Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance debates Tim Walz, vide presidential pick of Kamala Harris on CBS: NAJ screen shot
By Glynn Wilson –
JONESBORO, Ark. – Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential contender Tim Walz shamed Senator and Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance of Ohio Wednesday night in the only vice presidential debate of 2024 on CBS, when Vance had no answer for the most basic of questions: Did Trump lose the 2020 election?
In one of the debate’s final exchanges, Vance found himself without an explanation for Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election and on Jan. 6, 2021 during the violent attack on the Capital, twisting the truth into a pretzel of an argument by saying Trump did eventually leave Washington after Congress certified the results, and Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.
“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz questioned Vance directly, as the CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan tried to fact check Vance, only to be interrupted and eventually had Vance’s microphone turned off.
Vance dodged and pivoted, and tried to make the case that it was the Democrats who were a threat to democracy for censorship on Facebook. The exchange showed both the limits and requirements of serving as Trump’s running mate.
“That’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage,” Walz said.
By the end of the evening, the Harris campaign said it was making an ad off the Jan. 6 moment.
It was not exactly a “peaceful transfer of power,” but Vance tried to advance that falsehood, as he also lied about just about everything as smoothly as a corrupt used car salesman throughout the night. At every turn, he tried to blame Kamala Harris for all the world’s problems, including illegal immigration, inflation, problems with health care, child care and the damn housing shortage.
He lied about Trump’s record on health care, claiming he fixed Obamacare, when in fact he tried to kill it. Walz correctly pointed out that it was saved by the courage of John McCain in casting the deciding vote in the Senate to save it. I was there that day in the Senate gallery.
Many of the problems Vance talked about are not in the purview of the Vice President to fix, and in fact much of what Vance talked about could be blamed on this do nothing Congress held back by the MAGA Caucus. Walz pointed out time and again that Congress is responsible, and even had a bipartisan bill ready to pass on immigration reform until Trump made phone calls and had it killed so he could run on immigration as a campaign issue.
By all outward appearances, it seemed to be a substantive and mostly civil debate between two Midwestern men that laid bare the policy chasm between the two parties on immigration, abortion and foreign policy. But no issue made clearer the size and stakes of the country’s current political divide than the final topic of the night, when Vance refused to concede that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance said, trying to move on.
“That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz came back.
Vice-presidential debates rarely reshape presidential elections, and neither man appeared to suffer a race-defining stumble, so it will likely change few minds or many votes. But hey, at least some people were watching CBS for a change. The network has been running last in the ratings for months, and going through internal strife trying to compete with more partisan Fox News and MSNBC.
I watched the debate with a group of Democrats from Craighead County, Arkansas in a place called Bono with Democrat Rodney Govens, who is running for Congress in Eastern Arkansas in the First District against a MAGA Republican named Rick Crawford, and Chris Jones, the party’s most recent nominee for Governor who lost to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of Trump’s first press secretaries and the daughter of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Democrats in Bono in Craighead County, Arkansas cheap Tim Walz on in debate with JD Vance: Glynn Wilson
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Good one! I am still a bit concerned about how things will turn out, but remain hopeful and will do my part.
I am amazed we still have “undecided” voters, mostly younger according to the focus groups I have seen. Really? Also can’t believe the new cock-and-bull story about how the GOP (government oppressing people) are suddenly NOW champions of women’s rights? Christian Nationalists are very much the same as our Taliban jihadist “friends.” Undecideds can’t see this? Maybe they should stay home election day?