by Daniel J. Flynn
A smiling JD Vance shaking hands with a grim-faced Tim Walz at the beginning of last night’s vice presidential debate foreshadowed the feelings of both at the end of the 90-minute discussion.
Vance not only outshined Walz, he also showed himself as the only truly great debater among the four candidates on the Republican and Democratic tickets. On Tuesday night, he beat Walz, Margaret Brennan, and Norah O’Donnell in yet another three-liberals-on-one-conservative handicap match.
When asked to open the debate about whether they would support an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran, Walz avoided answering the question and the Republican vice presidential nominee said America should stand by its ally.
“Kamala Harris is not running as a newcomer to politics,” the Ohioan reminded in one of his more effective moments. “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, not sit around and campaign and do nothing while Americans find the American Dream of home ownership completely unaffordable.”
When asked about lying about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Walz answered: “I grew up in small rural Nebraska” before talking about riding bicycles and supporting legislation benefitting veterans. The nonanswer compelled Brennan to ask the question again. “I misspoke on this,” he answered before again muddying the waters: “I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests.”
The Democrat vice presidential nominee strangely cited “women having miscarriages” as a consequence of abortion restrictions. “I’ve become friends with school shooters,” he misspoke during a discussion on gun control. When asked if he supported abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy, the Minnesotan said in non sequitur fashion: “That’s not what the bill says.” Several times a rattled Walz spoke in a staccato style suggesting a reliance on rote talking points. He occasionally paused awkwardly (e.g., “I serve as … co-chair of the Council of Governors”). The pauses never felt so uncomfortable as when he tried to explain his way out of the Tiananmen Square lie.
The moderators emphasized gun violence, global warming, health care, a child-care crisis, abortion, and Jan. 6 — generally positive issues for Democrats — and put inflation, for instance, on the back burner. Polls compelled the moderators to ask about immigration, an issue that skews heavily toward Republicans, but they characteristically spun it toward Democrats in crafting the question to emphasize the federal government separating migrant families. Neither O’Donnell nor Brennan asked about crime, a peculiar omission given Walz’s governance of Minnesota when violent riots resulted in massive property destruction and the loss two lives in the Twin Cities area.
Walz shined most brightly in his closing, rehearsed statement pointing to a coalition that spanned from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift supporting the optimism and opportunity represented by Kamala Harris’s candidacy. Vance countered, “She’s been the vice president for three and half years. Day one was 1,400 days ago, and her policies have made these problems worse.”
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Daniel J. Flynn, a senior editor of The American Spectator, serves as a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution for the 2024-2025 academic year. His books include Cult City: Harvey Milk, Jim Jones, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco (ISI Books, 2018), Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America (ISI Books, 2011), A Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008), and Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas (Crown Forum, 2004). In 2025, he releases his magnum opus, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. He splits time between city Massachusetts and cabin Vermont.
