The 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 running mates 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 his Truth Social platform. The Ohio senator also largely passed on opportunities to litigate the details of Walz’s own biography.
Walz – who was noticeably less comfortable onstage 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.”
The debate was almost entirely focused on domestic issues. CBS moderators opened with a question about the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, but did not ask about the United States’ support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
The unusually normal debate ended with another refreshingly normal moment – the kind that hasn’t been seen over the past decade of presidential debates. The candidates shook hands and chatted away from the microphones, and lingered as their wives joined them.
Key Takeaways from the Debate
“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance, attempting to force the Ohio senator to acknowledge a reality that Trump himself won’t.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” was how Vance began his response.
“That is a damning nonanswer,” Walz shot back.
Vance tried to sidestep the violent attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on the day Congress was gathering to officially count Electoral College votes and certify Joe Biden’s victory. “On January 6, what happened? Joe Biden became president; Donald Trump left the White House,” Vance said.
Walz, though, drilled into the details of the costs of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. “He lost this election, and he said he didn’t. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag, and several later died,” he said. “The democracy is bigger than winning an election.”
Vance tried to redirect the discussion of democracy into a debate about social media censorship. But each time he tried, Walz pushed back, arguing that Trump was already laying the groundwork to reject the outcome of the 2024 race if he loses.
“Here we are four years later, in the same boat,” Walz said. “The winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
In many ways, this vice presidential debate reflected the way typical Americans argue about contentious issues. There was no name-calling, few canned zingers and a clear directive for both Vance and Walz not to get personal – unless they were aggressively agreeing that the issues were, in fact, issues. The housing crisis, they agreed, was a crisis. Gun violence, both said, needed to be reduced.
Instead of jousting among themselves, Vance and Walz behaved agreeably in the service of trying to depict the respective presidential candidates as uniquely divisive or misguided. “I agree with a lot of what Sen. Vance said about what’s happening – his running mate, though, does not,” Walz said when the debate turned to abortion. “And that’s the problem.”
Even after Walz rejected Vance’s claim that housing prices were being driven up by undocumented immigrants, the Republican offered his rival some kind words. “Tim just mentioned a bunch of ideas. Now some of those ideas I actually think are halfway decent, and some of them I disagree with,” Vance said, before regaining his focus and adding, “But the most important thing here is: Kamala Harris is not running as a newcomer to politics. She is the sitting VP.”
Other Notable Moments
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.
Fact-Checking Walz’s Travel Claims
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.”
Abortion and Gun Violence
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.
Vance and Walz had something approaching a constructive conversation about gun violence in America, agreeing that it is bad, getting worse and needs to be addressed – especially in schools. That this bears noting underscores just how fruitless past Democratic-led efforts have been in stemming the bloody tide. But the question of how to deal with it, despite the friendly nods between the two onstage, remained unresolved.
Vance at one point even suggested that the current administration’s border policy (or, as he put it, “Kamala Harris’ open border”) was a driving factor – a non sequitur given the length and depth of the crisis. He did, however, also acknowledge it was a more complicated issue. Walz mostly agreed with that sentiment but fought to keep the conversation from turning into a stalemate. When Vance pointed to mental health and drug use as another cause of gun deaths, Walz sought to refocus the conversation. “Sometimes it just is the guns,” Walz said. “It’s just the guns.”
The Minnesota governor agreed that lawmakers “should look at all the issues” but stopped there to add a line of caution. “This idea of stigmatizing mental health – just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent,” Walz said.
The candidates also shared concerns over how schools were responding to the threat of active shooters. Again, though, Vance treated the issue as something more like a force of nature than a policy question. “I unfortunately think we have to increase security in our schools,” he said, acknowledging that it was not a pleasant prospect. “We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger.”
Walz agreed, in part, but, in urging tighter restrictions, asked viewers, “Do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?”
A Moment of Truth for Democracy
The debate highlighted a significant difference between the two candidates: their willingness to acknowledge the truth. While Vance seemed to prioritize his own political future over acknowledging the reality of Trump's 2020 election loss, Walz spoke directly about the need to uphold democracy. This critical moment in the debate underlined a stark contrast in the candidates' approaches to truth and the future of American democracy.
The debate was just one step in the long road to the 2024 election, but it offered a glimpse into the crucial issues that will shape the race and the future of American democracy. It remains to be seen whether these two candidates will be able to bridge the divide on some of these issues and work together for a more united nation.
