The candidates for vice president of the United States, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Tim Walzand Republican senator from Ohio, J.D. Vanceshowed their most educated and empathetic face in their first election debatein which they nevertheless launched strong criticism of their respective bosses, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
It was the first time the two politicians meet face to face and they shook hands after being introduced by the CBS debate moderators. The two candidates took advantage of part of the debate, which took place without an audience, to present themselves to American voters, who will go to the polls in just five weeks, and chose to avoid personal attacks.
The first subject had to be international, after the massive attack by Iran with missiles against Israel after the start of the Israeli ground invasion of Lebanonan issue on which they showed no fundamental differences and Vance once again repeated the mantra that with Trump in charge there would have been no war.
Harris and Trump, targets of attacks
The next topic was Hurricane Helenethat has claimed more than 100 lives in the North American country, and Walz criticized controversial remarks by Trump, who years ago called climate change a “hoax.” This dynamic, in which the candidates chose do not criticize each other, but their bosseswas repeated several times during the face-to-face meeting which lasted more than an hour and a half.
An example was the block relating to immigrationwhen Vance attacked Harris for her handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, calling her the “border czar” of now-President Joe Biden’s administration. For his part, Walz chose to blame Trump for the crisis for boycotting a bipartisan border bill in the Senate.
Although the opponents always kept their cool, ‘CBS’ cut off both of their microphones because they wanted to continue talking about immigration while the moderators wanted to move on to the next topic, something he had already warned against in its regulations.
Another tactic used by candidates was to defend your formula comrades. When asked about economy — one of the most important issues for voters according to polls — Vance said Trump’s economic plan would solve the inflation crisis on his first day in office and Walz defended Harris’ proposals.
Vance avoids saying whether Trump lost in 2020
However, Vance had difficulty answering whether Trump lost the 2020 electionan election defeat he never admitted to, which led to the storming of the Capitol in January 2021. “I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans so they wouldn’t “do not express following the COVID situation in 2020”, he replied? Walz asked him. Questioned a second time, this time by “CBS”, the “number two” of the Republican tandem replied: “Obviously, Donald Trump and I think there were problems in 2020. We talked about it.”
Vance was the one who had the most pressure in this debate, since he was responsible for regaining lost ground after the Trump’s poor performance in debate with Harris at the beginning of September. As the face-off drew to a close, Walz admitted that he sympathized with many of the things his opponent had said, to which Vance responded with a nod: “Me too!” » debate between Trump and Harris. The Republican candidate even said that if Walz were the next vice president, he would offer his prayers, best wishes and help.
In his conclusion, Walz could not help but mention Taylor Swiftwho publicly supported Harris and therefore became a target for Trump, who went so far as to say that hate the singer. “I’m amazed by all the coalitions Kamala Harris has formed, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift,” Walz said.
