• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance met Tuesday for the first and only vice presidential debate ahead of the November election. It’s also likely to be the final debate for both campaigns, making it one of the last big moments before voters decide who will take over the White House. The two men kept things pretty civil over their 90 minutes on stage, and neither committed the kind of egregious error that could hurt their respective tickets. WAD host Jane Coaston recaps the highlights with longtime Washington reporter Todd Zwillich. Later in the show, she’s joined by ‘Pod Save America’ co-host Tommy Vietor for more analysis.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, October 2nd. I’m Jane Coaston. 

Todd Zwillich: And I’m Todd Todd Zwillich.

Jane Coaston: And this is What a Day. The show where god help us, we watched last night’s vice presidential debate so you didn’t have to. [music break]

Todd Zwillich: On today’s show, JD Vance does his impression of a normal guy who’s never said he’s proud of lying to everyone in the country. Plus, Tim Walz knows who won the 2020 election, but is he alone? 

Jane Coaston: We’re recapping last night’s vice presidential debate between Ohio Senator JD Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Now, generally speaking, the rule of thumb for vice presidential debates is do no harm to your respective campaign. And by that measure, I think both men largely succeeded. It was a tense 90 minutes, way more focused on policy than the two previous presidential debates. But did you think there was a winner, Todd? 

Todd Zwillich: I don’t know. I guess J.D. Vance would have won on points. But then, like, if you just scratch the first two skin cells off of that. I mean, so much of it was complete, not only falsehoods, but really cogent and coherent in ways that the candidate, Donald Trump never has been, never will be, and can’t be, doesn’t have the ability to be. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I was really interested and I’m interested to hear what your thoughts like what was the benchmark of success here? Because it really seemed to be, for lack of a better term, don’t screw up or throw up on television. And neither of them did so. So. 

Todd Zwillich: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: I was trying to think earlier like a was there a vice presidential debate that I really remember? And I vaguely remember Paul Ryan uh Joe Biden back in 2012 because they got into a sad off and you don’t get into a sad off with Joe Biden, but that’s pretty much about it. But I think that what really drew the contrast was just in comparison with the last two presidential debates because they featured Donald Trump, this was civil. 

Todd Zwillich: I think we saw two guys trying to give up the vitriolic partisanship, the race baiting, the immigrant bashing, all of that of the actual campaign and come into a room that says, okay, there’s four people in Michigan, eight people in Wisconsin, and a smattering of people in Pennsylvania who still consider themselves undecided. They might not like Donald Trump, but say he had good policies or they might kind of be Kamala curious, but I’ve never voted for a Democrat before. So that’s what I saw these two politicians kind of going for. And the weirdness of it is especially on Vance’s side, but to an extent on Tim Walz’s side too. That’s not who either of them is in this campaign like at all. That’s not the role either of them has ever played. J.D. Vance has been like a press baiting, race baiting, nativistic, immigrant bashing person. Unlike the first two debates, the VP debate was actually pretty civil. In fact, if you read a transcript of this debate, you’d find that Walz and Vance actually said a lot of things they agreed upon, as we just said. In an answer about child care, here’s an example. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] As Tim said, a lot of the childcare shortages, we just don’t have enough resources going into the multiple people who could be providing family care options. And we’re going to have to unfortunately, look, we’re going to have to spend more money. We’re going to have to induce more people to want to provide childcare options for American families. 

Jane Coaston: And Walz agreed with Vance that decades of international trade agreements, and globalization haven’t necessarily been great for the average American worker. 

[clip of Tim Walz] Look, I’m a union guy on this. I’m not a guy who wanted to ship things overseas. But I understand that, look, we produce soybeans and corn. We need to have fair trading partners. That’s something that we believe in. I think the thing that uh most concerns me on this is, is Donald Trump was the guy who created the largest trade deficit in American history with China. So the rhetoric is good. Much of what the senator said right there, I’m in agreement with him on this. I watched it happen, too. I watched it to my communities and we talked about that. But we had people undercutting the right to collectively bargain. We had right to work states made it more difficult. We had companies that were willing to ship it over. And we saw people profit. 

Jane Coaston: I think what what gets me from this is that you’re going to have a bunch of people who saw this and were like, ah this is what I’ve missed from presidential debates. But those same people, many of them voted for Donald Trump. They voted for the person who stir things up, the horse in the hospital, to borrow that line from the comedian John Mulaney. And so it’s interesting to me because these are two people who, if they had been both in the Senate at a less polarized time, there would have been a lot of Vance Walz acts or this bill or something like that. Do you think that that was a strategy to come off as work across the aisle guys, even when one of them is Donald Trump’s running mate? 

