In a perfect example of how the corporate media has utterly failed in its duty to report truth to the American people, CBS moderators of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate behaved as if the two men they were questioning were somehow on an equal moral plane. Television and newspaper commentators Wednesday morning similarly equated the candidates, shallowly emphasizing how much they supposedly “agreed with one another.”
Other than their reprehensible agreement on backing Israel in its Middle East wars no matter what crimes Netanyahu may commit, the reality was that the two were starkly divided on almost every issue—something that moderators did little to highlight.
While they were quick to query Democrat Tim Walz about a verbal misstep he made regarding something that happened 35 years ago—whether he was in Hong Kong in August rather than June of 1989—they failed to ask J.D. Vance how he feels about running for office on a ticket with a convicted criminal, an insurrectionist, an adjudicated rapist, a man who has called for a violent 24-hour “purge” of alleged criminals, and a candidate who calls for shooting shoplifters.
The hosts also largely neglected to fact-check the long list of lies Vance spewed Tuesday night, allowing him to dodge questions and instead regurgitate unrelated MAGA talking points.
Vance’s diversionary word salads were delivered in polite enough fashion, though, giving corporate pundits an opening Wednesday morning to sing a chorus of how “gentlemanly” he was. “It appears Vance had a good night,” opined CNBC’s business correspondent Andrew Zorkin.
The Wall Street Journal gave him credit for delivering the MAGA message “confidently and clearly.” Others gleefully characterized him as the more polished version of Trump. The praise from the financial press comes as no surprise, of course, considering how much money and resources venture capital and Silicon Valley have invested into grooming Vance as the future leader of the far-right.
If such fawning media coverage has an effect, Vance may gain some ground toward trying to live down his reputation as a mean, nasty, and racist attack dog for his boss. But in attempting to do so Tuesday night, he often tripped. The biggest stumble came when the topic of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt arose.
Won’t commit to recognizing results
While the moderators wouldn’t fact-check Vance’s repetition of Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden, Walz himself directly questioned Vance himself about whether he believed Trump had lost the last election. As he did all night, Vance responded with a non-answer, saying, “Tim, I’m focused on the future.”
Instead, he tried to turn the question upside down by arguing Harris favors censorship of social media. Walz didn’t relent. Trump “lost that election, and he said he didn’t. A president’s words matter,” Walz stated bluntly.
The Minnesota governor said the Jan. 6 insurrection was “the first time in American history that a president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power—and here we are four years later, in the same boat.” He added that Trump favors “imprisoning your political opponents” and mused about whether Vance also backs that.
Walz also revealed that Trumpites in Minnesota had shown up on his front lawn on Jan. 6 in a local action to support the attempted coup in Washington. “The only people in the house were my son and my dog,” the governor commented. Biden carried Minnesota by several percentage points in the last election.
Walz didn’t let Vance’s censorship dodge pass by without comment, though, turning it into an attack against the Republican. “Censorship is book-banning,” said Walz. “This is a threat to our democracy.” Radical right-wingers and Republican governors and legislators have sought to ban books and school curricula that cover the history of racism in the U.S., LGBTQ issues, and more.
Neither the moderators nor Walz had questions for Vance about another democracy-related issue: his trafficking of dangerous and racist disinformation on the internet designed to gin up votes for Republicans.
Included in those postings are calls for violent tactics to clear alleged leftists and communists out of U.S. institutions and Vance’s admission that many of his policy ideas come from Curtis Yarvin, a known fascist who hangs out with right-wing extremists in Silicon Valley.
No fact-checking
The CBS hosts’ interrogation of Vance about his and Trump’s false claims regarding the alleged eating of pets by Haitian immigrants in Springfield was tame but still managed to upset the Republican. When Vance referenced some of his own lies about “illegal aliens,” moderators dared to assert the reality that the Haitians in Springfield are in the U.S. legally under Temporary Protected Status.
Vance was then quick to whine, “The rules were you guys weren’t going to fact-check!”
Indeed, the fact-checking essentially ended there, and moderators stuck to asking policy questions of both candidates on an equal basis. Vance either did not answer those questions or offered lies in response.
The senator got tongue-tied when challenged on his past absolute opposition to abortion in all circumstances, for instance. That includes opposition to in vitro fertilization. Walz challenged Vance on that, saying it aids many couples who have trouble conceiving kids, including Walz and his wife.
The Republican VP nominee said he has never supported a national abortion ban despite the fact that his own words, sent out all over the internet Tuesday night by angry voters, testify to the fact that he has repeatedly called for one.
Vance had no real response, though, when Walz also pointed out that Trump brags about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who provided the key votes to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Says to leave it to the states
As they did two years ago, progressives and Democrats now view legalizing abortion, and the Trump justices’ role in abolishing it, as a winning issue. That’s a judgment opinion polls and actual referenda, even in deep-red Kansas and Kentucky, and twice in Ohio, back up.
