Lessons Learned from the Vance and Walz Vice Presidential Debate | Politics

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The vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was one thing that’s change into more and more uncommon in trendy American politics: regular.

In an occasion that's unlikely to alter the trajectory of the presidential race, the two working mates have been cordial with one another, coaching their assaults as a substitute on the tops of the opposing tickets and focusing largely on coverage variations. Vance repeatedly hit Vice President Kamala Harris on border safety, whereas Walz lambasted former President Donald Trump on abortion rights.

Vance was the Republican ticket’s youthful face and extra well mannered voice. Unlike Trump, he pronounced Harris’ first identify appropriately. He referred to his opponent by his title. He didn’t usually whine about the moderators – although Trump did so throughout the debate on his Truth Social platform. The Ohio senator additionally largely handed on alternatives to litigate the particulars of Walz’s personal biography.

Walz – who was noticeably much less comfy onstage than Vance – settled in after a nervous begin. He solid Trump as a liar who ignores specialists and rejects truths he finds unfavorable.

The debate was virtually solely targeted on home points. CBS moderators opened with a query about the escalating battle between Israel and Iran, however didn't ask about the United States’ assist for Ukraine in its battle with Russia.

The unusually regular debate ended with one other refreshingly regular second – the variety that hasn’t been seen over the previous decade of presidential debates. The candidates shook fingers and chatted away from the microphones, and lingered as their wives joined them.

Here are seven takeaways from the first and solely scheduled vice presidential debate of the 2024 election:

The clearest divide of the evening got here when Walz put Vance on the spot throughout a dialogue of the January 6, 2021, revolt and Trump’s false claims that he received the 2020 election.

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz requested Vance, trying to drive the Ohio senator to acknowledge a actuality that Trump himself received’t.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” was how Vance started his response.

“That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz shot again.

Vance tried to sidestep the violent assault by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on the day Congress was gathering to formally depend Electoral College votes and certify Joe Biden’s victory.

“On January 6, what happened? Joe Biden became president; Donald Trump left the White House,” Vance mentioned.

The Ohio senator, trying to argue that Trump’s actions in 2020 weren't uncommon, pointed to Democratic complaints about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought like $500,000 worth of Facebook ads,” he mentioned.

Unlike Trump, Clinton conceded the 2016 election, and didn't try to intrude with the counting of electoral votes.

“January 6 was not Facebook ads,” Walz mentioned.

Walz, although, drilled into the particulars of the prices of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election outcomes.

“He lost this election, and he said he didn’t. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag, and several later died,” he mentioned. “The democracy is bigger than winning an election.”

Vance tried to redirect the dialogue of democracy right into a debate about social media censorship. But every time he tried, Walz pushed again, arguing that Trump was already laying the groundwork to reject the end result of the 2024 race if he loses.

“Here we are four years later, in the same boat,” Walz mentioned. “The winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”

In some ways, this vice presidential debate mirrored the approach typical Americans argue about contentious points.

There was no name-calling, few canned zingers and a transparent directive for each Vance and Walz to not get private – except they have been aggressively agreeing that the points have been, actually, points. The housing disaster, they agreed, was a disaster. Gun violence, each mentioned, wanted to be decreased.

Instead of jousting amongst themselves, Vance and Walz behaved agreeably in the service of making an attempt to depict the respective presidential candidates as uniquely divisive or misguided.

“I agree with a lot of what Sen. Vance said about what’s happening – his running mate, though, does not,” Walz mentioned when the debate turned to abortion. “And that’s the problem.”

Even after Walz rejected Vance’s declare that housing costs have been being pushed up by undocumented immigrants, the Republican supplied his rival some variety phrases.

“Tim just mentioned a bunch of ideas. Now some of those ideas I actually think are halfway decent, and some of them I disagree with,” Vance mentioned, earlier than regaining his focus and including, “But the most important thing here is: Kamala Harris is not running as a newcomer to politics. She is the sitting VP.”

‘The viewers cannot hear you': Moderators reduce mics for first time throughout VP debate

During a debate over immigration and border safety, Walz invoked Vance’s false claims about Haitian immigrants consuming the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio.

“There’s consequences for this,” Walz mentioned, stating that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, dispatched state troopers to Springfield to make sure the security of youngsters after a collection of bomb threats.

Vance shot again, “The people I care most about in Springfield are the American citizens.”

In the Ohio metropolis and others prefer it, Vance mentioned, due to an inflow of migrants, “you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable.”

What Vance didn’t say: The 12,000 to fifteen,000 Haitian migrants in Springfield are in the United States legally.

But Walz didn’t fact-check Vance on that matter. And when he didn’t, CBS moderator Margaret Brennan defined these immigrants’ authorized standing.

The conflict over Springfield got here throughout a prolonged back-and-forth over immigration coverage. Vance repeatedly referred to Harris as President Joe Biden’s “border czar,” a label that refers to her 2021 task to sort out the root causes of migration from Central American international locations. And Walz hammered Trump for his function in thwarting a bipartisan border safety invoice earlier this yr, saying the former president did so with a view to hold immigration alive as a marketing campaign problem.

“We could come together and solve this if we didn’t let Donald Trump continue to make it an issue,” Walz mentioned.

