School shootings, child care, and the cost of living: key takeaways from the Walz-Vance debate | US elections 2024

1. Walz stalked and failed to attack Vance. Vance was polished and played well

Walz won his seat in the Harris campaign in part because of his sharp and forceful attacks on Vance, whom he described as a false supporter of struggling rural Americans and simply “weird.”

But in the days leading up to that debate, Walz also tried to manage expectations for his face-off with Walz, with news outlets running stories about Walz's nervousness and his belief that he was a bad debater.

And indeed, Walz appeared anxious and uncomfortable in his debate with Vance. Rather than mocking or attacking Trump's unpopular vice presidential pick, Walz appeared to be working hard to push through his prepared arguments while the more relaxed Vance easily maneuvered around him.

Walz admitted that he had “misspoke” in previous comments when he repeatedly recalled being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, although news outlets found evidence that he was not accurate about that could have been there at the time. Walz also said in a garbled comment about gun violence that he had befriended mass shooters, a faux pas that is now widely reported in conservative media.

Vance, who has faced intense criticism for spreading racist misinformation about Haitian immigrants in Ohio and has refused to apologize, appeared to try to portray both himself and Trump as friendly and affable moderates, for example by portraying Trump as the savior of Obamacare, even though fact-checkers found that Trump has consistently attacked and undermined Obamacare.

At the end of the debate, both candidates seemed to make some effort to be friendly to each other and note moments of agreement with each other, as if they were trying to win points for “politeness.”

2. Vance declined to say whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election

In one of Walz's strongest moments, he called on Vance to be clear about whether Trump lost the 2020 election, something Trump still denies.

Vance would not say whether Trump won or lost.

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said, attempting to accuse Harris of censoring Americans.

“That’s a damn non-answer,” Walz said.

When asked about threats to democracy and Jan. 6, Vance responded by drawing a false equivalence between a violent mob storming the Capitol and forcing members of Congress to flee and hide and Democratic protests and grievances following previous presidential elections . Vance argued it was unfair of Democrats to characterize Trump's refusal to admit that he lost the 2020 election as an undermining of democracy, saying the claim “that this is just a problem that Republicans had – that I don’t buy it.”

“There were no Facebook ads on January 6th,” Walz responded, referring to Democrats’ claims that Russia’s ad buying in 2016 influenced the election. “I think there's a revisionist history here – I don't understand how we got to this point, but the problem was that this happened.”

3. Vance blamed undocumented immigrants and U.S. border policies for a variety of problems, from school shootings to the housing crisis

Is there a social problem in America that JD Vance says is not due to Harris' alleged failure to secure the US-Mexico border?

Vance claimed that the US housing crisis was caused by undocumented immigrants competing with US citizens for housing and suggested that Trump's promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented people in the US would reduce rents and housing costs repeated claim that struck many commentators as disturbing.

“25 million illegal immigrants competing with Americans for scarce housing are a major driver of housing prices in the country. “That’s why we’ve seen a massive increase in housing prices that has occurred alongside a massive increase in the illegal immigrant population under the leadership of Kamala Harris,” Vance said.

“We should kick out illegal immigrants who are competing for these homes, and we should build more homes for the American citizens who deserve to be here,” he said elsewhere.

The Associated Press fact-checkers found that “most economists blame a long-term decline in housing supply for the steady rise in home prices” and “home builders say they need the immigrants to build the houses,” meaning mass deportations of Workers not doing so would actually increase the supply of housing in the US.

When asked about school shootings and his opposition to gun control laws, Vance supported adding more security measures to schools. In response to gunmen opening fire on schools, Vance said: “We have to make the doors stronger. We have to make the windows stronger.”

But he also pointed the finger at Mexico, claiming that most gun violence in the U.S. is committed with illegally purchased firearms and drawing a connection between the “open border” with Mexico and a rise in illegal guns in the U.S.

There is official data showing that in recent years an increasing number of weapons used in crimes have crossed the US-Mexico border. But it's not Mexico that sends weapons to the United States: it's weapons from the United States that fuel crime and violence in Mexico. As Reuters reported last year, “The vast majority of illegal guns in Mexico come from the United States, Mexican and U.S. authorities say,” noting, “Mexico, a country of 127 million people, has strict gun laws — and only one only.” Gun shop located on a military base.”

4. Vance talked a lot about the GOP needing to regain women's trust in abortion policy

Vance combined a lot of soft rhetoric to acknowledge American women's concerns about Republicans' extreme anti-abortion policies while reiterating his support for leaving abortion rights to states, many of which have passed laws restricting women seeking abortions. and medical providers who help criminalize them.

He began his comments on abortion by recounting a friend who told him years after she had an abortion as a young woman that her ability to have that abortion had been crucial to her life and had enabled her to leave an abusive relationship to escape.

He also said that the 2023 Ohio state referendum that enshrined abortion access as a right in the state constitution, when “the people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly against my position,” taught him “that we “We need to do a better job of regaining people’s trust.”

When Walz mentioned one of the Georgia women who died from a death that an investigation said was “preventable” and that experts linked to a state law criminalizing abortion procedures, Vance agreed with Walz: “Amber Thurman still should be alive.”

But of course, leaving abortion rights to the states led to the Georgia law that blames both Thurman's family and experts for her death.

Thurman's family was having none of Vance's rhetoric. In a comment shared after the debate, they praised Walz for defending women's rights and criticized Republican policies.

5. There was just one question about the Middle East, which is on the brink of regional war

On Tuesday, Iran launched a major missile attack on Israel. Israel vowed revenge. As Israeli missiles struck neighborhoods across Beirut on Tuesday evening and Israel warned Lebanese civilians to leave their homes at 3 a.m., the U.S. vice presidential debate largely ignored the escalating global crisis and instead focused on questions about the economy and U.S. consumer priorities .

Vance and Walz faced a single question about the Middle East: Would they support a preemptive U.S. strike against Iran? Both candidates more or less dodged the question while emphasizing that they support Israel. Walz added that Trump's own defense advisers had decided he was unfit for office and that the US needed a “stable” leader like Kamala Harris. Vance said it was up to Israel to decide how best to protect itself and: “We should support our allies, wherever they are, as they fight the bad guys.”