Beshear says he’d ‘love’ to debate Vance

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear speaks about the status of construction of the Blue Oval SV Battery Plant during an interview at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), who is seen as one of the leading candidates for Vice President Harris to choose as her running mate, said he would be “excited” to debate the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).

“I would love the opportunity to debate him, just as I know the vice president would love to debate former President Trump,” Beshear told the Des Moines Register in an interview Saturday while campaigning in Iowa to rally Democrats in the state.

After President Biden dropped out as the Democratic nominee, Harris became the presumptive nominee and is now vetting candidates to join her on the ticket. That list includes Beshear, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Penn.), Tim Walz (D-Minn.) and Roy Cooper (D-N.C.), as well as Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

On Monday, Beshear spoke to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and attacked Vance, saying that “he’s not from here” and calling him “phony and phony” because of Vance’s opinions about Appalachia in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Beshear reiterated this criticism in his interview on Saturday.

“Our debate would be admittedly a little personal,” he told the Des Moines Register. “This is a man who used to come to Kentucky for a couple of weeks a summer, maybe, and then wrote a book (Hillbilly Elegy) claiming to know us, claiming to understand our culture. He called my people lazy, and these are the coal miners who built this country.”

On Monday, a spokesman for Vance responded to Beshear’s attack on Vance by saying that Beshear, whose father was also governor of Kentucky, “grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“JD grew up in Appalachia during the summers of his life and came from a poor family, something Andy Beshear could never relate to because he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth thanks to his politician/lawyer father,” Vance spokesman Taylor Van Kirk wrote to The Hill on Monday.

“Unlike Beshear, who rode into the governorship in his father’s wake, Senator Vance has had to earn everything he has accomplished in this life.”

Vance also told reporters it was odd that Beshear would “criticize” his “origin story” when he “inherited the governorship from his father.”

Beshear responded to that criticism in his interview with the Des Moines Register, in which he again called Vance “a phony.”

“Those were his words, ‘origin story,'” he said. “Now Batman has an origin story. Fictional characters have origin stories. Real people have childhoods and upbringings, and it shows you how fake this is.”

Beshear added that whether or not he is Harris’ running mate, he hopes to help voters see “the real Kamala Harris,” and that he feels “honored” to be considered.

“I think I’m bringing someone who knows how to talk to people, who can go into the deepest purple or red parts of every swing state and talk to people in a way that empowers them to be a part of it, that explains why we’re doing what we’re doing, and ultimately makes sure they see the real Kamala Harris and not who the other side is trying to turn her into,” he told the Des Moines Register.

Beshear has been one of Harris’s top surrogates and attackers of Vance since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Beshear will also speak at a rally in Atlanta on Monday.