Todd Zwillich: I think it totally is. I mean, look at the entire theme of Kamala Harris’s campaign, right? It doesn’t have to be like this. Turn the page from this. Now she’s talking about Donald Trump and all the ugliness, but also talking about the parts of politics, the screaming, and yelling that turn off a lot of low information voters and people who don’t engage with it like you and I do. So, again, I try to view this debate through the eyes of blue wall, working class, undecided voters, all 14 of them. And that’s who this whole thing was programmed toward. I think they both knew it. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, it’s interesting though because there are a host of people and I think you and I have both heard it over and over again where they get so mad at Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan or John McCain because they didn’t fight enough, because they were fighting for conservative ink and they didn’t get mad enough. So it’s just funny to hear people online. You see it tonight of being like, ah you know, this is what politics could be like and I’m like, yeah, but who did this? You did it. You brought the horse into the hospital. 

Todd Zwillich: And I mean, Tim Walz got the job. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Todd Zwillich: By coming up with the most elegant attack line the Democrats can ever find. These guys are just weird and went at it and at it and at it and really isolated Republicans from the sensibilities of a lot of Americans. Kamala Harris shot up in the polls and chose Tim Walz. He didn’t bring any of that energy tonight. There was this moment in the debate where Vance was asked about Donald Trump’s plans for health care after Trump famously again said in the last debate that he had concepts of a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act with something much better. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] He actually implemented some of these regulations when he was president of the United States, and I think he could make a really good argument that it salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along. And I think it’s an important point about President Trump. Of course, you don’t have to agree with everything that President Trump has ever said or ever done. But when Obamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and health care costs, Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care. It’s not perfect, of course, and there’s so much more that we can do. But I think that Donald Trump has earned the right to put in place some better health care policies. He’s earned it because he did it successfully the first time. 

Jane Coaston: Now, to be clear, that is complete and total bullshit. You and I were alive when John McCain was the one person who helped to save the Affordable Care Act. The lowest moment of Donald Trump’s polling was when he was attempting to overturn the Affordable Care Act. But I think that this goes to your point of like J.D. Vance was able to lie effectively on this point, effectively for people who apparently don’t remember the Trump administration, but he did so nonetheless. 

Todd Zwillich: I mean, it was a very well thought out beautiful answer that was just completely false. I mean, Trump went to the mat politically over and over and over again to try to repeal the ACA. He reportedly hated it specifically because it was called Obamacare. That was the thing that really bothered Trump about it when he became president. We don’t have time to go into all the reasons why that’s false, except they voted about 59 times in Congress to try to repeal it. When they finally failed, Republicans voted down Trump’s appeal to protect Medicaid. 

Jane Coaston: Numerous candidates ran on repeal and replace, and you will never hear anyone say that ever again. But we have to talk about abortion because it’s been a huge issue this election cycle. It’s a huge issue for millions of people. After the Supreme Court’s conservative justices overturned Roe versus Wade two years ago, Vance has been hammered on the campaign trail for supporting abortion bans, with no exceptions. And there was a moment where it was clear that Vance was trying to soften the edges of the Republican Party’s stance on abortion because he knows how bad it is. He reiterated Trump’s claims that the issue is better handled by the states, but also sidestepped a direct question about why he backed off his earlier position supporting a federal abortion ban. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] You know, one of the things that changed is in the state of Ohio, we had a referendum in 2023, and the people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly, by the way, against my position. And I think that what I learned from that, Norah, is that we’ve got to do a better job at winning back people’s trust. So many young women would love to have families. So many young women also see an unplanned pregnancy as something that’s going to destroy their livelihood, destroy their education, destroy their relationships. And we have got to earn people’s trust back. 

Jane Coaston: See, what’s interesting there is it’s not earning people’s trust back by saying that we’re going to support women’s right to choose. It’s earning people’s trust back so that young women will have more babies. At no point is he saying that we have to win back the trust of American women who want access to abortion. He is saying we need to win back the trust of American women so that they won’t have abortions, so that they won’t do the thing that I don’t want them to do so that they won’t make a decision that I don’t want them to make. That’s not what choice looks like. 

