Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) recently slammed Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump s vice presidential pick, over his views on rural America.

During an appearance on a Tuesday segment of MSNBC s Morning Joe, the governor criticized Vance for the way he characterized small-town America in his 2016 bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

People like JD Vance know nothing about small-town America, said Walz, who was raised in rural Nebraska. My town had 400 people in it, 24 kids in my graduating class 12 were cousins.

And he gets it all wrong, he continued. Its not about hate, its not about collapsing in. The golden rule there is mind your own damn business.

Walz then said that the Republican Party has destroyed rural America through their policies.

Theyve divided us. Theyre in our exam rooms, theyre telling us what books to read, he said. And I think what Kamala Harris knows is, bringing people together around the shared values strong public schools, strong labor unions that create the middle class, health care thats affordable and accessible those are the things.

The Minnesota governor later emphasized his point that Republicans have created division, saying, We cant even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle, because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary.

He added that right-wing politicians are running for the he-man, women-haters club or something.

That angst that JD Vance talks about in Hillbilly Elegy none of my hillbilly cousins went to Yale, and none of them went on to be venture capitalists or whatever, he later continued. Its not who people really are.