adminThe vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was something that’s become increasingly rare in modern American politics: Normal.
In an event that is unlikely to change the trajectory of the presidential race, the two VP candidates were cordial with each other, training their attacks instead on the tops of the opposing tickets and focusing largely on policy differences. Vance repeatedly hit Vice President Kamala Harris on border security, while Walz lambasted former President Donald Trump on abortion rights.
Vance was the Republican ticket’s younger face and more polite voice. Unlike Trump, he pronounced Harris’ first name correctly. He referred to his opponent by his title. He didn’t often whine about the moderators — though Trump did so during the debate on Truth Social. The Ohio senator also largely passed on opportunities to litigate the details of Walz’s own biography.
Walz — who was noticeably less comfortable on stage than Vance — settled in after a nervous start. He cast Trump as a liar who ignores experts and rejects truths he finds unfavorable.
“Look, if you’re going to be president, you don’t have all the answers,” he said. “Donald Trump believes he does.”
Here are three takeaways from the first and only scheduled vice presidential debate of the 2024 election:
‘The audience can’t hear you’: Moderators cut mics for first time during VP debate
During a debate over immigration and border security, Walz invoked Vance’s false claims about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio.
“There’s consequences for this,” Walz said, pointing out that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, dispatched state troopers to Springfield to ensure the safety of children after a series of bomb threats.
Vance shot back, “The people I care most about in Springfield are the American citizens.”
In the Ohio city and others like it, Vance said, because of an influx of migrants, “you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable.”
What Vance didn’t say: The 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian migrants in Springfield are in the United States legally.
But Walz didn’t fact-check Vance on that matter. And when he didn’t, CBS moderator Margaret Brennan explained those immigrants’ legal status.
The clash over Springfield came during a lengthy back-and-forth over immigration policy. Vance repeatedly referred to Harris as President Joe Biden’s “border czar,” a label that refers to her 2021 assignment to tackle the root causes of migration from Central American countries. And Walz hammered Trump for his role in thwarting a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, saying the former president did so in order to keep immigration alive as a campaign issue.
“We could come together and solve this if we didn’t let Donald Trump continue to make it an issue,” Walz said.
In pictures: Vance and Walz meet in vice presidential debate
New reporting by Minnesota Public Radio News and APM Reports in the lead up to Tuesday’s debate called into question Walz’s claims about how frequently he traveled to China, which he has previously said was as many as “about 30 times.” Reports contradicted those claims and specifically whether the Minnesota governor was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
CNN also reported additional information on Walz’s claims earlier on Tuesday.
When asked about the reports and the discrepancy, a Harris campaign spokesperson said it was “likely closer to 15” times.
And when asked directly during the debate Walz filibustered, first describing his upbringing and rise in electoral politics before conceding that he can sometimes get caught up in the moment, be a “knucklehead,” and said he “misspoke.”
Vance didn’t seek to directly capitalize on Walz’s concession, but alluded to it in a different question shortly thereafter, saying, “When you misspeak, you ought to be honest with the American people about that.”
As the debate turned to abortion, both candidates were asked to address claims about their ticket’s stances on reproductive rights.
Walz was asked to respond to a false assertion from Trump that the Minnesota governor supports abortion in the ninth month. In one of his stronger moments of the night, Walz brought up the personal stories of women who faced health crises or died due to state abortion bans.
“In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade,” Walz said. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care.”
While discussing abortion, the governor incorrectly claimed the Trump campaign and the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would create a “registry of pregnancies.” The organization’s proposal would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect data on abortions.
Vance was asked if the Trump campaign wants to create a “federal pregnancy monitoring agency,” referencing another past claim by Walz.
“Certainly we won’t,” Vance said. The Ohio senator defended the repeal of federal abortion protections, pointing to a 2023 ballot initiative in his state that enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution. Vance argued that the Republican Party needs to do a better job of advancing “pro-family” policies, including access to fertility treatments and make housing more affordable.
This story has been updated.
