WATCH: Walz slams Trump for blocking immigration reform | CBS Vice Presidential Debate

In response to Sen. JD Vance’s claims that Vice President Kamala Harris was “letting in fentanyl” into the United States and using children as drug mules, Gov. Tim Walz categorically denied the accusations and said that the last year has seen “the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation’s history.”

Returning to the topic of immigration, Walz praised Harris for being “the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions.”

He also praised Republican Sen. James Lankford’s immigration bill as “the fairest and toughest bill on immigration that this nation has seen,” but accused former President Donald Trump of impeding its passage.

“Donald Trump said no, told them to vote against it because it gives him a campaign issue. What would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things? And they need to be done by the legislature, you can't just do this through the executive branch.”

Walz then slammed Trump for failing to deliver on a promise to build a “‘big beautiful wall’” and have Mexico pay for it during his four-year presidential term.

“Less than 2 percent of that wall got built, and Mexico didn't pay a dime, but here we are again nine years after he came down that escalator, dehumanizing people and telling him what he was going to do. As far as the deportation plan, at one point, Sen. Vance said it was so unworkable to be laughable,” Walz said.”

With just more than a month to go before Election Day, Vance and Walz met for their first and only vice presidential debate on Oct. 1, hosted by CBS in New York.

For more context, our partner PolitiFact is live factchecking the debate

Newsletters

PBS News podcasts

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app

Find more from PBS News at

Subscribe to our YouTube channel