PHOENIX — In the wake of another school shooting that left two students and two teachers dead at at Apalachee High School in Georgia, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance said gun reform legislation is not the solution, and instead wants to bolster security at schools. ABC15 spoke with Vance ahead of his rally at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix on Thursday, where he talked about border security and immigration.
“Our schools we know have become soft targets for people who want to make a statement and kill a lot of people and that means we need more security at our schools,” Vance told ABC15. “If you pass gun reform legislation, that doesn’t cut down on school shootings you haven’t accomplished anything, if you actually make those schools a little bit safer, beef up the security I think that’s a much greater chance of actually working.”
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A school resource officer stopped the shooter at Apalachee High School, but he was still able to bring a gun on campus and kill 4 people and injure nine others before being brought into custody. When asked if he would support any type of gun reform legislation, Vance said, “The question is not whether a solution is going to be perfect, I think the question is whether a solution cuts down on gun violence in our schools.”
Vice President Kamala Harris posted to social media Thursday evening in response to the shooting, saying, “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children — and will.” President Joe Biden has called for universal background checks on all guns and a ban on assault weapons.
When it comes to former President Donald Trump’s immigration plan to conduct mass deportation, Vance said “absolutely” when asked if this would involve sweeping raids to find the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
“Once you secure the border, and stop the bleeding, stop the inflow of illegal aliens you’re going to have to figure out what to do with the people here,” Vance said. “I think where you focus is you start with the most violent criminals, the people who haven’t just broken our border laws but have also committed violent crimes on top of that — absolutely you go after those people however you can because we don’t want violent felons stalking our communities.”
Watch Thursday's full one-on-one interview with Vance in the player below:
Harris, who previously called the border wall “useless” and “un-American,” has since said she would support the bipartisan border bill that failed in Congress and allocates funding for more southern border wall construction. The proposal would also put restrictions on migrants seeking asylum.
Reporting from the New York Times found Vance wrote the introduction to a 2017 Heritage Foundation report that supported restricting access to IVF, abortion and suggesting the ideal age for women to have kids.
Vance said he has not changed his mind from what he wrote in his introductory for the 2017 report, and while writing an introduction is not an endorsement of the report, Vance previously shared similar views with some of the talking points — including a federal ban on abortion and voting against a bill in the Senate that would’ve codified protections for IVF.
“I haven’t had to distance myself from anything, I wrote an introduction to a report back in 2017 that was number one before Project 2025 existed and we’ve been very consistent from the very beginning that Project 2025 is its own thing, it has nothing to do with the Trump administration,” Vance said. “Now, there are some good ideas in there, but there’s also some really bad ideas in there, it’s a 900-page report. The most important thing is that it doesn’t speak for the Trump administration.”
Vance has since softened his stance on access to abortion, aligning with Trump’s view of leaving it up to the states to decide. Trump has also called on insurance companies to pay for IVF treatment.
Harris is a staunch supporter of abortion rights, condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harris has said, if elected, she would sign restoring reproductive freedoms and put into law the protections of Roe v. Wade.
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During a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, Trump unveiled a plan to create a government efficiency program to cut wasteful government spending and conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms.”
Trump also reiterated his pledge to not tax tips or social security benefits and said he would cut the corporate tax rate to 15%.
There are questions on how to fund these proposals, and if they could lead to a larger federal deficit. When asked if this government efficiency commission is way to fund the Trump-Vance economic proposals, Vance said “if you cut that fraud out you have more resources to focus on American citizens.”
“We’re trying to make the government more efficient, there’s so much fraud there’s so much abuse in our system. Some independent analysts say there are hundreds of billions of dollars a year in fraudulent payouts, either going to illegal aliens, social security/Medicare payments to illegal aliens,” Vance said. “We have got to stop that fraud and part of that is making government more efficient and if you cut that fraud out you have more resources to focus on American citizens.”
Harris is also facing questions on how she will pay for her economic proposals which including expanding the child tax credit and offering $25,000 in down payment assistance for first time home buyers. The Vice President also proposed tax deductions for small businesses including for startup expenses from $5,000 to $50,000. Harris also wants to target price gouging to bring down the costs of goods. Harris has called for a 28 percent capital gains tax and has endorsed the tax proposals set out by Biden in his fiscal year 2025 budget which includes a 25% minimum tax on total income, including unrealized gains for people with wealth exceeding $100 million.
