JD Vance says ‘every state is a border state’ as he tackles cartel impact in Wisconsin

MILWAUKEE (TND) — The Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate spoke to a police union in Wisconsin on Friday.

Donald Trump’s running mate delivered a speech at the Milwaukee Police Association headquarters, focusing on crime.

In his speech, he addressed the need for supportive law enforcement policies and highlighted key problems with the current leadership.

“What we’re talking about today is how do we have a law enforcement policy that only supports the people who are actually keeping us safe,” said Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. “We need a president, Donald J. Trump, who will make their job easier, not harder. We’ve got to stop the insanity of anti-law enforcement. We’ve got to stop some of the policies that have come out of the Harris administration that make it harder for police to do their job.”

It was the first time Vance had given a political speech in Milwaukee, but his second in Wisconsin.

He criticized Harris for the way she handled sex crimes when she was a prosecutor.

“Kamala Harris implemented a policy that reclassified people who committed sex crimes with minors and people who raped unconscious victims as nonviolent crimes,” Vance said before offering his interpretation. “That means those people get out of jail sooner, that means their victims have to endure the psychological abuse of seeing them walking down the street sooner, and that means the police officer has a few more sick people to take care of instead of sitting in jail where those sex offenders belong.”

The Republican didn’t stop there with his criticism. He blasted Harris’s record as the Biden administration’s border czar for making American communities less safe.

“So the border policies that we have on the southern border are making our communities less safe, even as far north as Wisconsin. It means that Mexican drug cartels are operating in our communities. It means that people are dying from fentanyl,” Vance said. “I spoke to another police officer who said that we have fentanyl not only in heroin and opioids, but even in prescription pills, or I guess non-prescription pills that are sold on the street. We have fentanyl in our marijuana bags that our teenagers are using.”

Vance stressed the importance of curbing illegal immigration to improve public safety and called Donald Trump’s potential reelection critical to supporting law enforcement. “Kamala Harris is refusing to do her job,” Vance said, linking border policies to the fentanyl crisis.

Vance’s campaign pointed the finger at the Harris-Biden administration, saying “dangerously liberal Democrats have done absolutely nothing” to tackle crime in places like Milwaukee.

“President Donald Trump and JD Vance know that Wisconsinites cannot tolerate four more years of weak leadership and are devastated that Americans are suffering because of the Democrats’ lackadaisical approach to crime,” the campaign said.

Governor Walz and Harris are expected at their meeting in Milwaukee next week.

Earlier this week, the Harris campaign noted that violent crime is declining under the Biden-Harris administration.

“While Vice President Harris has helped oversee the largest drop in homicides in 50 years, J.D. Vance is campaigning alongside a convicted felon who saw violent crime spike during his presidency and tried to overturn an election on January 6,” said Brianna Johnson, the Harris campaign’s Wisconsin communications director. “Vice President Harris is the only candidate who will keep our communities safe and protect our democracy.”

Trump will hold a rally in Wilkes-Barre this weekend, while Harris and her running mate will kick off a bus tour in Pittsburgh on Sunday, just before the Democratic National Convention.