Vance says Democrats are engaging in ‘schoolyard bully’ attacks

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said in a Sunday interview that Democrats are engaging in “schoolyard bully” attacks by calling the GOP ticket “weird.”

“It drives home how they’re trying to distract from their own policy failures. I mean, look, this is fundamentally schoolyard bully stuff,” Vance said on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash. “They can accuse me of whatever they want to accuse me of.”

“I’m doing this because I think that me being vice president will help improve people’s lives, so I accept their attacks, but I think that it is a little bit of projection, Dana,” Vance added.

Vance tried to levy similar attacks on the Democratic ticket, saying Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) — Harris’s new running mate — “gave his wife a nice, firm Midwestern handshake” when he was tapped as the vice president pick “and then tried to sort of awkwardly correct for it.”

“So I think that what it is is two people, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who aren’t comfortable in their own skin because they aren’t comfortable with their policy positions for the American people, and so they’re name-calling instead of actually telling the American people how they’re going to make their lives better. I think that’s weird, Dana, but look, they can call me whatever they want to,” Vance said.

Walz’s description of Vance as “weird” set off a political firestorm that helped establish Walz as the vice presidential pick. Democrats have repeatedly used the term to describe their Republican opponents in recent weeks.