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Vice-presidential debates are not about vice-presidential candidates. They are a chance for the number two on the ticket to hype their prospective bosses for 90 minutes and, if they are lucky, introduce themselves to millions of Americans.
But JD Vance has the unfortunate task of running for the White House alongside Donald Trump, a man who often types out dozens of Caps Lock rants before breakfast.
As a result, he spent much of the debate attempting to sanitize the former president’s many statements, social media posts, verbal assaults and lies.
When Vance was asked if he — like Trump — believed climate change was a hoax, Vance straightened his back and did his duty.
“Well look, what the president has said…” he began, before launching into a revised and unrecognizable version of his boss’s remarks.
It was the first of many times he was forced to translate Trump’s confusing remarks, or his boiling rage.
“Well what President Trump said, Margaret, I just wanna defend my running-mate here a little bit,” he said again when asked about Trump’s comments on the cost of child care to CBS’s Margaret Brennan, one of the two moderators.
Vance has grown into his role as Trump’s anger translator. Once a fierce critic of the former president, the Senator from Ohio has transformed into a fully-fledged MAGA warrior. On the debate stage, he presented himself as a more polished, more coherent salesman for the extreme policies of Trump’s party.
But the extremes are still there. Vance did not run away from Trump’s destruction of Roe v Wade, he dodged a direct question about whether the 2020 election was stolen, and he prevaricated on the causes of climate change.
In one of the most striking examples of Vance’s sanitizing of MAGA policies, he told the story of a friend who had an abortion so she could leave an abusive relationship. The moral of the story, according to Vance, was that Republicans have to earn the trust of Americans on the issue.
“I know she’s watching tonight, and I love ya,” he said, staring at the camera.
Moments later, he denied pushing for a national abortion ban, something he very much did.
Walz, too, was forced to defend the record of his running mate, Kamala Harris.
In the opening minutes of the debate, he was called upon to explain how the Biden administration’s Middle East policy was a sound one, just hours after hundreds of Iranian missiles were fired towards Israel and days after Israel launched a new invasion of Lebanon.
Walz referenced Harris’s “steady leadership” and her “calmness” in comparison to Trump’s “fickleness.”
Despite their differences, this was no repeat of the angry match-up between Harris and Trump. The two repeatedly agreed with each other, and were occassionally friendly. For one of the most abnormal presidential campaigns in modern history, the debate was remarkably normal.
It was, at times, wonky — a style that suited Yale graduate Vance more than it did the vibes candidate Walz.
Vance was more relaxed on the stage. He was most effective when he was plagiarizing entire paragraphs from his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. In a bizarre moment early on, he delivered a monologue that sounded like a prologue to the book in response to a question about Iranian missiles.
Walz spoke fast. He tried to drag the conversation into his comfort zone by talking about farms as much as possible. He spoke about soybeans. corn, and topsoil. He even managed to get in a line about pheasant hunting after football practice.
Vance repeatedly interrupted Walz’s descriptions of Harris’s plans for her presidency with a statement that suggested he may overestimate the power of the vice presidency.
“She is the sitting vice president. If she wants to enact all of these policies to make housing more affordable, I invite her to use the office that the American people already gave her,” he said.
There were no fireworks on the debate stage this time, and few viral moments that will last beyond the next day. No one will be forced to drop out of the race as a result of their performance.
But that isn’t to say no one landed any punches.
Walz had his best moment towards the end of the debate when he pressed Vance on the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s actions during the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
When Vance refused to answer if Trump lost the 2020 election, Walz called his response a “damning non-answer.”
“To deny what happened on Jan. 6, the first time an American president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and a peaceful transfer of power, and here we are four years later in the same boat,” he said.
“This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.”
Vance dodged Walz’s question, claimed Trump “peacefully gave over power,” and launched into a strange pivot accusing Harris of silencing people on social media.
This is JD Vance in a nutshell: election denial, a threat to democracy itself, pure Trumpism — but with a calmer voice and a hint of a smile.
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