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    • Who won the VP debate tonight? Inside Walz, Vance stands still
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    Who won the VP debate tonight? Inside Walz, Vance stands still

    Vaseline Posted on

    WASHINGTON — Republican J.D. Vance entered Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate with Democrat Tim Walz, hoping to avoid a repeat of Donald Trump’s disastrous debate performance against Kamala Harris last month in Philadelphia.

    Vance clearly succeeded on that point during the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate in New York.

    Vance did what Trump couldn’t do by delivering a debate performance that largely avoided the verbal missteps and outrageous outbursts that characterized the Republican presidential nominee’s performance in his showdown with Harris three weeks ago in Philadelphia.

    Vance seemed to have an edge over Walz in terms of balance and control of policy.

    Vance is a Republican senator from Ohio, but the debate was likely the first time many voters saw him perform on the national stage. He used part of his answer to the first question of the night to introduce himself to voters, reminding them that he grew up in a middle-class background and went to college on the GI Bill after serving in Iraq.

    Who is JD Vance? 7 facts about Donald Trump’s running mate

    Walz, the governor of Minnesota, appeared to be misguided from the start when he conflated Iran and Israel when asked how he would advise the president on a pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran.

    “Iran’s ability, or I, uh, Israel’s ability to be able to defend itself is fundamental,” he initially said. Moments later, he said that “the expansion of Israel and its allies” is a fundamental necessity for the United States to maintain stable leadership there.

    Other times, Walz seemed nervous and unsure of himself. He sometimes spoke so quickly that he stumbled over his words.

    The two candidates met on the debate stage in New York as polls show the election is close with just 35 days to go. Most national polls give Harris and Walz a narrow lead nationally, but the race remains a battle in several of the swing states that will determine the winner.

    Harris and Trump debated each other in Philadelphia last month, a showdown that Harris was widely expected to have won. Harris has pressed Trump to agree to a new debate later this month, but has so far been reluctant to commit to a rematch.

    Tuesday’s event between Walz and Vance is the only scheduled debate between the vice presidential candidates — and could potentially be the final debate of the presidential race.

    Who is Tim Walz? 10 facts about Kamala Harris’ VP pick

    Even before the nominees took the stage, the Harris campaign tried to lower expectations for Walz, who reportedly claimed to be a poor debater and was nervous about how he would perform. Trump, on the other hand, seemed to raise expectations for Vance.

    ‘He’s taking on an idiot. A total idiot,” Trump said during an interview with Kellyanne Conway, who managed his 2016 campaign and worked as his senior adviser in the White House.

    During the hour and a half debate, both candidates found themselves on the defensive.

    Walz was asked to explain why he said he was in Hong Kong during the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989. Recently unearthed news reports indicate he was still in Nebraska, his home state, and headed to China to teach high school. August 1989, a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests.

    Walz stumbled trying to explain the discrepancy, but eventually said he made a mistake and sometimes called himself “an idiot.” “I can get caught up in the rhetoric,” he said.

    Vance has been put on the defensive for his past criticism of Trump, who he once suggested could be “America’s Hitler,” and for his false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eat cats and dogs.

    VP debate: 6 Key Things to Watch During the Tim Walz-JD Vance Debate

    “I was wrong about Donald Trump,” Vance said, blaming what he called unfair media reports that he said had distorted Trump’s record.

    Vance repeatedly questioned why Harris has not yet implemented many of the policies she advocated as a presidential candidate, considering she has been vice president for more than three years.

    Presidents, not the vice president, determine the policies of an administration. But Vance often referred to Harris’ “wide-open southern border” and said some of her economic plans sound “pretty good” — but that she could have already implemented them if she wanted to.

    “If Kamala Harris has such grand plans to tackle the problems of the middle class, she should implement them now, not when she asks for a promotion,” he said. “The fact that she isn’t tells you how much you can trust her actual plans.”

    Vance deflected when asked whether Trump continued to make false claims that he won the 2020 election and about the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol by a group of Trump supporters who tried to prevent Congress from declaring Joe’s victory Biden would confirm.

    Vance said he and Republicans want to focus on the future and accused Democrats of censoring the speech of people who criticized the election system.

    Walz countered that the threat to democracy is real and warned that Trump and his allies are “laying the groundwork” for more protests and a new attempt to overturn the election if they lose in November.

    Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.

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