VP debate live updates: Vance thrived on stage while Walz struggled to find his footing

A new poll found the debate turned out essentially a draw. CBS and YouGov put out a survey immediately following the vice presidential debate, which found that 42 percent of people thought that Republican vice presidential nominee Senator JD Vance got the better of his Democratic counterpart Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

But 41 percent thought that Walz got the better of Donald Trump’s running mate. Similarly, people seemed to like the tone of the debate as 88 percent of those surveyed said the tone was generally positive.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gave a rambling answer Tuesday night during the vice presidential debate against JD Vance when asked about reports that he falsely claimed to have been in Hong Kong during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

“All I said on this was is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, that’s what I’ve said,” Walz responded to the CBS moderators. “So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests... and from that I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”

Josh Marcus reports:

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said Vance was “polished” and “slick” but believes that Walz “won”.

“One of these candidates is much slicker than the other is a much more practiced, kind of professional debate-style speaker and the other candidate won,” Maddow said.

She acknowledged that Walz had an unflattering while responding to criticisms about the Tiananmen Square protests but that he succeeded on “every issue on substance” like healthcare, the economy, immigration, abortion and more.

“JD Vance was very polished and very slick and Tim Walz beat him on the substantive points.”

At the Democrat debate watch party in Arlington, it was initially, quiet and folks were a bit stressed. Then once Walz started to hit his stride, they felt better.

CNN host and legal analyst Van Jones said JD Vance “lied the entire night”.

Jones said Vance repeated falsehoods about American energy production, Trump’s past healthcare policy, the peaceful transfer of power in 2021 and supporting a national abortion ban.

“I think Americans need to be very, very careful this is a very, very deceitful guy,” Jones said on CNN.

Guests were losing interest in the wonky debate by the second half and a fight nearly broke out after one man told another guest that his views were “repulsive” and stormed out threatening to kick his ass.

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has blamed the media for his savage past criticisms of the former president.

Speaking in a televised debate against his Democratic opposite number Tim Walz, the Ohio senator claimed that he was misled by “dishonest fabrications” when he compared Trump to Hitler and said he had “thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism”.

“I’ve always been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump,” Vance said on Tuesday night. “I was wrong first of all because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record.

Io Dodds reports:

Despite a civilized and at times even convivial vice presidential debate, Democratic nominee Tim Walz at times appeared nervous and unprepared, while his rival JD Vance worked to downplay his image of an uncompassionate weirdo.

Ultimately, the Ohio Senator’s confidence, command of party lines and smooth delivery made a largely positive impression on Tuesday night, in contrast to that caused by several campaign controversies in recent weeks.

Mike Bedigan reports:

By his own admission, Vance says he likes to talk a lot. When I watched his debate performances from when he ran for Congress and Governor, Walz can rattle off tons of facts.

The downside to that is that sometimes he isn’t quick on his feet. This was how he at times struggled to respond to questions about his response to violent demonstrations after George Floyd’s killing. In the same way, he slipped when he did not directly address the timeline when of when he went to Hong Kong.

It also meant he tried to pack in his rehearsed lines about abortion rather than responding to accusations about Minnesota’s abortion law.

When JD Vance began law school at Yale, the Rust Belt native encountered total culture shock — but also met his wife, the whipsmart daughter of Indian immigrants who helped him navigate the Ivy League, healthy relationships and his run for Vice President alongside Donald Trump. Sheila Flynn chronicles their romance