WASHINGTON — Vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance faced off Tuesday night in what could be the final debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the first meeting between the Democratic governor of Minnesota and the Republican senator from Ohio, after last month’s debate between front-runners Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
No more debates are on the political calendar before election day. Tuesday’s showdown came as the competition’s global stakes rose again as Iran fired missiles at Israel. Vice presidential candidates have sparred over Middle East violence, climate change and immigration. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s debate.
As the Middle East is in turmoil, Walz promises “stable leadership” and Vance offers “peace through strength”
Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday sparked a contrast between Democratic and Republican foreign policy positions: Walz promised “stable leadership” under Harris while Vance promised a return to “peace through strength » if Trump is returned to the White House.
Diverging visions of what American leadership should look like have overshadowed the stark political differences between the two groups.
The Iranian threat to the region and U.S. interests around the world opened the debate, with Walz pivoting the topic toward criticism of Trump.
“The fundamental thing here is that consistent leadership is going to matter,” Walz said, then referenced “Donald Trump, almost 80 years old, talking about crowd sizes” and responding to global crises with tweet.
Vance, for his part, promised a return to “effective deterrence” under Trump against Iran, walking back Walz’s criticism of Trump by attacking Harris and her role in the Biden administration.
“Who has been vice president for the last three and a half years and the answer is your running mate, not mine,” he said. He pointed out that the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, occurred “under the administration of Kamala Harris.”
Vance and Walz punch each other instead of against each other
Vance and Walz focused most of their attacks not on their rival on stage, but on the running mates who were not in the room.
Both vice presidential candidates sought to convey a cordial attitude by leveling criticism at Harris and Trump, respectively.
This reflects the fact that most voters do not vote based on the vice president and the historical role of a vice presidential candidate as the attack dog of his or her running mates.
Walz openly attacked Trump for failing to keep his promise to build a physical barrier across the entire U.S.-Mexico border at the expense of the country’s southern neighbor.
“Less than 2 percent of this wall has been built and Mexico has not paid a cent,” Walz said.
Underscoring the focus on the top of the ticket, during an exchange on immigration, Vance told his opponent: “I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think Kamala Harris does.” »
Both candidates give a national dimension to climate change
Following the devastation of Hurricane Helen, Vance took a question about climate change and gave an answer about jobs and manufacturing, detouring into Trump’s past claims that global warming climate change is a “hoax”.
Vance argued that the best way to combat climate change was to move more manufacturing to the United States because that country has the cleanest energy economy in the world. It was a distinctly domestic twist on a global crisis, particularly after Trump withdrew the United States from the international Paris climate accords under his administration.
Walz also maintained a focus on climate change domestically, touting the Biden administration’s investments in renewable energy as well as record levels of oil and natural gas production. “We can see ourselves becoming an energy superpower in the future,” Walz said.
It was a decidedly optimistic view of a pervasive and sinister global problem.
Walz and Vance each accuse opposing presidential candidate of being in an impasse on immigration
Both running mates agreed that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is a problem. But everyone blamed the opposing presidential candidate.
Vance echoed Trump by repeatedly calling Harris a “border czar” and suggested that she, as vice president, had single-handedly rolled back the immigration restrictions that Trump had imposed as president. The result, according to Vance, is an uncontrolled flow of fentanyl, a strain on state and local resources and an increase in real estate prices across the country.
Harris was never asked to be “border czar” and was never specifically given responsibility for border security. She was tasked by Biden in March 2021 to address the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and to push the leaders of those countries and Mexico to enforce immigration laws. Harris did not have the authority to set U.S. immigration policy – only the president can sign executive orders, and Harris was not authorized to act as Biden’s proxy in negotiations with Congress over the Immigration Act. immigration.
Walz advanced Democrats’ arguments that Trump single-handedly killed a bipartisan Senate deal to strengthen border security and strengthen the system for processing immigrants and asylum seekers. Republicans walked away from the deal, Walz noted, only after Trump said it wasn’t enough.
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