New reporting by Minnesota Public Radio News and APM Reports in the lead as much as Tuesday’s debate known as into query Walz’s claims about how continuously he traveled to China, which he has beforehand mentioned was as many as “about 30 times.” Reports contradicted these claims and particularly whether or not the Minnesota governor was in Hong Kong throughout the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

CNN additionally reported extra data on Walz’s claims earlier on Tuesday.

When requested about the studies and the discrepancy, a Harris marketing campaign spokesperson mentioned it was “likely closer to 15” instances.

And when requested immediately throughout the debate Walz filibustered, first describing his upbringing and rise in electoral politics earlier than conceding that he can generally get caught up in the second, be a “knucklehead,” and mentioned he “misspoke.”

Vance didn’t search to immediately capitalize on Walz’s concession, however alluded to it in a special query shortly thereafter, saying, “When you misspeak, you ought to be honest with the American people about that.”

States’ proper or human rights? That was the core of the debate between Walz and Vance on abortion rights.

Both candidates, after all, got here ready to debate the problem. What was placing, although, was the readability on each ends.

Vance argued that as a result of the US is such a various nation in so some ways, the rulemaking ought to be devolved as a lot as doable – to the states, in his view.

“We have a big country and it’s diverse and California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia,” Vance mentioned, stating a place that Trump has been lower than clear about. (Trump on social confirmed throughout the VP debate what he’d demurred on in his personal, saying now that he would veto a nationwide abortion ban.)

“The states will decide what’s right for Texas might not be right for Washington? That’s not how this works,” Walz mentioned. “This is basic human rights. We have seen maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas (since its restrictions went into effect), outpacing many accounts in the world.”

But Vance, who spent most of the evening on the entrance foot, was extra cautious throughout this trade. Plainly interesting to swing voters’ considerations, he mentioned – as many anti-abortion advocates have promised – that the Republican Party must do a greater job of advancing “pro-family” insurance policies, together with entry to fertility remedies and make housing extra inexpensive.

For his half, Walz was repeatedly requested to reply to a false assertion from Trump that the Minnesota governor helps abortion in the ninth month. In one in all his stronger moments of the evening, Walz introduced up the private tales of girls who confronted well being crises or died resulting from state abortion bans.

“In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade,” Walz mentioned. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care.”

The governor incorrectly claimed the Trump marketing campaign and the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would create a “registry of pregnancies.” The group’s proposal would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to gather knowledge on abortions.

Vance was requested if the Trump marketing campaign needs to create a “federal pregnancy monitoring agency,” referencing one other previous declare by Walz.

“Certainly we won’t,” Vance mentioned.

Vance and Walz had one thing approaching a constructive dialog about gun violence in America, agreeing that it's unhealthy, getting worse and must be addressed – particularly in faculties.

That this bears noting underscores simply how fruitless previous Democratic-led efforts have been in stemming the bloody tide. But the query of learn how to cope with it, regardless of the pleasant nods between the two onstage, remained unresolved.

Vance at one level even steered that the present administration’s border coverage (or, as he put it, “Kamala Harris’ open border”) was a driving issue – a non sequitur given the size and depth of the disaster. He did, nonetheless, additionally acknowledge it was a extra difficult problem.

Walz largely agreed with that sentiment however fought to maintain the dialog from turning right into a stalemate. When Vance pointed to psychological well being and drug use as one other reason behind gun deaths, Walz sought to refocus the dialog.

“Sometimes it just is the guns,” Walz mentioned. “It’s just the guns.”

The Minnesota governor agreed that lawmakers “should look at all the issues” however stopped there so as to add a line of warning.

“This idea of stigmatizing mental health – just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent,” Walz mentioned.

The candidates additionally shared considerations over how faculties have been responding to the menace of lively shooters. Again, although, Vance handled the problem as one thing extra like a drive of nature than a coverage query.

“I unfortunately think we have to increase security in our schools,” he mentioned, acknowledging that it was not a pleasing prospect. “We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger.”

Walz agreed, partly, however, in urging tighter restrictions, requested viewers, “Do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?”

Vance was placed on the spot about how the “concepts of a plan” that Trump claimed in the final debate he needed to change the Affordable Care Act would work — and whether or not he might assure Americans with pre-existing situations wouldn’t pay extra for well being care beneath Trump’s plan.

“Well of course we’re going to cover Americans with pre-existing conditions,” Vance mentioned.

But Trump has by no means articulated how he would change the Affordable Care Act’s key provisions, together with requiring insurance coverage firms to cowl these with pre-existing situations and permitting kids to stay on their mother and father’ insurance coverage till age 26.

And Vance declined to element any elements of Trump’s plan, saying he's “not going to propose a 900-page bill standing on a debate stage. It would bore everybody to tears.”

“And it wouldn’t actually mean anything, because part of this is the give-and-take of bipartisan negotiation,” he mentioned.

Walz pounced, highlighting Trump’s 2016 pledge to undo former President Barack Obama’s signature legislation — an effort Walz famous would have been profitable had the late Sen. John McCain not solid the deciding vote in opposition to a repeal.

“Go back and remember this: He ran on — the first thing he was going to do on day one, was repeal Obamacare,” Walz mentioned. “What that means to you is, you lose your pre-existing conditions. If you’re sitting at home and you’ve got asthma? Too bad. If you’re a woman? Probably not. Broke your foot during football? Might kick you out. Your kids get kicked out when they’re 26.”

This story has been up to date.