'Weird as hell': Walz hits Trump in Philly as Vance blames Harris for, well, everything

PHILADELPHIA — This so very odd race for the presidency, with November's election just 13 weeks away, finally settled all its players into place Tuesday. And it showed renewed signs of being the scrappiest of fights.

Vice President Kamala Harris , after naming Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday, traveled with him to this biggest city in critical, swing-state Pennsylvania and used all that to draw a clear distinction in contrast to the Republicans they hope to defeat on Nov. 5.

Walz was in his element amid a raucous rally crowd of about 14,000 supporters who have clearly embraced the Midwestern folksiness he faintly deploys while delivering haymaker insults. Harris brought Walz to Philadelphia to do what he has done best in his startling rise from little-known governor to contention as the second most powerful person on the planet.

He didn't disappoint, casting former President Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, as being so off-putting in their approach to politics and policy that they just sound "weird."

Get used to that word. Walz rode it all the way to the presidential ticket. You're going to hear a lot more of it for the next 2 1/2 months, especially because it clearly irks Trump and Vance but also because it leaves them dumbstruck in how to respond .

Harris and Walz hit the campaign trail making their case clear

Harris used the bulk of her 30-minute remarks to cast Walz as an example of American middle-class exceptionalism, a Midwest farming background , service in the Army National Guard , work as a high school social studies teacher and football coach , a dozen years in Congress and two terms as governor.

Walz drilled down on the folksy candor that has won him so many new fans since he came under consideration as Harris’s running mate, offering this about Trump and Vance. “You know it, you feel it – these guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell ,” Walz said as the crowd at Temple University erupted in sustained cheers.

He then exhorted the cheering supporters to help him and Harris defeat Trump and Vance.

“We got 91 days,” Walz said of the Nov. 5 general election . “My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead!”

Democrats go progressive: Who is Tim Walz? Harris VP pick gives progressives what they want.

Vance also came to Philadelphia on Tuesday to draw distinctions between the tickets. He spoke to a far smaller crowd, blaming Harris for inflation, a crisis at the country's southern border, deaths from drug addiction, the war in Ukraine and a burgeoning military conflict in the Middle East.

Walz enters the election by hitting directly and Trump, Vance

Harris described a contest for the vice presidency as “ a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad ,” considering Walz’s extensive résumé of public service.

“In this election, we each face a question – what kind of country do we want to live in?” Harris said. “A country of freedom, compassion and rule of law, or a country of chaos, fear and hate? ”

Harris and Walz used their first joint appearance to heap praise on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, widely seen as the runner-up in the running mate contest.

Trump has no clue about Harris: Has Harris finally broken Trump? He's flailing, glitching and running scared.

Shapiro, fiery in his role as campaign surrogate, laid into Vance for a series of statements he made disparaging Trump before he took it all back to win the former president’s endorsement in his 2022 Senate race. Shapiro said that showed Vance doesn’t know who he is and isn’t honest with himself.

The crowd put it a different way, breaking out in a sustained “ He’s a weirdo ” chant before Harris and Walz took the stage.

All campaigns have a feel for momentum when the candidate rally with supporters. But the basketball arena at Temple University reverberated with a pulsing energy that the Democratic ticket, with President Joe Biden at the top, lacked for so long.

It doesn't hurt Harris's optics that she drew a capacity crowd in a venue that Trump, rallying there in June , didn't come close to filling .

Vance calls for Harris to answer questions from the media

Vance also visited Philadelphia on Tuesday as part of a four-state shadow tour , following Harris and Walz this week from here to Wisconsin then Michigan and North Carolina.

Vance’s primary mission was to paint Harris as afraid to take questions from the news media in the two weeks since she moved to the top of the presidential ticket, accusing her of running a “basement campaign.” That’s a callback to Trump’s criticism of Biden’s limited public appearances during the 2020 election , at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vance has a point. Biden dropped his bid for a second term in part because of his public struggles to answer unscripted questions about his campaign and administration.

But here’s what Vance left unsaid: Trump has been campaigning for another term as president since November 2022 and still hasn’t held a traditional news conference .

Trump won't answer tough questions: When is Trump's 'big boy press conference'? His campaign deflected when I asked.

Trump did take questions last week at the National Association of Black Journalists but most notably spent that time lobbing racists attacks at Harris and complaining about the tone of the questions. If Mar-a-Lago has a basement, I’m sure many Trump staffers wish he had spent that day holed up there instead.

Trump, by the way, has just one campaign event scheduled this week in Montana , a state he won with 57% of the vote in 2020 while losing the presidency to Biden.

He also announced that Elon Musk, the billionaire who owns the social media site X and endorsed Trump, will interview him Monday . How cozy. How basement-like.

Vance's MAGA talking points paint Harris, Walz as 'far-left radicals'

I started the day at Vance's South Philadelphia event, held in a venue that also hosts professional wrestling bouts. How apt.

The overwhelmingly white, middle-age crowd booed when they heard Harris' name and cheered when Trump was mentioned.

The vice president's rally, by contrast, was far more diverse, with many young supporters.

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Vance, in his Philadelphia visit Tuesday, spent very little time reacting to the Walz announcement but cast him as “one of the most far-left radicals.”

“Kamala Harris is running as a San Francisco liberal,” Vance said. “She has governed as a San Francisco liberal, and she’s chosen a running mate who will be a San Francisco-style liberal .”

Walz has never lived in San Francisco, where Vance lived and worked as a venture capitalist before entering politics and essentially renouncing his past positions, including comparing Trump to heroin and Adolf Hitler .

One knock on Walz from the Trump-Vance campaign quickly backfired when they noted in a news release Tuesday that accused the Minnesota governor of “ embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote .”

Walz, in 2023, signed into law a measure that allows felons in his state to vote after being released from prison instead of when their parole expires.

Trump, of course, is a convicted felon after a jury of his peers in New York found him guilty on 34 counts for secretly paying hush money to an adult film star during the 2016 election to keep her from disclosing their brief affair.

Was Trump advocating to keep Trump from voting in November? His campaign didn’t definitively take a position.

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Weird as hell': Walz hits Trump in Philly as Vance blames Harris for, well, everything