Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz squared off in their only vice presidential debate, which was surprisingly filled with several key exchanges.
On Tuesday evening (October 1), the vice presidential debate between Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota took place at the CBS News studios in Manhattan, New York. The first and only debate between the two took on a heightened level of importance as early voting for the election in November has already begun. The debate was moderated by CBS anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret O’Brennan and notably did not have the stringent rules that were present in the ABC News presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump – particularly the network’s decision to not heavily fact-check the candidates’ assertions in real-time.
The debate began with the pressing news concerning the conflict between Iran and Israel that exploded earlier in the day. Walz answered first, starting a bit unsteady while Vance defended Trump’s position of “effective deterrence” while pointing out that the situation was weakened under President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris. Walz fired back by claiming that Iran is more emboldened due to Trump’s leadership and allies have noted his weakness. “He will go to whoever has the most flattery,” he said.
Immigration became a heated flashpoint in the debate, as Vance was asked if he would separate children from their parents who’ve migrated to the U.S. illegally. “We have to stop the bleeding,” he replied, blaming Vice President Harris for a “historic immigration crisis”, before alleging that she enabled Mexican drug cartels to operate freely. Walz rebuked those claims, citing Harris’ record of going after the cartels as California’s Attorney General. He then called Vance out for spreading false claims about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. “This is what happens to an issue when you don’t want to solve it,” he said. “You demonize.” The moderators fact-checked Vance after he again called the migrants “illegal”, to which he took offense, beginning to speak again over Brennan and O’Donnell leading to the microphones for Vance and Walz being cut off.
The moderators then asked pointed questions of each candidate, beginning with asking Walz about a discrepancy concerning his being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He gave a quick overview of his background but didn’t answer the question. “I got there that summer and I misspoke on this,” he replied after being pressed about the issue. Vance was confronted with his past remarks blasting Trump including calling him “an American Hitler” before becoming his running mate, acknowledging that he disagreed with him in the past but that he also misspoke.
Reproductive rights and abortion proved to be another flashpoint, as Walz blasted Trump for his bragging about the reversal of Roe Vs. Wade, and spoke about Minnesota’s codifying reproductive rights into law. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care,” he said while bringing up Project 2025 and referencing Amber Thurman, the Georgia woman who died recently seeking help out-of-state. Vance, who has been highly conservative on the issue, acknowledged his past comments but claimed that he and Trump are “pro-family in the fullest sense of the word” and denied that there’d be a national abortion ban.
Both candidates were combative but also conciliatory at times. The topic of gun control was one example as Vance expressed sympathy when Walz disclosed that his 17-year-old son witnessed a mass shooting. But that topic also led Vance to blame mass shootings on “mental health issues in this country”, to which Walz rebutted by being cautious “What we end up doing is that we start looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just guns, and there are things that you can do about it,” he said.
Vance also tried to tie Vice President Harris to illegal immigration repeatedly, at one point claiming “25 million illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country.” They also discussed healthcare, where Walz seemed to shine citing Minnesota’s stature as a national leader in healthcare policies, also jabbing Vance for falsely claiming that Trump “salvaged” the Affordable Care Act while he was in office. “Let me tell you the benefits of being an old guy. I was there,” Walz said, touting the strength of the ACA and Harris’ proposed policies to expand it.
The topic of the January 6th insurrection proved to be explosive, as Vance sidestepped the question of whether he and Donald Trump would challenge this year’s election results. Walz was forceful at this point, referring to the deaths of Capitol police officers that day and Trump’s false claims of the 2020 election being stolen. “A president’s words matter,” he said as Vance tried to assert that Harris was using “the threat of censorship” using social media platforms during the COVID pandemic “at an industrial scale”. Walz fired back: “Facebook ads did not cause Jan. 6,” Vance was asked again if he and Trump would accept the results of the 2020 election, and he pivoted again to accusing Harris of censorship. “That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz said, adding: “The winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
The nominees closed out the debate after a short break, with Walz going first and citing the broad coalition behind Harris, saying: “They don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future in this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.” Vance went afterward, drawing on his rural upbringing and blaming Harris for regular Americans not being able to achieve “their full dreams with the broken leadership that we have in Washington.”
