Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sharply criticized Sen. JD Vance’s response to this week’s school shooting in Georgia, telling an LGBTQ+ advocacy group Saturday evening that such events are “not a fact of life.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, Walz and Democrats have fiercely condemned Vance’s comments about the shooting after he responded to a reporter’s question Thursday by saying: “I don’t like that this is a fact of life.” A 14-year-old boy is accused of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. At least nine others were wounded.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you’re, 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,” Vance said at a campaign event in Phoenix.
On Saturday evening, Walz recalled Vance’s comments as he addressed the Human Rights Campaign, a major LGBTQ+ advocacy group, during its annual dinner in Washington.
“It’s a fact of life some people are gay. But you know what’s not a fact of life? That our children need to be shot dead in schools,” Walz said.
“That’s not a fact of life,” he added. “Folks are banning books, but they’re okay with weapons of war being in our schools.”
Republicans have decried Democrats’ attacks on Vance, noting he specifically said in his answer regarding the shooting that he didn’t “like that this is a fact of life," and noted schools should have more security. But that hasn’t slowed criticism from the Harris campaign.
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know we can take action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” Harris spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in response to Vance’s Thursday comments. “Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the NRA and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election.”
Spokespeople for the Trump campaign and Vance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Walz went on to warn the audience about former President Donald Trump and Republicans’ plans, should he return to the White House. The governor argued the right-wing Project 2025 playbook for the next GOP president would “demonize” the LGBTQ+ community while further limiting abortion access.
“This time, they are not playing, they are coming to do the things they say they wanted to do,” Walz told the crowd.
He added that Americans should deliver a message to Trump and Republicans on Nov. 5: “Leave our kids the hell alone.”
Walz argued he wouldn’t let Republicans lecture him or anyone on “family values,” criticizing Vance for missing the Senate’s vote on the Child Tax Credit. He also blasted Trump’s rambling answer this week when the former president was asked how he would tackle high childcare costs.
“He’s got a plan on childcare costs that no one in the world understood a damn word about,” Walz said.
The packed ballroom of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington also presented another opportunity for the Harris-Walz ticket — notably a sea of high-dollar, energized Democratic donors.
"We organize, we donate, we volunteer,” Walz told the crowd of 3,500 people, adding they had a chance to change the trajectory of the country for generations.
Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and the most senior transgender administration official in history, and other Biden administration officials clapped along as Walz painted Trump as a threat to LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access in America.
Walz also recounted his days as a high school social studies teacher and football coach in Mankato, Minnesota, when he helped to start the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance in the late 1990s by serving as an adviser. Dozens of high schoolers joined the group during Walz’s tenure, including two students who eventually married in 2011.
Walz during the HRC dinner issued one more sharp rebuke of Vance, who’s come under fire for his comments about “childless cat ladies.”
“Quit talking about women’s childbearing issues. Quit talking about it,” Walz said.
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