Tim Walz got 3 great attacks on J.D. Vance during the vice presidential debate

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) ended on a strong note in his somewhat shaky Tuesday night vice presidential debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), nailing Vance on his refusal to clearly state that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Walz also zinged Vance on the issues of abortion, immigration, and school shootings.

Playing for moderate voters, Walz didn’t deliver the knockout punch that Democrats desired. Vance has spent the last few weeks regularly interviewing on news programs, and his comfort and polish showed. Walz — who has spent the last few weeks mostly speaking at rallies — seemed nervous and sometimes stumbling through rushed talking points. While he didn’t consistently attack Vance or call out his many falsehoods, Walz still shined at several key points that ultimately accomplished his goal of contrasting Trump’s vanity with Kamala Harris’ vision.

Related:

Kamala Harris repeatedly got under Donald Trump’s skin during explosive first debate

Harris goaded Trump into going off the rails and discussing immigrants eating cats and governors executing newborns.

LGBTQ+ issues weren’t mentioned, though Walz did briefly mention Republican book banning as a form of censorship. Regardless, here are three debate moments where Walz effectively attacked Vance and Trump’s record (and two other moments that made for a memorable occasion).

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Walz gets Vance to apologize for GOP anti-abortion hardliners

Walz effectively stunned Vance in a segment on reproductive rights, noting women who have suffered from not being able to get medically necessary care under abortion bans since Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Vance lied about his own record, claiming he has “never supported a national ban” — he has — and saying that Republicans support expanding fertility treatments, even though GOP lawmakers also think that they facilitate “murder”.

At one point, Vance admitted, “My party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us.” He’s right, and it may spell trouble for Republicans as 10 states will vote on abortion-related ballot measures, and the issue has typically increased Democratic turnout to the polls.

Contrasting himself, Walz said, “In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. This is a basic human right. We have seen maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas, outpacing many other countries in the world. This is about health care. In Minnesota, we are ranked first in health care for a reason: We trust women. We trust doctors.”

Vance later said he wouldn’t support the creation of a federal pregnancy monitoring agency, as proposed in Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for Trump’s second presidency. However, this week, Trump’s senior advisor says the former president supports hunting down and punishing women who seek abortions in other states, the mechanism for which would necessarily involve monitoring women’s pregnancies.

Vance then claimed that Walz signed an abortion statute in Minnesota stating that says a doctor is “under no obligation to provide life-saving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.” Walz accused Vance of “trying to distort” the law.

Walz did indeed sign a law no longer requiring doctors to try and “preserve the life” of any infant born alive after an attempted abortion; Walz’s law said, instead, that doctors must “care” for such an infant. However, the law’s supporters says it allows “families and doctors to forgo medical intervention in rare cases where infants are delivered with fatal complications” after medically necessary abortion procedures, Axios explained.

CBS cut the mics during a scuffle over Vance’s racist immigration lies

During a segment on immigration, Walz alluded to Vance’s repeated lies about Haitian immigrants eating house pets in Springfield, Ohio, saying, “[Vance’s claims] vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield. The Republican governor said, ‘It’s not true. Don’t do it.'”

“There’s consequences for this. There’s consequences,” Walz continued. “And the consequences in Springfield were the governor had to send state law enforcement to escort kindergarteners to school,” because the schools had received bomb threats over the repeated anti-immigrant claims.

In his rebuttal, Vance replied, “Look, in Springfield, Ohio — and in communities all across this country — you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”

CBS’s debate co-moderator Margaret Brennan quickly fact-checked Vance, saying “[Springfield] does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status” under U.S. federal law.

Vance then replied, “Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.”

He then claimed that the Biden-Harris administration uses an application called the CBP One app where “illegal migrants” can “apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open-border wand.”

While the app exists, it remains the sole way for undocumented immigrants to apply for an asylum appointment, the first step in a process that can take months or years. Only 547,000 migrants scheduled an appointment through the app over the last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

As Vance continued talking, Walz said that the federal laws that granted protected status to Sprinfield’s Haitian immigrants have existed since 1990. Vance continued to claim otherwise, but the moderators then cut the men’s microphones.

Brennan said, “Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut. We have so much we want to get to. Thank you for explaining the legal process.”

At another point during the immigration discussion, Vance dodged a question on how Trump would fulfill his promise to conduct the largest mass deportation of immigrants in the nation’s history; specifically, whether Trump would instruct immigration enforcement officers to separate undocumented parents from their U.S.-born children who legally have birthright citizenship.

