trump's lead over President Joe Biden since Biden decided in July to not seek a second term and instead throw his support to Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.
Vance also attacked Harris in ways that suggested she — not Biden — had been in charge of the country for the past four years: "We will never accept four more years of Kamala Harris," he said.
Trump selected Vance as his Republican running mate in July. Vance, a first-term U.S. senator from Ohio, is the author of a 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." He has a law degree from Yale.
Though his populist pitch hits on many of the same themes — attacking inflation, border issues and outsourcing of jobs to countries such as China — Vance's delivery is not nearly as dark as Trump's. The former president frequently describes the U.S. as a failing nation under Biden.
Vance had a brighter message: "This is the greatest country in the world," he told the crowd. "The American dream is still alive."
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, on Wednesday blasted Trump’s handling of the economy during his time in the White House and celebrated investments in new manufacturing facilities and efforts to lower drug prices by the current Democratic presidential administration.
“This election is a choice between two very different visions: One that grows the economy and reduces costs for people, and one that helps billionaires and big corporations at the expense of working families,” Stabenow said during a virtual news briefing hosted by the Harris campaign ahead of Vance’s visit. “If there’s two things Michigan voters hate, it’s Buckeyes and politicians that lie to them, and JD Vance is both.”
At the Republican event, Tom Wager, of Greenville, who recently retired from his job installing machinery mostly related to the automotive industry, said he was there to support Vance, who he had never before seen in person, and the Trump campaign.
“We need to find some leadership,” Wager said.
Aurelia Becker, a real estate broker from Grandville, said she was impressed with Vance when she recently saw him speak in Grand Rapids, but showed up Wednesday to learn more about him and to support Trump.
Her biggest election concern is getting the votes counted accurately, she said. Becker said that she doesn’t believe Trump lost the 2020 election and doesn’t believe the current election is as close as the polls indicate.
“It’s very frustrating,” Becker said. “I do a lot of praying and just hope that things are on the up and up this year.”
Free Press staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Vance blames VP Harris for inflation at west Michigan campaign stop
