Washington, DC - A video of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz slamming his Republican rival, JD Vance, has been getting a lot of attention on social media.

On Saturday evening, Walz gave a speech at the Human Rights Campaign's national dinner, in which he touched on an aggressive effort by conservatives across the country to ban books from schools and classrooms – particularly targeting subjects relating to the LGBTQ+ community.

"This is what these folks are focusing on, spending their time on," Walz explained, "like reading about two male penguins who love each other is somehow going to turn your children gay."

Walz let the audience sit with his point for a moment, garnering laughter from the crowd.

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"Here's what I tell you – it's a fact of life, some people are gay," he continued.

"But you know what's not a fact of life? That our children need to be shot dead in schools," he argued, adding that the same people advocating for book bans are "okay with weapons of war being in our schools."

A clip of his comments shared on X has amassed over three million views.

Walz, who is running alongside Kamala Harris in the presidential race, was referencing the 2005 children's book And Tango Makes Three, which tells the true story of two male penguins in New York Central Park Zoo who create a family together with the help of a zookeeper.

But he was also taking shots at Vance's recent remarks that school shootings were "a fact of life" only days after a student at a school in Georgia fatally shot four people.

"I don't like that this is a fact of life, but if you are a psycho, and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets," Donald Trump's running mate said during a rally last week.

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Walz is credited with first describing Trump and Vance as "weird" on the campaign trail, which immediately became a popular meme and has been really bothering the former president.

Trump and Harris will debate on Tuesday, September 10, while Walz and Vance are scheduled to do the same on October 1.