Editor’s note: The article has been updated to reflect the correct link to Sen. Vance’s C-Span comments.
As part of JD Vance‘s campaign tour across Arizona this last week, the Ohio senator and Republican VP candidate spoke at the Generation Church in Mesa in an event co-hosted by Charlie Kirk, the conservative talk show host and founder of Turning Point USA.
The fireside chat-style conversation quickly turned to one of Arizona’s hottest topics and major issues: the southern border, viewed as the corridor for mass entry into the U.S. of illegal migrants as well as drugs, mostly the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Vance praised former President Donald Trump‘s “Remain in Mexico” policy and the fact that he [Trump] “actually deported people and did not let them take advantage of our asylum process.”
Vance told the gathering that when President Joe Biden came to power, VP Kamala Harris undid Trump’s border policy leading to “the border catastrophe we have now.” The results of which, Vance said, have enabled Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into the U.S.
And Now…Kamala Harris Is Letting Cartels ‘Sex Traffic Children’
Yeah, you heard that right. “We have American citizens right now who are dying of fentanyl overdoses that the Mexican cartels brought into our communities,” Vance said, casually adding that “We have thousands of missing children because Kamala Harris has left the cartels sex traffic minors in our own country.”
Fact Check: According to the Department of Justice‘s 2023 report, of the 1,197 defendants charged with child sex trafficking in the U.S., 95% of them were US citizens, with the vast majority being white males.
Vance shared a personal story with Kirk and the audience about his mother who suffered from opioid addiction. “But imagine Charlie if the poison that Kamala Harris is letting come across the border today had been coming across 15 years ago, I don’t think I would have gotten that second chance with my mom.”
Vance recently claimed that fentanyl-laced marijuana is widely prevalent is the U.S.
Another quick fact check: The DEA has confirmed that drug dealers have been mixing fentanyl with other drugs, though the agency has not issued any alerts or warnings about fentanyl being found in marijuana.
That said, fentanyl remains the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 107,000 people died from a drug overdose in 2021 mainly due to fentanyl. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, claimed 204 lives daily on average in 2023.
Sen. Vance’s comments C-SPAN.
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