A CIVIL VP DEBATE: VANCE AND WALZ FOCUS ON ISSUES AND ELECTION INTEGRITY

Read the full transcript of the vice presidential debate

Watch the video of the full debate

By: Rachel Williams and Miriam Raftery

Vance refuses to promise to certify election results in future presidential elections even if all 50 governors submit certified results

October 6, 2024 (New York City, NY) – Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz remained civil during the subdued October 1 debate in the CBS Broadcast Center’s historic Studio 45 on October 1, a sharp contrast to the contentious presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Opinion polls show a stalemate, with neither VP candidate a clear winner.

Vance provided a polished, smooth delivery, while Walz came across as serious but sometimes uncomfortable. The pair differed sharply on major issues such as the economy, healthcare, housing, climate change, gun violence, immigration and more. Both sometimes offered disinformation, and the contenders clashed sharply when Vance downplayed the violence during the Jan. 6 attack on the capital and sidestepped questions about whether he, as vice president, would certify the results absent evidence of fraud .

CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan addressed the current unfolding crises, from the Middle East to Hurricane Helene and a longshoreman’s strike. Walz was challenged on why Harris had not yet achieved her goals with 1,400 days in office, while Vance faced questions about his hesitation to serve as a firewall against pressure to undermine democracy.

O’Donnell noted that despite Trump losing all 62 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election and all 50 governors sending certified results to the Senate, the former president pressured his then-Vice President Mike Pence to refusing to carry out its constitutional duty to certify the election results. .

“Senator Vance, you have said that you would not have certified the last presidential election and that you would have asked the states to nominate alternative electors. That is called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you try to question this year’s election results again, even if every governor certifies the results?” O’Donnell asked.

Vance dodged the question and instead said he wants to focus on the future, such as solving inflation and housing problems. He accused Harris of trying to censor views on social media platforms, claiming this is “a far greater threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said demonstrators should protest peacefully on January 6.”

Walz called Vance’s response a “damn non-response” and corrected Vance’s mischaracterization of the Jan. 6 attack as peaceful. Noting that 140 police officers were beaten at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Walz said Pence “made the right decision” despite chants to hang Mike Pence. “I’ve worked with kids long enough to know, and I said that sometimes as a football coach you really want to win, but democracy is bigger than winning elections. You shake hands and then try to do everything you can to help the other side win. Walz concluded. “That’s, that’s what was at stake here.”

Moderators challenged Walz to explain his past inaccurate statements claiming his involvement in the Tiananmen Square crackdown. where the Chinese army killed pro-democracy demonstrators. He acknowledged that this was an “idiot” statement and further clarified that he was in Asia but not in Tienanmen Square when the violence took place there.

Vance dodged important policy and economic questions vital to voters regarding climate change. The administration of former President Trump rolled back about 100 environmental protection rules. Vance promotes that the US has the cleanest economy in the world, sparking discussion on the topic of energy and climate change. “This idea that carbon emissions are the cause of all climate change. Well, let’s say that’s true, just for the sake of argument so we don’t argue about weird science,” he said. said. He said this means the U.S. must bring more manufacturing jobs back to America, but failed to provide any solution to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.

When the moderator, Norah O’Donnell, sought clarification on Trump’s usage plan When the U.S. military was deported, she asked Vance if this would mark a return to separating families at the border. He pivoted his rebuttal with testimony of his own mother’s opioid addiction, claiming Harris hasn’t done enough to prevent drugs from flowing across the border.

Walz claimed that in the past twelve months we have seen the largest decline in opioid deaths in our country’s history. Preliminary data does show a significant decline in reported opioid deaths over the past year, although the The figure is still higher than at the start of the Biden-Harris administration.

Vance attributed unaffordable housing to Harris’ open border, he said, where millions of illegal immigrants now compete with U.S. citizens for scarce housing options. Although Vance helped launch a startup in Eastern Kentucky called AppHarvest intended to bring more jobs to the area, he only created extremely tough working conditions and forced the company to contract migrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, former employees told CNN.

Walz countered that the number of illegal border crossings is “less than when Donald Trump left office.” This proved true when comparing Trump’s final months with the past sixty days. However, a full snapshot of Harris as vice president showed that the number of illegal border crossings increased exponentially.

Vance repeatedly criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies. The Biden-Harris administration has documented that thousands of unaccompanied minors who came to the border during the Trump administration have gone missing; many have been reunited, but some remain missing. Vance has claimed, without any supporting evidence, that thousands of lost children have actually been trafficked for sex or used as drug mules in recent years.

“And what she has actually done instead is raise the cost of food by 25%, raise the cost of housing by about 60%, open America’s southern border and make middle-class life unaffordable for a large number of Americans?” Vans said.

Both candidates eagerly addressed the political unrest surrounding gun safety that is raging nationwide, without addressing a definitive plan of action. Walz illustrates the seriousness of sitting in a room with Sandy Hook parents while connected to the NRA and school shooters. Although he is a gun owner, Walz has called for reasonable gun laws that respect the 2^i.e amendment, but also protects the lives of students.

“We know that thanks to Kamala Harris’ open border, we have seen a massive influx in the number of illegal weapons controlled by the Mexican drug cartels,” Vance fired back. However, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the problem stems from the flow of U.S. weapons into Mexico.

Both sides pointed fingers while making statements about the January 6 riot. Vance claims the Biden administration and social media companies were working together to censor free speech, but Walz stood firm, saying January 6 was not about Facebook ads.

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the time: “They did this because they had been fed wild untruths by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry that he had lost an election.” The Republican leader added: “Former President Trump’s actions (which) preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

On the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and health care, Vance defended Trump’s position by recognizing his bipartisan efforts to provide affordable access to health care for all Americans. In fact, Trump attempted to repeal the ACA by sponsoring a lawsuit to invalidate the program, and supported its repeal, which was blocked by one vote, when Republican Senator John McCain joined with Democrats to repeal the ACA to save.

If Trump is successful in repealing the ACA, a significant number of protections for pre-existing conditions would be removed, Walz fires back. Even though there were some protections in place for people with employer-based plans before the ACA was implemented, Trump pushed the expansion of lower-cost, short-term health plans to deny price coverage based on health status, and his government limit advertising and outreach enrolling the community in ACA health plans.

Most polls showed one close race between Trump and Harris in battleground states and a near tie after the VP debate. Ballot tracking is a tactic being implemented by the US to reduce the chance of voting fraud, with election officials tracking the progress of the vote and 94% of registered voters living in states where it is available, according to Paul Gronke, director of the Elections and Voting Reed College Information Center.

One study found that party identification had a strong influence on the perceptions of people watching the Walz-Vance debate When asked who won, voters were split 50-50, according to a quick Politico/Focaldata poll of likely voters taken just after the two faced off.