Tim Walz versus J.D. Vance was the anti-Trump debate. There were no references to the animal kingdom in this Vice-Presidential debate. There were no sharp attacks about abortion. There were no vituperative comments about a lack of character. There weren’t even any assessments of golf handicaps à la Joe Biden and Donald Trump during their first debate.
Vance subtly detached himself from Trump’s bluff and bombast by coming across as MAGA with a human face
Instead, on CBS News on Tuesday evening, two Midwesterners, one from Ohio, the other Minnesota, maintained a genial tone, vying with each other to express their fervour for bipartisanship and conviction that each wants nothing but the best for America. So much for polarisation. It was not until the very end of their soporiferous encounter that Tim Walz finally took on a harder edge as he asked J.D. Vance whether he was prepared to acknowledge that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election.
Vance refused. ‘Tim, I’m focused on the future,’ he said. ‘That’s a damning non-answer,’ Walz replied.
In a sense, Vance was telling the truth. He is focused on the future – his own. Vance subtly detached himself from Trump’s bluff and bombast by coming across as MAGA with a human face. He was relaxed, reasonable, reassuring. Vance is playing the long game. If, as seems likely, Trump loses in November, Vance is set to be a contender in 2028. Unlike Mike Pence, he will not have overtly crossed Trump. Instead, he can pose as the loyal legatee.
For now, as Vance stonewalled about 2020, Walz won the debate. The Harris campaign will be running non-stop ads featuring this exchange to underscore the point that Trump, in ways both large and small, is a wilful authoritarian, a tinpot dictator who has cowed his running mate and the GOP into serving as his pliant creatures. The next target: America itself.
For most of the evening, Vance soft-pedalled Trump’s tenure as president and his future policies. Vance dismissed the idea that Trump would sanction federal measures to stymie abortions. He claimed that Trump had rescued Obamacare during his administration. And he asserted that schools could be made safer to prevent gun violence. Walz, who kept emphasising how much the pair had in common, barely laid a glove on him. He came across as nervous but impassioned. Walz’s weakest moment came not when he was challenged by Walz, but when he was asked by the CBS News moderators why he had claimed he was at Tiananmen Square during pro-democracy protests. Walz looked exceedingly queasy as he explained, ‘I’m a knucklehead at times…’
As Trump watched the debate, however, he must have harboured a feeling of unease as Vance handily surpassed his own disastrous performance against Kamala Harris. Trump had already backed out of a 60 Minutes primetime interview on CBS, with his campaign complaining that the news network wanted to do ‘live fact-checking, which is unprecedented.’
With Trump going AWOL, Vance’s performance against Walz had more than a little of an All About Eve feeling to it. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat put it, he made the ‘case for Trump’s record far more effectively than Trump has ever been capable of doing.’
Trump must have had a premonition of what was about to transpire. Before Vance spoke, Trump held a press conference and tweeted about his pressing concern that the recently deceased baseball star, Pete Rose, should be admitted to the Hall of Fame: ‘Do it now, before his funeral!,’ Trump adjured.
During the debate, as Vance commanded the spotlight, Trump couldn’t resist tweeting out the following statement in all boldfaced capital letters:
‘EVERYONE KNOWS I WOULD NOT SUPPORT A FEDERAL ABORTION BAN, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND WOULD, IN FACT, VETO IT, BECAUSE IT IS UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE BASED ON THE WILL OF THEIR VOTERS (THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!). LIKE RONALD REAGAN BEFORE ME, I FULLY SUPPORT THE THREE EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER. I DO NOT SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATS RADICAL POSITION OF LATE TERM ABORTION LIKE, AS AN EXAMPLE, IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH OR, IN CASE THERE IS ANY QUESTION, THE POSSIBILITY OF EXECUTION OF THE BABY AFTER BIRTH. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!’
The message was clear. Trump didn’t want his understudy to outshine him. But as Vance continues to campaign, he may increasingly put himself, not Trump, first.
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