Considering the heated-to-boiling temperature of national politics, the vice presidential debate was startlingly cool.
U.S. Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz met at CBS News‘ New York studios on Tuesday evening, for a conversation that could have devolved into an escalating series of attempts by either men to speak over the other. Their back-and-forth was instead — for the most part — measured, respectful, and relatively calm.
The candidates shook hands at the beginning of their first and apparently only scheduled meeting.
After making brief introductions and stating the rules, moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan jumped right into a question about the Middle East. Walz was asked if he would support a preemptive strike on Iran.
The current tensions in the Middle East, Walz said, started with the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. What’s “fundamental” to solving the problem Walz said, is steady leadership.
Donald Trump “talking about crowd sizes” is not steady leadership, he said.
The rules didn’t allow for an opening statement, but instead of answering the Iran question right away, Vance gave an opening statement, saying he was going to spend 90 minutes trying to convince voters to pick Trump.
On Iran, Vance eventually said the U.S. response would be, to great extent, “up to Israel.”
Trump walked away from the Iran deal, Walz said. Vance was asked to respond.
“Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been,” Vance said, pointing out that Harris was vice president for the last three years and a half years and hadn’t stopped Iran from getting the bomb.
“Peace through strength is how you bring security back to a very broken world,” Vance said.
On climate change, which moderators said was partially responsible for the deadly hurricane that just struck the south, Vance said he “thinks it’s an important issue.”
“Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner,” he said.
To solve climate change, he said, the U.S. needs to “double down, and invest in American workers and the American people.”
“All of those things are happening,” Walz said. Donald Trump called climate change a hoax, he said. “My farmers know climate change is real.”
Immigration was next. Trump plans the largest deportation campaign in history. How would that work, Vance was asked.
“You start with the criminal migrants,” Vance said. At the border, you “have to stop the bleeding,” he said.
Walz fired back, criticizing Republicans for blocking an immigration bill. Most people want to do something about the border, he said.
“Donald Trump said no, told them to vote against it. Because it gives him a campaign issue,” Walz said. Trump never built the wall, and Mexico didn’t pay a dime, he continued.
Walz turned to Vance’s recent — and apparently unfounded — assertions regarding Haitians in Springfield, Ohio eating other residents’ pets.
“When it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings,” Walz said.
The two candidates then began to speak over each other, and their microphones were briefly cut before conversation moved on to the economy. Vance said Trump would bring inflation to 1.5% and “peace and security through the world.”
Both candidates were also pressed on their past statements.
Vance was asked to address his past criticisms of the former president, including once suggesting Trump would be “America’s Hitler.”
“When you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people,” he said Tuesday.
Walz, meanwhile, was asked about his misleading claim, which was investigated this week by Minnesota Public Radio and other outlets, that he was in Hong Kong during the turbulence surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, part of a broader pattern of inaccuracies that Republicans hope to exploit.
Confronted with his misstatements about his travels to China years ago, Walz defended himself by saying, “I’ve not been perfect.” In fact, he said, “I’m a knucklehead at times.” Eventually, he acknowledged he misspoke about his history.
On the January 6th riots, Vance said Trump called for peaceful protest. Walz said threats from protestors chased his son out of the governors residence even as rioters breached the U.S. capitol.
“This has got to stop, it’s tearing our country apart,” Walz said.
“He peacefully gave over power on January 20th,” Vance responded.
Near the end of their fairly amicable debate, Walz noted that their cordial conversation was probably the sort people wanted to hear from political candidates.
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