Vance and Walz bring a dose of civility to a heated campaign: From the Politics Desk

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On October 3, 2024

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Welcome to a post-debate edition of the From the Politics Desk newsletter, breaking down all the action from tonight’s showdown between Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

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A night of Midwest nice: Vance and Walz agree to disagree in a largely civil debate

By Henry J. Gomez and Allan Smith

NEW YORK — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he believes his rival for vice president, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, wants to solve the nation’s immigration crisis, but he questioned if former President Donald Trump really does.

Vance acknowledged that Walz wants to solve the problem, too, but he questioned if Vice President Kamala Harris really does.

Walz agreed with “a lot of what Sen. Vance said” about Americans not trusting Republicans on abortion. Vance said he and Walz “probably agree that we need to do better” on addressing gun violence. And Walz conceded that he was “in agreement” with much of what Vance had said about decades of trade policy that enabled manufacturing jobs to move overseas.

On and on it went at Tuesday night’s debate between Walz and Vance, meeting in person for the first time and putting on a textbook performance of Midwest nice: feints at consensus serving as rhetorical fig leaves that often gave way to more cutting, though politely delivered, attacks.

The running mates — Vance a right-wing Republican, Walz a progressive Democrat aiming to appeal to moderates — used the words “agree” or “agreement” or “I don’t disagree” more than a dozen times to describe the common ground they share.

With early voting underway in several states and Election Day precisely five weeks away, Tuesday’s faceoff, hosted by CBS News, was an opportunity for Vance and Walz to make their campaigns’ closing arguments. Barring a changeup from Trump, who has resisted the idea of debating Harris a second time, it could be the last widely broadcast primetime moment of the race.

But a TV audience expecting to see ferocious vice-presidential attack dogs instead saw a couple of puppy dogs seeking affection. The debate in some ways was reminiscent of the cordial clash 24 years ago between vice presidential hopefuls Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman. Cheney, who at the time was as loathed on the left as much as Vance is today, escaped harsh scrutiny. He and Republican George W. Bush won the first of two terms that fall.

The key takeaways from the Vance-Walz debate

By Sahil Kapur

It wasn’t really about Vance or Walz: It was immediately clear the two prominent politicians on stage were merely proxies for their running mates, using the questions as vehicles to attack their top-of-the-ticket rivals and on many occasions going out of their way not to personally attack each other.

Walz used his first question, regarding Iran’s strikes on Israel, to hit at Trump’s age: “A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.” He went on to assail “Donald Trump’s fickle leadership” around the world.

Vance replied, “Who has been the vice president for the last three and a half years? And the answer is your running mate, not mine. Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure.”

Economic records under the microscope: Walz came equipped with an argument to attack Trump on the economy, which is one of the GOP nominee’s strongest issues in the polls.

“Kamala Harris’ Day One was Donald Trump’s failure on Covid that led to the collapse of our economy. We were already, before Covid, in a manufacturing recession — about 10 million people out of work, largest percentage since the Great Depression,” Walz said.

Vance responded by attacking the Biden-Harris economic record as “atrocious” and defending Trump.

“Honestly, Tim, I think you got a tough job here, because you got to play Whac-A-Mole,” he said, accusing Walz of having to “pretend” that Trump’s economy improved wages and had lower inflation.

Vance defends his flip on past criticism of Trump: Vance was well-prepared with an answer when asked to explain his past criticisms of Trump, including saying he could be “America’s Hitler” and his critiques of Trump’s economic record as president.

“Sometimes, of course, I disagree with the president, but I’ve also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump. I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record,” Vance said, treading over territory he and his campaign have talked about in media interviews and responses to stories.