WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice presidential hopefuls Tim Walz and J.D. Vance faced off Tuesday night in what could be the final debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the first meeting between Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Ohio’s Republican senator, following last month’s debate between their ticket toppers, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Before election day, there are no more debates on the political calendar. Tuesday’s confrontation came as the global stakes rose again as Iran fired missiles into Israel. The vice presidential hopefuls sparred over violence in the Middle East, climate change and immigration. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s debate.
With the Middle East in turmoil, Walz promises ‘stable leadership’ and Vance offers ‘peace through strength’
Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday set off a contrast between the Democratic and Republican tickets on foreign policy: Walz promised “stable leadership” under Harris, while Vance promised a return to “peace through strength” if Trump returns to White House.
The differing visions of what American leadership should look like overshadowed the sharp policy differences between the two tickets.
The Iranian threat to the region and American interests around the world opened the debate, with Walz shifting the topic to criticism of Trump.
“What is fundamental here is that steadfast leadership will matter,” Walz said, then referred to the “nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump who talked about crowd size” and responded to global crises by tweet.
For his part, Vance pledged a return to “effective deterrence” against Iran under Trump, walking back Walz’s criticism of Trump by attacking Harris and her role in the Biden administration.
“Who has been vice president for the last three and a half years and the answer is your running mate, not mine,” he said. He pointedly noted that the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 took place “during the administration of Kamala Harris.”
Vance and Walz punch each other instead
Vance and Walz trained most of their attacks not on their rival on stage, but on the running mates who were not in the room.
Both vice presidential candidates tried to convey a genial attitude while criticizing Harris and Trump, respectively.
It was a reflection of the fact that most voters do not base their vote on the vice president, and of a vice presidential candidate’s historic role as an attack dog for his running mates.
Walz pointedly attacked Trump for not following through on his promise to build a physical barrier across the entire U.S.-Mexico border at the expense of the country’s southern neighbor.
“Less than 2% of that wall was built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime,” Walz said.
Underscoring the focus on the top of the ticket, Vance told his opponent during a conversation about immigration, “I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think Kamala Harris does.”
Both candidates put a domestic spin on climate change
In the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastation, Vance asked a question about climate change and provided an answer about jobs and manufacturing, taking a detour around Trump’s previous claims that global warming is a “hoax.”
Vance argued that the best way to combat climate change was to move more manufacturing to the United States, because the country has the cleanest energy economy in the world. It was clearly a domestic spin on a global crisis, especially after Trump withdrew the US from the international Paris climate accords during his administration.
Walz kept the focus on climate change domestic as well, praising the Biden administration’s investments in renewable energy and record levels of oil and natural gas production. “You can see us becoming an energy superpower in the future,” Walz said.
It was a decidedly optimistic take on a pervasive and grim global problem.
Walz and Vance each blame the opposing presidential candidate for the immigration impasse
The two running mates agreed that the number of illegal immigrants in the US is a problem. But each of them blamed the opponent’s presidential candidate.
Vance echoed Trump by repeatedly calling Harris the “border czar” and suggesting that she, as vice president, would single-handedly roll back the immigration restrictions Trump imposed as president. The result, according to Vance, is an uncontrolled flow of fentanyl, a strain on state and local resources and rising housing prices across the country.
Harris was never asked to be the “border czar” and she was never specifically given responsibility for border security. She was tasked by Biden in March 2021 to address the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and push leaders there and in Mexico to enforce immigration laws. Harris had no authority to set U.S. immigration policy — only the president can sign executive orders, and Harris had no authority as Biden’s proxy in negotiations with Congress on immigration legislation.
Walz advanced Democrats’ arguments that Trump single-handedly sidestepped a bipartisan deal in the Senate to tighten border security and strengthen the processing system for immigrants and asylum seekers. Republicans only backed out of the deal, Walz noted, after Trump said it wasn’t good enough.
