Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in his first appearance as Vice President Harris’s running mate, came out swinging against former President Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (Ohio). 

“I just have to say it. You know it. You feel it. These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell. That’s what you see,” Walz said to raucous applause from the rally crowd in Philadelphia, using the viral new framing of the Trump campaign as “weird.”

“If Trump gets a chance to return, he’s going to pick up exactly where he left off four years ago. Only this time, it will be much, much worse,” Walz said, arguing the GOP nominee would repeal the Affordable Care Act, gut Social Security and Medicare and ban abortion nationwide. 

“He never sat at that kitchen table, like the one I grew up at, wondering how we were going to pay the bills. He sat at his country club in Mar-a-Lago, wondering how he can cut taxes for his rich friends,” Walz said. 

The Minnesota governor then knocked his vice presidential rival, arguing that Vance shares Trump’s “dangerous and backward agenda for this country.” 

“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on! That’s not what middle America is,” Walz said, adding that he “can’t wait to debate the guy.” 

Walz emerged from a competitive “veepstakes” to join Harris on her newly formed presidential ticket, just two weeks after President Biden made the historic move to exit the 2024 race. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who kicked off the rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday night with effusive praise for both candidates, and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D) were also seen as top contenders.

Walz saw his political star rise rapidly over the past week as clips of him branding Republicans “weird” caught fire online, prompting other top Democrats to use the label in place of their typical framing of Trump as an existential threat to democracy.

Harris officially secured the Democratic nomination Tuesday, and the Harris-Walz campaign is positioned to go up against the Trump-Vance ticket this fall.