Tim Walz Buries ‘Robber Baron’ JD Vance: ‘My Hillbilly Cousins Did Not Go to Yale’

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is reportedly among those being considered by Vice President Kamala Harris to be her running mate, had strong words for his potential counterpart, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH).

Former President Donald Trump tapped Vance as his running mate earlier this month. The senator had a career in venture capital before writing the bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy, in which he chronicled his childhood.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday night, Walz was asked to react to Vance’s career and political views.

“What is he missing about small-town, rural America?” Jen Psaki inquired. “And what is he getting wrong as he talks about it out there?”

“Pretty much everything,” the governor responded. “And he profited off it. I’ll start out with– he misreads this – in Hillbilly Elegy about there’s some type of cultural angst or whatever. No, we’re angry because rubber barons like him gutted middle America. They took our jobs.”

Walz later added:

And I think rural America is– they are angry. They were gutted, but Joe Biden’s policies and now soon-to-be President Harris bringing back manufacturing jobs. Bringing back dignity. Investing in infrastructure. How you gonna build a water treatment plant in a town of 400 if you don’t have a collective effort at it? So, I have to tell you, they scream socialism? We just build roads and we we build schools and we build prosperity into this.

Their whole plan is to go backwards, to give tax cuts to the wealthy. And look, so surprising. You know, the super successful Donald Trump who inherited $400 million and then proceeded to fail at everything. Middle America, you earn it. But you what? You’re not on your own. Neighbors help neighbors.

And this one bothers me. I heard you talking about punching back at the bullies. They see people less fortunate as scapegoats and punchlines for their jokes. We see them as neighbors. And I said, with my mom, my dad dies when my little brother’s young. We’re teenagers. We get Social Security survivor benefits. I’m all for pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. We didn’t have any boots. Social Security was the boots and we pulled ourselves up and we paid that back. And I think JD Vance gets none of that. You know, it’s the “Aw shucks, I’m from here or whatever. So, my hillbilly cousins did not go to Yale. But I’ll tell you what they did. They contributed to our community and they’re proud of it.

Watch above via MSNBC.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com