Kamala Harris and her VP pick Tim Walz pushed the false framing of Republican Sen. JD Vance’s statement on shootings despite the Associated Press (AP) engendering backlash earlier.
The Associated Press ignited massive backlash on Thursday when it blatantly misquoted Republican vice presidential pick JD Vance on school shootings. Speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Vance said he does not like that school shootings have become a “fact of life” while calling for better security.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
When the journalist asked Vance what the country could do to stop shootings, he called for greater security.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
Instead of reporting on his comments accurately, the AP originally reported only that Vance called shootings a “fact of life.”
After significant backlash, the AP reversed its headline and reporting to say, “JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and calls for better security.”
“This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance,” the AP later said.
The campaigns for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz repeated the same talking point with no retraction.
“School shootings are not just a fact of life. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children—and we will,” Harris said on her X account.
“This is pathetic. We can’t quit on our kids — they deserve better,” said Walz.