Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance was treated to some boos at a firefighters union convention in Boston on Thursday after he bashed Democrats for “letting down” the members for so long. His speech came a day after Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz addressed the same crowd.
Questioning the union’s past support of the Biden administration, Vance asked what “supporting Democrats for so long in this union” had gotten them. Boos erupted as soon as Vance stepped on the stage at the International Association of Fire Fighters Convention. He quickly snapped back: “Sounds like we got some fans and some haters.”
JD Vance booed mid-speech in Boston
“In 2019, this union endorsed a Democrat for president with high hopes,” Vance said accusingly, implying that they had all “been let down.”
“And we have to be honest, my friends, the hard truth is that Kamala Harris is the latest in a long line of Democrats who come by every few years asking unions for money and promising you the moon, but often failing to deliver. After supporting Democrats for so long in this union, what has it gotten you?”
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He asserted that unions’ influence has significantly declined “and the wages of working people, union and non-union alike have not kept up with the pace of inflation over the last three and a half years.”
Vance pushed his argument, using Trump’s 2016 quote, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
“We’re going to defend your right to free speech, including your right to speak out about unconstitutional COVID vaccine mandates imposed by the current administration,” he added. “We’re going to abolish every single mandate, and we’re going to fight to rehire every firefighter who was wrongly terminated with all the back pay that they deserve.”
As the Ohio Republican senator attempted to make his pitch, he proclaimed himself and former President Donald Trump the “most pro-worker Republican ticket in history.” And a second round of boos followed.
Tim Walz received a different reception at the convention
On the contrary, Walz received cheers the previous day. Taking shots at Project 2025, he said, “One of the goals of their project 2025 is to screw the middle class… make it harder for workers to collectively bargain, eliminating overtime, and slashing taxes on the ultra-wealthy by imposing a national sales tax – on the rest of us.”
“I’m an old-time football coach. If you have a playbook, you plan to use it and Project 2025 is a plan to reshape what America looks like, moving away from the middle class and putting it right back on the oligarchs and the wealthy at the top.”