A Sense of Doubt blog post #3516 - Election 2024 Veep Debate

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3516 - Election 2024 Veep Debate

Weird.

Debates can be normal when Trump is not directly involved as in, he's not on stage.

Not much content by me here because I am behind, so catching up.

Thanks for tuning in.

COUNTDOWN!!!

https://www.270towin.com/2024-countdown-clock/

032 DAYS TO THE ELECTION

Good morning. We’re covering last night’s debate, as well as the latest from the Middle East.

Senator JD Vance of Ohio, left, and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The last 2024 debate?

Last night’s vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz was calmer — and more typical of the pre-Trump political era — than the presidential debate last month. That calmness often made it easier to understand the policy differences between the two campaigns.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll walk through four big differences, as well as tell you about key moments from the debate and offer a selection of commentary about how Vance and Walz did.

1. Foreign policy

The two campaigns are each making a core argument about foreign policy, and Walz and Vance began the debate by laying them out.

Kamala Harris’s campaign argues that Donald Trump is too erratic to be the leader of the free world; he is too self-centered and too willing to coddle dictators like Vladimir Putin, which explains why so many U.S. allies fear a second Trump term. “Look, our allies understand that Donald Trump is fickle,” Walz said. The world can’t afford that unpredictability, Harris and Walz argue, especially when the Middle East, Europe and Asia are all in turmoil.

Vance countered by asking voters to compare the amount of global turmoil during Trump’s presidency and Biden’s presidency. On President Biden’s watch, Hamas attacked Israel, Putin invaded Ukraine, and China became even more aggressive in its region. On Trump’s watch, no major new conflicts began. “Ask yourself at home,” Vance said. “When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out?” Vance was effectively arguing that Trump’s unpredictability had contained America’s enemies better than Biden’s diplomacy has.

2. Immigration

Both Harris and Trump have a big weakness on immigration, and the two vice-presidential candidates went straight at them.

Vance criticized the surge of immigration during the Biden administration and blamed Harris for it. (And, yes, the surge is real, as this newsletter has explained before.) “For three years, Kamala Harris went out bragging that she was going to undo Donald Trump’s border policy,” Vance said. “She did exactly that.” Only over the past year has the administration toughened its border policy — and migration has plummeted.

Trump’s biggest weakness on immigration is that he pressured congressional Republicans to defeat a bill this year that would have allowed Biden to enact even stricter border enforcement. And Trump admitted he was doing so to benefit his own presidential campaign. “This is what happens when you don’t want to solve it — you demonize it,” Walz said. He referred to Trump and Vance’s false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets and criticized Trump for failing to build a border wall during his presidency.

3. The economy

Vance and Walz each told a straightforward economic story last night — one about inequality, the other about the economy’s recent performance.

Walz portrayed Trump as a friend of the rich, noting that he had signed a large tax cut that disproportionately benefited the wealthy; has promised to expand it if he wins again; has no health care plan; and bragged about not paying federal income taxes. “This is the case of an economy that Donald Trump has set for the wealthiest amongst us,” Walz said.

Vance countered by talking about how healthy the economy was during Trump’s presidency (without mentioning Covid) and how high inflation has been under the Biden administration. “I believe that whether you’re rich or poor, you ought to be able to afford a nice meal for your family. That’s gotten harder because of Kamala Harris’s policies,” he said. Over the past century, the economy has usually performed better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones — you can see the charts here — but the pattern has been more nuanced since 2016.

4. Democracy

The debate ended with a spirited discussion of democracy, and the exchange was one of Walz’s strongest. Walz criticized Trump for refusing to accept that he lost the 2020 election, leading to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Vance mostly tried to change the subject, accusing Harris of supporting censorship on social media.

Eventually, Walz turned to Vance and asked, “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

Vance replied: “Tim, I’m focused on the future.”

Walz then called Vance’s response a “damning non-answer.” The exchange was a reminder that Trump and Vance reject aspects of American democracy that presidents of both parties have long supported.

More debate highlights

After the debate. Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Civility: The two candidates were more respectful to each other than Harris and Trump were last month. During a discussion of gun violence, Walz said he knew that Vance was saddened by gun deaths, while Vance told Walz he was sorry that Walz’s son had once witnessed a shooting. … and yet: During a back-and-forth over immigration, the moderators briefly muted the candidates’ mics. “Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you,” CBS’s Margaret Brennan said. Families: Vance spoke about his young children and joked that he hoped they were asleep. He also mentioned his mother’s and grandmother’s struggles. Walz spoke about having used fertility treatments to become a parent. Abortion: Walz named women who had died or suffered health issues because of state abortion bans. Vance claimed to have never supported a national abortion ban (he did, with some exceptions). Read more takeaways from the debate. Experts: Walz noted that Trump and Vance often disdained experts like scientists and economists. Vance countered that many economists should be ignored because they were wrong about the effects of global trade. Incumbent: President Biden was rarely mentioned. Vance referred to “the Kamala Harris administration” and blamed her for gas prices, overdose deaths and more. False claims: Vance falsely claimed that Trump “salvaged” Obamacare (he tried to repeal it), while Walz admitted to falsely saying he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (he arrived later). Here’s a fact-check. Flubs: Walz sometimes misspoke — he said at one point that he had “become friends with school shooters.” Here are the candidates’ best and worst lines.

Debate commentary

Vance showed “exactly why he was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate,” Bethany Mandel wrote for Newsweek. “He is the wonky and shrewd version of the former president.” Walz took “a while to get warmed up, but he won the debate because he actually had substance,” Joy Reid said on MSNBC. “His job was to sell Kamala Harris as president. He did that very well.” “For Vance, it was a commanding performance. For Walz, it was a nervous ramble,” Ross Douthat wrote, while Gail Collins accused Vance of “spewing lies.” Read what Times Opinion writers thought of the debate. “We’ve come a long way from the libertarian 1990s,” The Nation’s Bhaskar Sunkara argued. “The candidates repeatedly went out of their way to identify areas of agreement on issues like housing and child care.” National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar called Vance and Walz’s collegiality “so remarkable in this era. It redounds to their credit and helps their candidates, too.” Late night went live after the debate, but the hosts were unimpressed.

AND THESE


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/opinion/vance-walz-debate-scorecard.html

Charles M. Blow, Times columnist Walz won. You could tell that he was a teacher, because he clearly did his homework. Anyone afraid that Vance would roll over him could breathe easily. Vance seemed to have been told not to come across as a condescending valedictorian. But he might have heeded that advice too well. Vance’s performance was anemic. Also, he had to contort himself to dodge Donald Trump’s statements and his own past statements.


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/01/us/walz-vance-vp-debate

Oct. 1, 2024, 10:48 p.m. ETOct. 1, 2024

Katie Rogers

Walz’s closing statement hit a few of the items the campaign needed him to focus on tonight: an emphasis on a broad coalition of support for the Harris-Walz ticket, a campaign that has brought back a “sense of optimism” to Americans, and a condemnation of Trump. “I humbly ask for your vote,” he said in closing.

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