Sen. Kamala Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz followed up on an earlier Associated Press backlash by falsely interpreting statements made by Republican Sen. J.D. Vance about the shooting.
The Associated Press sparked backlash on Thursday when it apparently misquoted Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance on school shootings. Speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Vance said he hated that school shootings had become “all the rage” and called for increased security.
“If these psychopaths are going to target our children, we have to be prepared for that,” Vance said. “You don't have to like the reality we live in, but it's the reality we live in, and we have to deal with it.”
When a reporter asked Vance what the country could do to stop the shootings, he called for increased security.
“I hate that this is real,” Vance said, “but if you're a psychopath and you want to make headlines, you realize that schools are an ideal target. We need to beef up security in our schools, because if a psychopath wants to walk in through the front door and kill kids, he can't do it.”
Instead of reporting exactly what Vance said, the Associated Press initially reported only that he called shootings “a fact of life.”
Following a major backlash, the Associated Press reversed its headline and reporting, saying, “J.D. Vance laments school shootings as 'everyday occurrence' and calls for better security.”
The AP later said the post “replaces an earlier post, which was removed, to add context to a partial quote from Mr. Vance.”
The campaigns of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz repeated the same claims without retracting them.
“School shootings are not just an everyday occurrence. It doesn't have to be this way. We can and will take action to protect our children,” Harris said on her X account.
“This is pathetic. We can't abandon these kids. They deserve to be treated better,” Waltz said.
