Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz, addressing one of the first questions in their debate Tuesday night, offered differing takes on how to address climate change.
They also expressed concern about the devastation wrought in the Southeast by Hurricane Helene and called for a vigorous response from government to help those affected by the powerful storm. Helene was one of the deadliest storms in U.S. history, with the death toll surpassing 150 across six states. Damage stretched from Florida to Virginia, with some of the worst in western North Carolina, which experienced substantial inland flooding.
Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio and former President Trump’s running mate, called the destruction from Helene an “unbelievable and unspeakable human tragedy.” He said that he and Trump “want as robust and aggressive [of] a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible and then of course, afterwards, to help the people in those communities rebuild.”
“I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster,” he said.
On climate change, Vance said that “a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns,” and that he and Trump “support clean air, clean water” and “want the environment to be cleaner and safer.”
Vance did not answer how a Trump administration would address climate change, but said it would support more domestic energy production. He called Democratic concerns about carbon emissions a debate about “weird science.”
If emissions are a concern, Vance said, Democrats are addressing them in the wrong way. He said Democrats should be more interested in making energy cleanly in the United States than allowing energy to be produced in dirtier ways in other countries, such as China.
“If we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite,” Vance said.
Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota and Vice President Harris’ running mate, also called the devastation in the Southeast “a horrific tragedy,” adding that he and other governors have been in contact on how to address the disaster.
Walz said officials are working on helping people, and “we need to make sure that they’re staying there, staying focused.”
On climate change, Walz attacked Trump for calling it a “hoax” in the past and for suggesting that rising ocean levels will provide more beachfront property.
Walz said his constituents in Minnesota, including many farmers, understand that climate change is very real. And they are helping to lead the country on the right path forward, toward truly clean energy.
“They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back to back. But what they’re doing is adapting, and this has allowed them to tell me, ‘Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean and I harvest wind.’ ”
He also said the Biden-Harris administration has invested in infrastructure and other programs that are helping communities adapt to climate change and has invested in domestic energy.
“We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We’re also producing more clean energy,” Walz said. “So the solution for us is to continue to move forward. That climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical.”
Trump has slammed the Biden administration’s response to Helene as inadequate, and alleged with no evidence that the administration and Democratic leaders in North Carolina were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”
The Biden administration has rejected Trump’s claims. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed them as unfounded and said that more than 1,400 people have been supported or rescued in affected areas. Republican leaders have said the White House has been helpful in disaster relief.
President Biden has approved major disaster declarations in Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, which will ease the path for those states to receive recovery funds.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a red state or blue state,” Jean-Pierre said Monday. “This is their job — to get food there, to get generators there, to save some lives, to rescue people.”
Trump’s supporters, including those behind Project 2025, have called for federal agencies that warn of weather disasters to be disbanded or face dramatic budget cuts, and Trump as president delayed post-hurricane aid to Puerto Rico. He also diverted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural disasters, to an initiative aimed at returning undocumented migrants to Mexico.
More than 150,000 households have already registered for assistance from FEMA in the wake of Helene, and that number is expected to rise rapidly in coming days, agency officials have said.
