In Las Vegas stop, Gwen Walz slams Trump and Vance on abortion

First lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz said she had to put on her “stern teacher voice” to send a message to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance on Tuesday morning.

“They want to stick their noses further into our bedrooms and our doctor’s offices, if you can believe it, criminalizing women’s reproductive health care nationwide, denying women emergency care until they’re moments from death, and even putting fertility treatments at risk,” Walz said Tuesday in a speech to Democratic voters in Summerlin. “Well, I have to tell you, I just do not take too kindly to bullies telling us when, if or how to start our families.”

Walz, the wife of Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz, sternly added: “Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, please mind your own business.”

Walz made her maiden visit to Nevada after her husband last month became Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential running mate. Gwen Walz spoke at a campaign field office, then visited a restaurant in Chinatown to celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander businesses.

She even brought cookies she said she baked using her great-grandmother’s recipe.

“I know you have a lot on your shoulders right now, different from some other states where it’s not quite as close, right?” Gwen Walz said. “I know you’re carrying it, and that’s why I’m showing up here today to thank you.”

Gwen Walz’s visit fell on National Voter Registration Day — a nationally recognized civic holiday when organizations and volunteers help people with the voter registration process — and 49 days out from Election Day. Nevada’s early voting period starts Oct. 19.

Tapping into her background in education, the Minnesota first lady said a Trump presidency “will devastate a generation of students.” She referred to the longstanding discussion point during this election cycle, Project 2025 — a conservative blueprint Trump’s allies wrote as a guide in the event of his second term. The nearly 1,000-page initiative seeks to dismantle the Department of Education and cut federal funding for public school programs that service children from struggling families.

Trump has denounced Project 2025 and denied he had any knowledge on the initiative on numerous occasions, but Democrats have continued to associate it with the former president because of his connections to its authors.

“Don’t believe Donald Trump when he plays dumb about Project 2025,” Tim Walz said at a Las Vegas rally in August. “I coached football long enough to know that, when somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it.”

At Tuesday’s event, Gwen Walz also addressed a comment Vance made about school shootings, where he pushed for greater security in schools instead of restrictions to gun access.

“I spent decades in classrooms and in schools and I tell you, I refuse to accept school shootings as a fact of life,” Gwen Walz said. “Our children deserve better.”

The comment Vance made that Gwen Walz referenced and that became subject of national debates came during a rally in Phoenix earlier this month, in the wake of a mass shooting in Georgia that left four people — two students and two teachers — dead.

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said at the Phoenix rally. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets.”

As Gwen Walz shared more details about her own life, like her family’s extensive teaching background or how she shared a classroom with her husband when their school district was low on money, attendees said her words left an impression on them.

Janet LeBlanc, a Las Vegas resident who has been volunteering with the Nevada Democratic Party since 2012, chose to spend her day off from work supporting the campaign. She added that she especially appreciated when Gwen Walz told Trump and Vance to “mind your business.”

“For me, that means do not come into my bedroom,” LeBlanc said. “Do not tell me how to run my body.”

Attendees discussed ways to enhance canvassing efforts, like strong eye contact or asking undecided voters the issues integral to them before making a pitch. Gwen Walz brought up the cookies she baked, stating that people who don’t usually make calls or knock on doors can be involved through gestures like that for other volunteers.

“It’s going to be extremely close here in Nevada,” Gwen Walz said. “I am asking you to do more than you ever thought you could. I am doing more than I ever thought I could.”