VP debate: Vance wins as Walz whiffs on easy questions

In avoiding tough questions, Kamala Harris has long been showing she can’t even handle the easy ones.

And from the very first question in tonight’s Vice Presidential debate, it was already evident why GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance has done eight times as many interviews this campaign season as Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) combined.

On the debate stage Tuesday night, Walz had difficulty walking the very thin line of separating what he and Harris now say they want to do in the future, yet explaining why the sitting vice president has made no effort to accomplish any of those goals to date.

On immigration, Walz essentially offered up the standard Harris talking points about a “bi-partisan” law that was never needed to solve the problem anyway, which Donald Trump had supposedly blocked despite being out of power for more than three years. The line only works if the audience is completely ignorant both as to how legislation works and as to how the Biden-Harris administration acted immediately upon being sworn in to sabotage border enforcement.

One of the top moments in the debate came when the discussion of immigration was framed in the way most favorable to Democrats. Moderator Margaret Brennan tried to “fact-check” Vance on what is happening in Springfield, Ohio. Vance, who represents Ohio, powered through her objections to point out that the city is swamped by immigrants, who almost overnight came to comprise 25 percent of its population now as a direct result of Biden-Harris administration policy.

So effective was his response that CBS tried to silence him by cutting his microphone.

There wasn’t an issue in which Vance was not well-versed on and able to speak confidently. He seemed more familiar with the economic record of the last four years than Walz, who resorted to meaningless and irrelevant buzzwords about “billionaires” paying their “fair share.”

Walz was supposed to be the “folksy” candidate, but that did not come through. He just seemed out of his depth, repeating memorized notes about whatever he was asked and seemingly unable to adapt on the fly.

Asked about his claim that he was in China during the Tiananmen Square — one of several easily disproven and false claims Walz has made about his own biography — he droned on for two minutes about growing up in Nebraska before even addressing the lie. Walz ultimately claimed he had simply misspoken. Walz has previously “misspoken” about whether he was drunk when arrested for DUI driving 96 miles an hour and where he served and what rank he attained in the Minnesota National Guard.

The problem is, one does not simply misspeak about being somewhere like China when history is unfolding in that way. Walz was apparently trying to make himself into Forrest Gump, when in reality he was the old liar character on Saturday Night Live, Tommy Flanagan, making it up to make himself seem more important than he is.

On abortion, Walz told stories of worst-case scenarios and accused the Trump-Vance team of wanting a nationwide ban, something they have been unambiguous in saying they will not support. But when asked if the law he signed into being in Minnesota allowed for abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy, Walz ducked the question, because that’s exactly the law he signed.

Walz invoked the name of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who had supposedly died because of a lack of easy access to abortions. But in reality, Thurman died because she obtained a chemical abortion and it caused a massive infection. Thurman’s family is suing her doctors for medical malpractice because they failed to adhere to standard medical procedures and the clear letter of the law.

As Thurman’s family’s attorney has pointed out, the doctors cannot hide behind Georgia’s restrictions on abortion as if that was what caused her death. “Under the Georgia heartbeat law,” he said flatly, “her life still should’ve been saved.”

It was telling that, in an attempt to get ahead of the post-debate analysis, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent out a fundraising email 35 minutes into the debate declaring in its subject line: “Vance’s debate performance BACKFIRES” in the subject line. What was it that had supposedly backfired? The discussion around abortion, which had not actually started yet in real time. Oops! Pelosi’s premature trigger pull was likely due to Walz being so unimpressive.

Vance, who has been unfairly vilified by the press for months now, did not come off as the monster the media had made him out to be. Walz, meanwhile, couldn’t give a straight answer even to save his candidacy.

On housing and the economy — a topic on which Harris herself rolls up into a ball and mouths empty nostrums about her supposed “Middle Class” background — Vance drew blood by pointing out that Harris has long been free to implement many of the policies she is now advocating.

“Kamala Harris has been the vice president for three-and-a-half years,” Vance said. “She’s had the opportunity to enact all of these ‘great’ policies — and what she’s actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25 percent, drive the cost of housing higher by 60 percent, open the American southern border, and make middle class life unaffordable.”

It is doubtful that this debate will move the needle either way. Vice presidential debates rarely do. But to some degree it will help reverse the negative image the media has tried to create of Vance, who as a U.S. senator is relatively unknown in most of America.

Overall, Vance won easily on a TKO, not just because of how well he did himself, but because of how poorly Walz did on issues he should have been better prepared to discuss honestly.

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).