SPARTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Republican vice presidential candidate U.S. Sen. JD Vance campaigned north of Grand Rapids Tuesday, addressing the recent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, inflation and jobs.

Vance began his remarks around 1:30 p.m. at Apple Valley Events, located near the intersection of 12 Mile Road NW and M-37 just outside of Sparta.

“There’s nothing better than making a Buckeye come up north and beg you for your vote,” he said, referencing his multiple visits to Michigan since he was announced as Trump’s running mate.

Near the beginning of his speech, Vance discussed Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt.

“Just a couple of days ago, my running mate, my dear friend and our next president was nearly assassinated again,” Vance said. “Two assassination attempts in as many months.”

He said he was playing video games with his son when he got the call from Trump.

“And he says, ‘JD, you won’t believe it. They just tried to do it again.’ And I said, ‘What did they try to do?'” Vance recounted. “And he said, ‘Well, they just tried to shoot me again.’ And I said, ‘What?'”

Vance said Trump was “totally fine.”

“(Trump) was a little annoyed about one thing, though,” he said. “He was mad because he was on the sixth hole and he was about to make a birdie putt.”

Below, watch Vance’s full remarks.

Vance called for Trump to have the same security detail as President Joe Biden.

“(The current detail) clearly doesn’t meet the challenge of what Donald J. Trump is dealing with, so we ought to bump up his security,” he said.

He said more needs to be done to protect Trump, “not just for his sake but for the sake of the American people.”

“If an assassin takes out a presidential candidate in the midst of this election, it is going to cause a rift and a wound in this country that will be so deep that it will never heal,” he said.

In his remarks, Vance touched on inflation, high grocery prices and unaffordable housing.

“The number one thing we’ve got to do to get control of this crazy inflation and drive down the cost of everything is to unleash American energy,” he said. “Drill, baby, drill.”

The vice presidential candidate called for undoing regulations on American energy and emphasized the importance of buying and making American.

“Let’s buy more cars in Michigan. Not in some foreign country,” Vance said.

He criticized Michigan’s taxes and claimed the job market was poor.

“Create more jobs,” he said. “That’s how you bring people back to Michigan.”

Data from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program, a federal-state effort, shows that Michigan’s unemployment rate decreased slightly over the first few years of Trump’s presidency, at 4.6% in 2017, 4.2% in 2018 and 4.1% in 2019. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the unemployment rate shot to 10% in Michigan. It dropped to 5.7% in 2021, the year Biden took office, then decreased to 4.1% in 2022 and to 3.9% in 2023.

Rebutting Vance’s remarks, state Rep. Carol Glanville, D-Walker, argued the economy is improving in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re starting to see the economy level off and people are in a much better place, or will be soon, with how the cost of living is going. Certainly, we’ve been though a tough time. We all had to experience and recover from the pandemic. And with the investments that Vice President (Kamala) Harris has been a part of, we will continue to see improvements across the board,” Glanville said.

She added that the way to support Michigan’s automotive industry strong was to ensure “good-paying union auto jobs end up in America and not halfway around the world.”

“(Harris is) committed to making sure that U.S. workers are making U.S. cars and keeping the promise to ensure that the future of the automobile industry will be made in America by American unionized workers,” Glanville said.

Harris has trumpeted union support.

His appearance in West Michigan meant Vance, the junior U.S. senator from Ohio, was not in Washington, D.C., as Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill that would have made access to in virto fertilization a right nationwide. Reproductive rights are a key campaign issue for Harris.

“(Vance’s) priorities seem a little bit out of wack and perhaps not supporting what Americans have very voicefully said, we’ve had so many people step up to protect IVF,” Glanville said.

Michigan is a key battleground in the Nov. 5 election. A recent poll conducted by Emerson College Polling, The Hill and WOOD TV8 showed a tight race in Michigan: Harris had a 3-point lead over Trump, a statistical tie considering the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. Trump was expected in Flint, Michigan, Tuesday evening for a town hall.