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JD Vance accused Kamala Harris of flip-flopping about the border wall, but was immediately slapped down by critics because he voted against a bipartisan bill that would have tightened security at the border.
Republicans have sought to use immigration and the border to attack the Harris-Walz campaign ahead of November’s presidential election.
In the latest attempt to slam the Democratic ticket, Vance referenced a report headlined: “Harris flip-flops on building the border wall.”
The Republican vice presidential nominee posted a link to the Axios report on X and said: “Kamala Harris is a fake. If she wants to build the border wall, she could start right now!”
However he was quickly called out, with many pointing out that Republicans tanked a bipartisan immigration and border security bill in the Senate back in May following pressure from Donald Trump.
The bill – which would have provided the president with the authority to shut down the asylum system if unauthorized border crossings reached a certain monthly threshold – had initially seemed set up for success.
It included $650m on wall spending, significantly less than the $18bn Trump asked for when he was president in 2018.
But the bill quickly collapsed after Trump and his loyalists in the House and Senate GOP came out against it.
Trump was reportedly infuriated with Republicans joining with Democrats on one of his key campaign issues.
Responding to Vance, former GOP representative Adam Kinzinger – who urged Republican voters at the DNC to abandon Trump and support Harris – pointed out the irony of the Ohio senator calling Harris a “fake”.
"BREAKING," Kinzinger quipped. "In the irony of all ironies, @JDVance calls Kamala Harris ‘fake.’"
Jake Broe, a former US nuclear and missile officer-turned commentator, replied to Vance: “There was funding for more border wall in the Senate bi-partisan border security bill. You led the charge to kill that border bill so the border would remain a problem through the election. You are the problem.”
The bill was already rejected by most Republicans in February when it was linked to a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies. It would also have tightened standards for asylum seekers and empowered federal officials to quickly remove those who did not qualify.
Harris pledged to revive the bill at the DNC last week, and if she does it would mean committing to hundreds of millions of dollars on the border.
It is a departure from the stance she took as a senator in 2017, where she dismissed Trump’s border wall as a “medieval vanity project” and a “complete waste of taxpayer money”.
In her speech at the DNC, Harris said: “Joe [Biden] and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades; the border patrol endorsed it.
“But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So, he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.”
The bill has also been heavily criticized by some progressive Democrats and Latino members of the party over its exclusion of key priorities, such as a pathway for citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including “Dreamers” – those brought to the US by their parents when they were young children.
