During NBC’s vice presidential debate coverage on Tuesday, Harris-Walz Campaign Surrogate Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) responded to questions on 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) stances on immigration as Governor by pointing to his record in Congress, stating that he and his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, have experience, and criticizing 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump for opposing the Senate border bill that Harris says she’ll sign.
Co-host Savannah Guthrie asked, “Tim Walz has a rather progressive record on immigration, Minnesota gave undocumented migrants driver’s license[s], made them eligible for free college tuition, as well as state health insurance. How’s that going to play in Arizona?”
Kelly responded, “Tim Walz, when he was a member of Congress, was ranked the 7th most bipartisan House member. He served with Gabby, they were freshmen together, I’ve known the Governor well, and, during his service. He’s got the experience for this job. And Kamala Harris is ready to go here on day one, and she wants to take this country into the future, where Donald Trump just wants to drag us back into the past and offer more tax cuts for billionaires, shred our alliances, and take away healthcare rights from women. That’s what people should remember about the first Trump presidency.”
Guthrie then cut in to ask, “But is immigration a vulnerability in Arizona, I guess just to put a fine point on it, are some of these immigration stances a problem in the state of Arizona, which was decisive last time around?”
Kelly answered, “I was at the border with the Vice President on Friday, and we met with a sheriff and some mayors, county supervisors, the Border Patrol, and Customs and Border Protection and talked about these issues. You’ve got to remember, Kamala Harris was a prosecutor, an attorney general, and senator of a border state. She understands the border very well. And what Donald Trump did on the border — the last thing he did that had a huge impact, is he told Republican senators that they could not vote for the bipartisan border security deal that we negotiated with the White House and with Senate Republicans. And what that did is — what it would have done if we could pass it, and we were about to pass it, was it was going to increase Border Patrol pay, we were going to hire more Border Patrol agents, more infrastructure, more fentanyl detection machines. Donald Trump stopped that. Kamala Harris has said that, on day one, if we can send her that legislation — and I think we can after Donald Trump loses this election — if we send her that legislation, she’ll sign it into law. She’s the one who really cares about solving this problem and will work to try to solve it. Donald Trump just wants to talk about it, Savannah. He often just goes down there to get a picture. I had a very effective visit with her on Friday, it went very well, she’s ready to deal with this issue.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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