Knowing the issue will cost him the votes of millions of women nationwide, Trump now advocates leaving abortion up to the states, as the court ruled two years ago. That’s contributed to the deaths of pregnant women who could not get abortions in anti-abortion red states. One referenced by Walz drove from anti-abortion Georgia to North Carolina, which still permits them. She died from complications on the trip.
His own state of Minnesota is a pro-abortion rights haven surrounded by anti-abortion states: The Dakotas, Iowa, and Wisconsin. It also has the best maternal health rates in the nation, Walz noted. The state’s motto on abortion, referring to government intrusion between a woman and her doctor, is “Mind your own business,” he said.
Blames immigrants for everything
Vance repeatedly pounded on the immigration issue—a favorite of his white supremacist running mate—by blaming migrants for everything from high housing costs to the fentanyl imports to guns coming over the U.S.-Mexico border. He threw out curbing immigration as the solution to almost every single policy issue he was asked about. Most of the nation’s ills, if Vance is to be believed, are due to immigration.
Gun violence and school shootings, too, are to be blamed on immigrants, according to Vance. The solution, he said, was to turn the nation’s schools into what Walz, a former teacher, called “fortresses.” The nation’s two big teachers’ unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, strongly oppose that idea and oppose arming teachers, too.
Vance also claimed Trump “saved” Obamacare during his time in office but didn’t offer any evidence. “When Obamacare was crashing he could have destroyed it,” Vance claimed, disregarding dozens of unsuccessful GOP votes to repeal it—votes Walz cited.
“I was there” in the U.S. House “when they passed the ACA,” the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare’s official name, Walz retorted. The ACA vastly cut the number of uninsured in the U.S. and eventually became more popular. The Republicans, but not Trump or the corporate class, have given up on repealing it.
But Walz warned Trump and Vance would return the nation to the days when insurers could deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, politely omitting the fact that the ACA passed with no Republican votes at all. “The Republicans fought it tooth and nail,” the governor said.
Neither Vance nor Walz mentioned the solution that would meet the healthcare needs of every American while removing private insurers and profits from the equation—Medicare for All.
The two clashed briefly over the coronavirus pandemic, after competing claims about whether the Trump or Biden four-year terms produced a better U.S. economy. The numbers come down on Biden’s side, but corporate media has shaped public perception in favor of Trump on the issue, a big problem for Harris.
“There were ten million people out of work, and nine million jobs were closed because of COVID” when Trump left office, said Walz. Both numbers he cited are below actual figures at the pandemic’s height.
The economy also led to the first mention of unions, which Walz, a union member as a teacher in Mankato, Minn., lauded. Then he pointed out that the Republican platform, also known as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, would “undercut the right to collective bargaining, enact right to work [laws] in all states, and let folks in venture capital export jobs overseas.”
By contrast, Walz claimed that Biden and “Kamala Harris created 250,000 manufacturing jobs” in projects to switch the U.S. away from fossil fuel dependence. Though Walz did not say so, they’re mostly union jobs.
Labor lauds Walz
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, Amalgamated Transit Union President John Costa, and Teachers President Randi Weingarten all lauded Walz’s performance and panned Vance, especially on policy.
Shuler termed Vance “a phony who plays a pretend working-class hero in a fantasy world versus a champion who fights for working people in the real world.
“But working people won’t be fooled,” she added. Shuler noted Vance opposed the “Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—the labor movement’s landmark bill to protect workers’ right to join a union—and introduced legislation that would let bosses create sham company unions to undermine actual worker organizing.”
She pointed out that Vance “is all in on” Project 2025 “that would eviscerate unions, gut the minimum wage and overtime pay, and come after” union contracts and benefits. “Vance is committed to Trump’s agenda, and that agenda does nothing for working families…. Trump only cares about his rich friends. That’s how Vance and Trump would govern if elected.”
Weingarten latched onto the democracy issue. “If you cannot say that Joe Biden won the election in 2020, if you cannot condemn the Jan. 6 insurrection, if you pretend there was a peaceful transfer of power, you are disqualified from being vice president,” she said.
“Vance did what he does best: Slickly creating ‘stories.’ He invented new fantasies to demonize immigrants, this time claiming they’re driving up housing prices. He denied his well-documented support for a national abortion ban. He even bizarrely claimed Donald Trump saved Obamacare rather than spending years trying to kill it.
“Minnesota Gov. Walz won… against Vance by doing what good teachers do: On every question he was asked, he offered practical solutions for a better future,” Weingarten concluded.
The ATU’s Costa called Walz a “card-carrying union member” and said that as governor in Minnestora he “invested in public transit, secured universal free school meals and medical leave benefits, and supported the PRO Act.
“Vance, on the other hand, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who most recently spread false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio and is the lead co-sponsor of the Team Act, an anti-worker bill that would undermine worker power.”
Costa said the debate “showcased the difference between a Harris/Walz focus on progressive policies to help everyday Americans and a Trump/Vance emphasis on their dangerous conservative agenda.”
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