‘Joy is gone’ from Harris campaign, says Trump will ‘kick cartels’ asses’ in Tucson stump stop

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance said “the joy is gone from the Kamala Harris campaign” in a speech at the Pima County Fairgrounds on Tuesday afternoon, his second campaign stop in Tucson in less than two weeks.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump are locked in a neck-and-neck race according to polling in Arizona. With 14 days until the election, Arizona has become the belle of the ball as both campaigns vie for the Grand Canyon State’s 11 electoral votes — on Oct. 9, Vance held a rally at the Tucson Speedway racetrack.

“In just two weeks, Arizona is going to send Kamala Harris a message: go back to San Francisco where you belong,” Vance told a crowd of around 400, flanked onstage by his supporters and members of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union that represents agents from the U.S. Border Patrol.

Unlike his running mate at the top of the GOP ticket, Vance pronounced the first name of the Democratic nominee correctly during his 30-minute speech.

“Perhaps the biggest difference of all is that Kamala Harris came into office bragging she wanted to open the American southern border. She came into office bragging about undoing all of Donald Trump’s border policies,” Vance said. “You know what Donald Trump thinks we ought to do: build that wall, finish that wall.”

During the event, Vance claimed he would put pressure on Mexican cartels over a murdered U.S. Marine named Nicholas Douglas Quets, who was shot Friday night while traveling from Nogales to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, the Arizona Daily Star reported Tuesday.

Vance told the audience Quets was traveling through Mexico to “do some beach activities.”

The Ohio senator made a “solemn promise” to Quets’ family: “The cavalry is coming,” he said, “and when Donald Trump is president, we’re going to kick the cartels’ asses.”

“Thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies,” Vance said, “We’ve turned Mexico into a narco-state on our southern border.”

In 2019, during Trump’s presidency, three women and six children were killed when they were ambushed by gunmen while driving towards Bavispe, Sonora, about 70 miles southeast of Douglas, Ariz. Further, cartel violence has remained widespread in Mexico despite the Mexican government’s attempts to clamp down on the cartels over the past five presidential administrations with U.S. aid.

In a Tuesday tele-town hall, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said that Vance “is using the same tired playbook of spreading fear and misinformation, and he’s doing this to distract people from Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda.”

At a campaign stop in Tucson last month, Trump vowed to “begin the largest mass deportation mission in the history of our country.” When asked if the deportations will include recipients of the DACA act for migrants who came to the U.S. as children, Vance said that “you’ve got to deport a lot of people where you don’t have a border.”

“We’ve got to get those people out of our country, and we’ve got to do it as quickly as human possible,” Vance said.

The Mexican drug cartels, Vance said, are also responsible for bringing fentanyl manufactured in China into the United States.

“You need to have a president who goes to China and tells them what’s what: stop manufacturing this crap,” Vance said. 

Most fentanyl is smuggled into the U.S. through border crossings, and many of those arrested for smuggling are U.S. citizens who try to move fentanyl pills and liquid concentrates in personal cars, government data shows.

A U.S. trade regulation designed to help e-commerce sites import small packages has become yet another avenue for fentanyl smuggling, allowing Mexico’s cartels to ship Chinese-made chemicals through the U.S. to labs south of the border.

Head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Troy Miller told the Sentinel this month that his agency has “taken the fight” to criminal organizations in order to combat the flow of fentanyl and migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Miller said apprehensions at the border have dropped by 55 percent since June, crediting efforts from CBP and other federal agencies.

Vance was introduced by Paul Perez and Art Del Cueto, the president and vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, who gave the Trump-Vance ticket their “full and total endorsement” because of the campaign’s promises to secure the border.

“If we allow the ‘border czar’ to run this country, the chaos at the border is just a small indication of how this world will be with Kamala Harris as the president,” Perez said.

The union, which represents most Border Patrol agents, supported Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party Gina Swoboda told the crowd she thinks “this will be the last election where we will continue to have freedom of speech and continue to have the Constitution.”

“I know that God loves this country, and he’s not going to give up on us,” Swoboda said. As she left the stage, the Jimmy Buffet and Alan Jackson song “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” began to play.

Scott Margetta, who told the Sentinel he worked as a Border Patrol agent in the 1990s, came to the rally to see Vance because he’s “smart and up and coming.”

“It’s not secure,” Margetta said of the southern border. “This is a joke, letting people go through.”

After the rally, Vance and his motorcade traveled to Delicias Mexican Grill on South 12th Avenue. The vice presidential nominee didn’t order anything, but sampled some salsa and recorded videos for a few people at the restaurant.

He spoke about the rally and praised his supporters. He paid the bill before leaving, telling several of the restaurant’s staff to remember “no taxes on tips” if they vote for Trump.