Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, October 2, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance on Tuesday night gave what may be remembered as a masterclass in how to debate not only your opponent, but the moderators who have your opponent’s back.
When he wasn’t the proverbial deer caught in the Vance headlights, Democrat Tim Walz came off as weird to say the least with such comments as “I’m friends with many school shooters!”
This was the moment Tim Walz realized he was the deer and JD was the F150 pic.twitter.com/7DoofC8G3v
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 2, 2024
Human Events editor Jack Posobiec noted: “Wonder if Tim Walz is friends with any Trump shooters. …. Is Dick Cheney one of the school shooters Tim Walz is friends with?”
Posobiec added: “Shout out to all the neocons who said JD Vance was the wrong choice for VP — wow, you guys look really really dumb right now! Donald Trump made the right choice for VP and it isn’t even close. He had a tough call to make, made a big bet, and it is paying off immensely.”
Even a majority of the 13 New York Times columnists and contributors polled after the debate agreed that Vance defeated Walz.
“He made Trumpism sound polite, calm and coherent,” the Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum said of Vance.
Contributing Times opinion writer Peter Wehner said Vance proved he was “sharp and in command and… an excellent debater.”
Times columnist Gail Collins insisted the debate was a “draw” because “Walz was so bad in much of his delivery. Vance was a much more forceful speaker while spewing lies on everything from abortion to Biden’s foreign policy.”
[When it comes to determining who is “spewing lies,” the New York Times will have no credibility until it returns the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded for its false coverage of the Trump-Russia collusion story.]
The Washington Times staff noted that “Donald Trump’s running mate was confident and clearly articulated his arguments, which were usually concise and on point. He was effective in addressing viewers at home, as when he acknowledged that many viewers are worried ‘that the American dream is unattainable.’ ”
“The Republican was masterful in a disarming way of paying backhanded compliments to the Democratic ticket. For example, he said some of Vice President Kamala Harris’ costly plans sound great, until you turn around and realize the impact is that food prices are 25% higher than four years ago,” the Washington Times added. “After a campaign beset with media criticisms of him, Mr. Vance came across as smart, likable and in easy command of the facts. He conveyed compassion, and in doing so trashed the media’s caricature of him.”
As for Walz, the Washington Times noted: “He stumbled through an answer about war in the Middle East, at one point confusing Israel with Iran, saying ‘the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there.’ Huh?
“Then came the question about whether he had lied about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He delivered a filibustering word salad in which, if you listened closely, he admitted that he had lied about it. He was in Hong Kong later in the same summer, but not when the protest took place.”
“I misspoke on this,” Walz said, calling himself a “knucklehead” and saying he got “caught up in the rhetoric.”
Along with Walz, CBS moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell were also the night’s losers, the Washington Times noted: “Their heavy-handed fact-checking of Vance on climate change and immigration broke their pre-debate pledge to let the candidates fact-check themselves. When Vance called them on it, they responded by cutting off his mic. Even their one-sided intervention couldn’t prevent Mr. Vance from winning the night.”
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Members of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board agreed that Vance won the night.
William McGurn: “Vance appeared both gracious and in command, putting even the moderators in their place after they tried to fact check him. When Walz was asked about his false claim that he’d been in Hong Kong the day of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, he filibustered. When Vance was asked about his past scathing criticism of Trump, he forthrightly said he was wrong. Wisely, he also tended to answer criticisms of Trump by defending Trump’s policies. Walz’s folksiness failed him in the debate. The night belonged to Vance.”
James Taranto: “JD Vance vanquished his most formidable adversary: the debate moderators. After an exchange on immigration, CBS’s Margaret Brennan tried to give herself the last word: ‘Just to clarify for our viewers,’ she said, ‘Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants, who have legal status — temporary protected status.’
“That was an attempt to prejudice the viewer against Donald Trump and Vance’s position, which is that the Biden administration shouldn’t have made it so easy for them to obtain this status. Vance didn’t stand for it.
