Walz in Michigan: First days of school are 'sheer terror' for too many kids

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, criticized Thursday night Republicans' responses to school shootings, telling a crowd in Grand Rapids that freedom means “our kids being able to go to school without being shot dead.”

Making his first solo campaign stop in Michigan at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, Walz, the running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris, referenced a shooting that occurred at a high school in Georgia last week and the shootings at Oxford High School in November 2021 and on the campus of Michigan State University in February 2023.

The current Minnesota governor and a former social studies teacher, Walz said the opening of the school year should be the best season.

"Leaves are changing," Walz said. "Friday night football's back. Our kids have a new start and they're going in. It's a time of excitement and hope. Everything we want. That's what we want for our kids.

"But too many of our kids, these first days of school, are a time of sheer terror. A time that is going to stick with them forever."

Walz noted he's both a veteran and a hunter. "I know guns, you know guns," he told the crowd. "Kamala Harris is a gun owner, by the way, which you found out. I'm not going to take any crap (from Republicans) about the Second Amendment. We support the Second Amendment."

"But our first responsibility," Walz said, raising his right hand and point finger, "is keeping our children safe. And you can have both."

Walz spoke to a crowd of hundreds of people who filled a narrow and long open area of the downtown Grand Rapids museum. The rally occurred two days after the first presidential debate between Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump and 54 days before the Nov. 5 election.

Walz spent much of his speech addressing the debate, touting Harris' performance and blasting Trump's.

"Hell, every day, we should do another one," Walz said.

Earlier in the day, Trump said he would not debate Harris again before Election Day.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Carol Glanville, D-Walker, also spoke. Glanville told the crowd that Harris was "on fire" at the debate and had held Trump, the former president, accountable.

“We saw crystal clear who is ready to lead us forward and who is determined to drag us back to the past," Glanville said.

Whitmer asked the crowd if they liked how Harris did against "that man from Mar-a-Lago," referring to Trump telling his former Vice President Mike Pence "don't call the woman in Michigan" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The crowd chanted, "We're not going back."

But Victoria LaCivita, spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement that Walz is "a Midwesterner who hates the Midwest." She cited Minnesota's effort to boost vehicle emission standards.

"His values are just as dangerously liberal as Kamala Harris', but he's not trying to hide them," LaCivita said.

Walz was last in Michigan on Aug. 8, when he and Harris rallied members of the United Auto Workers at a union hall in Wayne. The previous night, Walz spoke at a rally with Harris inside and outside of an airplane hangar at Detroit Metro Airport.

Kent County, where Grand Rapids is located, is expected to be a key battleground within Michigan. Its the state's fourth largest county and a former Republican stronghold.

Trump won the county by 3 percentage points, 48%-45%, in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton. But in November 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won it by 6 points against Trump, 52%-46%. Biden got about 49,000 more votes out of Kent County than Clinton did.

Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss spoke at Thursday's rally, telling the crowd the road to the White House runs through Michigan, Kent County and Grand Rapids.

“Let’s roll up our sleeves," Bliss said. "Let’s get out there and work hard and make sure that we win on Nov. 5.”

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have both already made campaign stops in Kent County. Their first joint appearance on the trail after the Republican National Convention was in Grand Rapids in July.

Trump will be back in Michigan on Tuesday for a town hall event in Flint.

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