Vance then claimed that the Department of Homeland Security under Kamala Harris has lost 320,000 migrant children, some of whom are “being used as drug trafficking mules.” Vance may have been misrepresenting a federal oversight agency’s report which claimed that 32,000 migrant children who arrived at the border unaccompanied didn’t show up to their court hearings.

While Walz criticized Vance for “vilifying people” in his anti-immigrant rhetoric and said there’s no credible evidence that migrant children are being used as drug mules, CBS has reported about the phenomenon in the past.

Brennan also mentioned CBS News polling which showed that over 50% of Americans support mass deportations. However, the national organization Immigration Hub says a majority of Americans oppose mass deportations when given the option for immigrants to pursue a pathway to legal citizenship.

Walz reveals Vance won’t say Trump lost the 2020 election

Only at the debate’s conclusion did the co-moderators ask possibly the most important question, whether Vance would support an “unconstitutional and illegal” challenge to overturn the 2024 presidential election.

Co-moderator Norah O’Donnell told Vance, “After the 2020 election, President Trump’s campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting the results. Judges, including those appointed by President Trump and other Republican presidents, looked at the evidence and said there was no widespread fraud. The governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6th.”

“Senator Vance,” she continued, “you have said you would not have certified the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”

Vance replied, “Well, Norah, first of all, I think that we’re focused on the future.” He then said that the more important threat to democracy is “the threat of censorship” of people who spread COVID misinformation and other conspiracy theories on social media.

Walz replied, “[Trump] lost this election, and he said he didn’t. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol [during the January 6, 2021 riots by Trump’s followers to stop the 2020 election’s certification], some with the American flag — several [police officers] later died. And it wasn’t just there: In Minnesota, a group gathered on the state capitol grounds in St. Paul and said ‘We’re marching to the Governor’s residence and there may be casualties.’ The only person there was my son and his dog, who was rushed out crying by state police.”

“A President’s words matter,” Walz continued. “To deny what happened on January 6, the first time in American history that a president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power…. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”

Vance then claimed that Trump peacefully handed over power when he left office on January 20, 2021, and added, “We have to remember that for years in this country, Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought, like, $500,000 worth of Facebook ads.”

Walz replied, “January 6th was not Facebook ads.” He then said, “This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say, he is still saying he didn’t lose the election.”

Walz then directly asked Vance, “Did he lose the 2020 election?”

Vance replied, “Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

Walz grimaced and said, “That is damning. That is a damning non-answer.”

Later Walz added, “When [Trump’s former Vice President] Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage. What I’m concerned about is, where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall if he knows he could do anything, including taking an election and his vice president’s not going to stand to [up to] it?”

“That’s what we’re asking you, America. Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office even if the President doesn’t?” he continued. “And I think Kamala Harris would agree. She wouldn’t have picked me if she didn’t think I would do that because, of course, that’s what we would do. So, America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.”

Walz & Vance find rare moment of unity in school shooting segment

At another point in the debate, Walz called school shootings a parent’s “biggest nightmare,” adding, “I got a 17-year-old, and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball. Those things don’t leave you.”

When it was Vance’s time to reply, he said, “Tim, first of all, I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting, and I’m sorry about that.”

Walz replied, “I appreciate that.”

Vance added, “Christ, have mercy. It is awful.” He then blamed school shootings on an influx of guns coming through the U.S.-Mexico border, poor school security, and “a mental health crisis in this country.”

Walz, comparatively, championed common-sense gun reforms — like enhanced red flag laws, enhanced background checks, and an assault weapons ban — and warned against turning schools into “forts.”

“This idea of stigmatizing mental health: Just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent,” Walz added. “And I think what we end up doing is we start looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just the guns. And there are things that you can do about it.”

Was Walz too nice during the debate?

Walz and Vance shook hands before and after the debate, the two men largely avoided personal attacks, and at several points, they even acknowledged that the other cared as deeply as they did about issues like undocumented immigration, off-shoring, trade deficits, and school shootings (though they disagreed about their proposed solutions).

Numerous pundits and social media commenters pointed out that Walz could have attacked Vance more forcefully, especially during Vance’s whopping lie about President Trump working to preserve the Affordable Care Act, a landmark piece of healthcare legislation that Trump and Republicans repeatedly tried to repeal.

Historically, vice presidential debates don’t result in huge poll shifts. Regardless, Walz’s warm “Minnesota nice” overtures likely have less to do with Vance himself and everything to do with Democrats’ continued attempts to win over reluctant Republican moderates and swing voters, those who want to feel acknowledged and listened to by Democrats and who simply can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump.

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