‘Margaret,’ he interrupted, as she and Norah O’Donnell attempted to pivot to another topic, ‘the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on. So there’s an application called the CBP One app, where you can go online as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole, and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open-border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.’
“As he continued, Brennan said sarcastically, ‘Thank you, senator, for describing the legal process. We have so much to get to, senator.’ Still, he persisted, and Tim Walz chimed in. Suddenly the candidates’ volume dropped. Brennan smiled nervously and informed them, ‘Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut.’
“From then on, the moderators complied with their mandate to forbear from ‘fact checking.’ One hopes that will become the norm in future debates. As I’ve been arguing since Vance was 24, so-called fact-checking — not to be confused with the real thing, ensuring the accuracy of one’s own work — is a scourge on journalism. It is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news. The object is not merely to report facts but to pass a judgment.”
Kim Strassel: “Only a few questions into the debate, the Walz formula became clear: Deflect on any Harris plans and then turn to attack Trump. Would Harris support a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran? Look at those dumb Trump tweets! What’s the Harris climate and energy plan? Trump called climate change a ‘hoax’! How do we handle the border? Trump argued against a border bill! This performance will gratify anti-Trumpers and might speak to some Americans who decide to vote on questions of character.
“But many other viewers probably left with a strong impression that Walz was evading questions about his own team’s policies, especially given JD Vance’s clear answers on Trump’s plans. It’s now impossible to believe that this strategy by Harris is anything other than deliberate. Her campaign knows Americans are curious, but also that its ideas amount to a super-sized version of the unpopular Biden agenda of more spending, big government, border chaos and the Green New Deal. So the goal is to say as little as possible. Walz at least followed campaign orders.”
Tunku Varadarajan: “Vance answered the most pressing question of the night (again, after first talking about his impoverished background): Would he support a ‘preemptive strike’ by Israel on Iran? He said, correctly, that it would be ‘up to Israel.’ Which it is, supported by its allies.
“What was Walz’s answer to the same question? ‘Steady leadership is going to matter.’ Last we checked, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s ‘steady leadership’ cut the ayatollahs more slack than they could have hoped for from any president since… Barack Obama. (Whose answer do you think the Iranians liked more?)
“Walz never answered the Iran question. Never. Instead, he sought refuge in abortion and labor relations (‘I’m a union guy’). And so, somehow, the man who circulated the idea that Haitians in Ohio are eating abducted cats came across as the more electable of the two.”
Barton Swaim: “My impression: Sen. JD Vance performed with poise and charm, only speaking forcefully on a couple of occasions, and then without losing his cool. Gov. Tim Walz gave hearty but convoluted answers.
“The few embarrassing moments belonged to Walz, most plainly when he admitted that he ‘misspoke’ in claiming he was at the Tiananmen protests in 1989 (meaning he lied about it). Vance, moreover, did throughout the night what Donald Trump should have done but didn’t until the last minute of his debate with Kamala Harris on Sept. 10: Again and again, Vance reminded viewers that Harris is the sitting vice president, and that in three and a half years she hasn’t done anything to further all the lofty goals she talks about in 2024.”
Allysia Finley: The Ohio senator was gracious toward his sparring partner, Tim Walz, and focused his criticisms on Harris’s record. Discussing the border, Vance quipped: ‘I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think Kamala Harris does.’
“He defended and explicated Trump’s healthcare policies. His explanations were nuanced but pointed. He smacked down the liberal straw man that Republicans who disagree with Democratic climate policies don’t care about ‘clean air and water.’ He also pointed out how rising U.S. energy costs, driven by climate mandates, push manufacturing to countries with higher CO2 emissions. Even Vance’s trite populist remedies, such as his call for more government industrial policy to boost U.S. manufacturing, came off as earnest.
“Walz presented as more authentic and knowledgeable than Harris, though he also sometimes looked like a deer in headlights. None of that will reassure voters who have doubts about Harris’s readiness for the Oval Office.”
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Even N.Y. Times columnists agree: Vance decisively won debate vs Waltz, CBS moderators added by Editor Two on October 2, 2024
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