US presidential election: a courteous and issue-focused Vance-Walz debate | US elections 2024

The debate between running mates JD Vance and Tim Walz, which could be the last duel of the presidential campaign, was marked on Tuesday by substantive exchanges, but with a respectful tone that contrasted with the two presidential debates of recent months.

From the economy to immigration, including abortion, foreign affairs and climate change, the debate highlighted marked differences around arguments delivered by candidates who look at each other and who stay away from personal attacks.

A dynamic that contrasted with that which was at play last month during the confrontation between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The two men even found common ground several times, reserving their attacks for the presidential candidate of the opposing party during a debate which lasted almost twenty minutes longer than the 90 planned.

Before the debate, Donald Trump had described the two moderators as CBS News, Margaret Brennan et Norah O’Donnelljournalists extremely biased et Tim Walz of moron total.

An attitude that his usually very pugnacious running mate carefully avoided.

J.D. Vancewho came to the debate with a historic record of unpopularity for a running mate – no doubt notably because of his comments on the cat ladies without children – immediately thanked the network, his opponent and the viewers.

The Ohio senator also called Tim Walz by his first name several times and expressed his sympathy to his rival when the latter indicated that his son had witnessed a shooting.

Yale University law graduate JD Vance, who frequently grants interviews and answers reporters’ questions, often in a confrontational tone, delivered his message with confidence. He was more successful than the number one on the Republican ticket in conveying an effective message, Kamala Harris has had three and a half years to do what she promises to achieve.

The assault on the Capitol in the foreground

Kamala Harris’s running mate, who has granted few interviews since her nomination, for his part seemed to have suffered from less media exposure.

Visibly nervous at the start of the debate, Tim Walz took time to find his feet, but eventually gained confidence.

The Minnesota governor had his most effective moment near the very end, during an exchange on the 2020 presidential election and the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which was one of the most heated of the debate.

Look, Tim, first of all, it’s really rich of Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully ceded power on January 20th like we have for 250 years. years in this countrylaunched J.D. Vance.

Tim Walz directly asked his opponent if Donald Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election. The former president’s running mate refused to answer. Tim, I’m focused on the futurehe said.

This is a damning non-answerreplied Mr. Walz, recalling why Donald Trump had abandoned the former vice-president.

Listen, […] Mike Pence made the decision to certify the election, which is why Mike Pence is not on stage.

What concerns me is where the firewall is with Donald Trump. Where is the firewall?he asked.

J.D. Vance for his part asserted that the real threat to democracy was censorship, pointing the finger at big tech companies and Kamala Harris, who says that instead of debating and persuading her fellow Americans, she would like to censor people who engage in disinformation.

Immigration and abortion on the menu

During the debate, the Republican candidate often hammered home the point of illegal immigration, an issue for which voters have more confidence in his party, accusing the vice-president of being responsible for a historic migration crisis.

He notably argued that it had let in millions of immigrants who were driving up the cost of housing.

He also skirted the question when a moderator asked him whether a Donald Trump administration, which has promised to carry out a mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, would separate parents illegally in the country and children born in the territory who have American citizenship.

Tim Walz for his part criticized his adversaries for having repeatedly asserted that Haitian immigrants from Springfieldin Ohio, the state that represents JD Vance, ate cats and dogs. He recalled in passing that Donald Trump had incited the Republican camp to kill a bill on border security, adding that the former president preferred to make it a campaign issue.

And when it becomes an argument to be made like this, we dehumanize other human beings by making them villains.he accused.

One of the moderators stressed that the majority of Haitian migrants had not entered the country illegally, as claimed Donald Trump and his running mate.

The rules were that you weren’t going to do fact-checkingreplied J.D. Vancewho continued to speak after his speaking time. His microphone was eventually turned off. Gentlemen, the public cannot hear you because your microphones are mutedsaid one of the journalists.

On abortion, Mr. Vancevery conservative on this issue where Republicans are more vulnerable, tried to refocus his speech, while saying that each state had to decide.

As a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent lives in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, it’s that my party, we have to do a lot better to regain the trust of the American people on this issue where, frankly, they just don’t trust us.

Supporting examples, his opponent retorted that leaving this decision to the States could prove fatal for certain women and had even already been so in recent years.

It’s fundamental human rights that we’re talking about. he argued, notably raising the case of a young woman who died in Georgia after being refused an abortion following complications caused by abortion pills.

How can we as a nation say that your life and your rights, whether it is [droits] as fundamental as the right to have control over your own body, are determined by geography?

Sometimes difficult explanations

Tim Walz appeared less well when he was called upon to explain why he had already declared that he was in Hong Kong when the Chinese regime bloodily suppressed the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Earlier in the day, American media reported that he began his journey later that year.

He ended up saying that he had poorly expressed. I try my best, but I’m not perfect, and I’m a jerk sometimeshe said.

J.D. Vance was for his part invited to explain his turn towards Donald Trump, whom he has criticized extensively in the past. THE Washington Post reported in recent days that the senator had complained in text messages dating back to 2020 that the former president had failed to fulfill his promises economic populism

M. Vancewho once called his current boss aAmerica’s Hitlerreiterated that he had believed the dishonest fabrications media and blamed Congress for what the Trump administration could have done better.

The moderators opened the debate by asking the candidates if they would support pre-emptive strikes by Israel against Iran, a few hours after Iranian missile launches, but they did not respond explicitly.

Ukraine was one of the blind spots in the debate.

The oratorical joust will not leave lasting memories like during the first presidential debate, monopolized by the catastrophic performance of Joe Biden, or during the second, during which Donald Trump falsely claimed that immigrants were eating the animals of Springfield residents.

Unless the Republican presidential candidate, who has refused to cross swords again against his Democratic rival, changes his mind, this will be the last debate of the presidential campaign.

It ended with a handshake, and the two candidates introduced their wives, who had joined them on stage.