Republican vice-presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance tried to confront Vice President Kamala Harris on the tarmac as their planes arrived at about the same time in Wisconsin.
The video captured by Reuters shows Vance approaching a press gaggle at the airport and said to have a closer look at Air Force Two. He said that Kamala Harris does not respond to reporters.
Speaking to reporters, he said, "I figured I'd come by and just get a good look at the plane because hopefully, it's going to be my plane in a few months."
"But I also thought you guys might get lonely because the Vice President doesn't answer questions from reporters and hasn't for 17 days," he added. "Have they given you guys an explanation for why she won't take questions from reporters? No. Nobody? Okay, great," he asked the reporters.
He said that Kamala Harris should change her mind, as it would be good for the Americans.
Vance said, "Well, I hope that she changes her mind, because it'd be good for the American people, and I think it'd be good for you all.She actually ran a real campaign instead of one from a basement with a teleprompter."
Mentioning the encounter on X, Vance stated, "I thought the reporters travelling with Kamala might be a little lonely given that she never answers questions from them, so I figured I'd come say hello and check out my new plane while I was at it."
Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, posed for pictures with Girl Scouts Troop #3307 on the tarmac shortly before Vance spoke to reporters. The two leaders appeared to have left seconds before their rival walked over, the New York Post reported.
Harris' campaign tried to make fun of Vance by sharing a video of his plane landing at Eau Claire airport with the TikTok-style oral caption, "all of a sudden, I hear this agitating, grating voice."
In response to their post, Donald Trump-Vance campaign spokesman Steven Cheung stated, "Make sure AF2 is deep cleaned because Lord only knows what @KamalaHarris and her team have done on there."
"The smell alone on that plane must be crazy," he added.
Vance's statement comes after he accused Walz of "stolen valour" and criticized Harris' performance as US President Joe Biden's designated point person on reducing illegal immigration at a Michigan event earlier in the day, the New York Post reported.
He called it "insulting" to Americans that Harris has not been giving interviews. He said, "I'd love her to just answer what she wants to do and also explain why every single position she has has changed."
Criticising Harris for her decisions regarding the US border, Vance said, "She pretends to be a tough-on-crime prosecutor and yet here she is wanting to defund the police. She's the border czar, yet she's opened up the American southern border."
Vance also slammed Walz after the Minnesota governor mocked him at his first rally as Harris' running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, according to a New York Post report.
"What bothers me about Tim Waltz is the stolen valour garbage," Vance said of Walz, who left the National Guard in 2005 shortly after his battalion was ordered to deploy to the Iraq War.
Vance asked Walz not to pretend to be something that he is not. JD Vance, who did serve in the Iraq War, said: "Do not pretend to be something that you're not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I'm proud of the fact that my mamaw supported me, and that I was able to make something of myself. I'd be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
