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PHILADELPHIA — Republican VP pick Sen. JD Vance hit Philadelphia on Tuesday to kick off a multiday tour of critical swing states — stressing that unlike Vice President Kamala Harris, he is looking to speak to the press.
Harris has not done an extended interview with any major news outlet since President Biden dropped out of his re-election race and endorsed her to replace him as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.
She has responded to some shouted questions during her travels but has had very few unscripted moments.
“Kamala Harris, our border czar, is asking the American people to make her the next president of the United States,” Vance said during a campaign event. “And yet, for the past 16 days and counting, the American media has been unable to ask her a question.
“Now agree or disagree with me and President Trump: Nobody would dispute that we will go anywhere and we will talk to anyone,” the Ohio congressman said.
Harris announced her own swing-state tour before Vance, and both are scheduled to hit many of the same election hot spots: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina. Harris is also traveling to Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
Vance is labeling his swing as a media tour, while Harris will deliver remarks alongside her newly picked VP candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“She is running a basement campaign where she refuses to go before the free press and actually answer their questions,” Vance said at his rally. “Well, what kind of election can you have if your own presidential candidate won’t actually answer the tough questions?”
Biden had the fewest press conferences in modern presidential history and was often shielded by his staff to not take questions from reporters at his White House events.
Vance spent his time speaking about the open-border policies of the Biden-Harris administration and brought in speakers from Pennsylvania to share their stories of how drugs brought across the border have negatively impacted their families.
Rally attendees who The Post spoke to – such as Dorett Jackson, 65, and Dawn Rhodes, 62 – said they were in Philadelphia to hear Vance speak about his policies.
“We know what we’ve seen on television. You know he’s a senator. We know all of that and his background, but we wanted to hear him actually express his views and see what he’s going to talk about today to this crowd,” Jackson said.
Brian Shine, 46, works at a golf club in Phoenixville, Penn., about an hour northwest of Philadelphia, slammed Walz’s record during the George Floyd riots in 2020.
Shine said he attended Tuesday’s event to support Vance after learning his story from watching “Hillbilly Elegy,” the Netflix movie based on a 2016 memoir Vance published about his life growing up in a struggling, working-class Appalachian family.
“I watched the movie, and it really touched me. And yeah, just being in recovery myself for four and a half years, he knows what it’s like,” Shine said, referring to Vance experiencing his mom’s struggles with drug addiction and mental issues.
“He saw it firsthand with his mom,” Shine said. “He knows what it’s like for the average American, just trying to survive in this economy, and it’s damn near impossible.
“I’m working two jobs, and I can barely make ends meet,” the Pennsylvania man said. “I’ve been priced out of housing like it. It’s impossible to buy a house; it’s impossible to go on vacation. It’s impossible to live the American dream. We put America last with Biden Harris, and it’s not fair. It’s not right.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to an inquiry from The Post.