Todd Zwillich: I can’t say it any better than that. But I would just like to quote J.D. Vance from 2022 when he was running for Senate. Asked about a national abortion ban. I know he says that now that Ohio has voted, he’s changed his view. But you tell me if you buy it, quote, J.D. Vance, this is according to Rolling Stone. Okay. “Ohio bans abortion, you know, let’s say in 2024. And then every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And, of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity.” That was J.D. Vance two short years ago in 2022. So look what this says to me, Jane, is that whatever internals Republicans might have on the gender gap, women voters or abortion in particular in this election might be a lot worse than is even reflected in the public polls. I mean, J.D. Vance completely climbed down from all of his previous statements on abortion, national abortion ban, women’s rights. Donald Trump is tweeting during this part of the debate, saying, of course, I would never sign a national abortion ban. He was asked three times in his debate with Kamala Harris, and he specifically would not answer the question because it was too politically sticky. Even Donald Trump knew not to grab on to that one. So I can’t say for sure, but I’m watching how this talented politician presents himself here. And I think the gap that we know they’re losing on on this issue might be way worse than even we know. I don’t know for sure. 

Jane Coaston: I will say again, most of this debate was pretty civil, but the tone really started to shift at the very end when the moderators asked Walz and Vance questions about January 6th, which you might remember, a pretty big day. In one of Watz’s strongest moments of the night to me, he directly asked Vance about Trump’s insistence that he didn’t lose the last election. 

[clip of Tim Walz] I would just ask, did he lose the 2020 election? 

[clip of J.D. Vance] Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation? 

[clip of Tim Walz] That is a damning–

[clip of J.D. Vance] That she tried to–

[clip of Tim Walz] That is a damning non-answer. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] Had she, it’s a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship. Obviously, Donald Trump and I think that there were problems in 2020. We’ve talked about it. I’m happy to talk about it further. 

Jane Coaston: Bullshit. Anyway, Walz closed out the portion of the debate by suggesting to viewers that if Vance is VP, Trump would have no guardrails. 

[clip of Tim Walz] He lost the election. This is not a debate. It’s not. It’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world. Because, look, when Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage. What I’m concerned about is where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall? If he knows he could do anything, including taking an election and his vice president’s not going to stand to it. That’s what we’re asking you America, will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office even if the president doesn’t? And I think Kamala Harris would agree. She wouldn’t have picked me if she didn’t think I would do that, because, of course, that’s what we would do. 

Jane Coaston: And it seems like such an obvious question, but it’s so interesting to me that Vance is unable, unable to answer it. He tries to pivot away to talk about like a very online issue, but like, who won the 2020 election? He can’t say. And it just it’s wild to me that J.D. Vance is in this vise of needing to perform normalcy for a general audience, including lots of people who know who won the 2020 election, but also needing to impress one petty asshole. 

Todd Zwillich: Well, if he says what he knows about the 2020 election and speaks true to it, he becomes Mike Pence. I mean, it’s as simple as that. I think that Tim Walz kind of pointed that out in a more roundabout way. We know that Walz knows more about that issue than he laid on the line there. And for whatever reason, he felt like that was as far as he could go. 

Jane Coaston: If you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch it on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

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Jane Coaston: For more analysis of the Veep debate, Walz and Vance’s performance and what if anything this means for the election or anything. Joining me in studio is Pod Save America’s own Tommy Vietor. Hi, Tommy. 

Tommy Vietor: Hi, my friend. I was told we’d be talking about Iranian ballistic missile strikes. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, uh we’re going to get into a really in-depth conversation of the history of Iran, Lebanese relations. 

Tommy Vietor: Okay good. 

Jane Coaston: But like first. 

Tommy Vietor: First, the debate. 

Jane Coaston: What, if anything, surprised you tonight? 

Tommy Vietor: I thought it was really interesting that J.D. Vance signaled through his staff and the media that he was going to go hard at Tim Walz and go after his service record and his time in the military and then was very ostentatiously friendly and agreeable and nice to Tim Walz. 

Jane Coaston: So what were your expectations going into tonight’s debate? Because one of the funny things about vice presidential debates is that, like, you can screw them up, but you can’t really, like move the needle in a big way traditionally. So what what were you thinking going in and you know what do you think now? 

Tommy Vietor: I mean, honestly, my expectation going in was kind of what we saw. Like, I watched some of Tim Walz’s old debate performances that looked a lot like what you saw tonight. Like he’s a little gruff. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: And sometimes speaks in sentence fragments, wasn’t polished. J.D. Vance, on the other hand, looks like he’s been on the debate team his whole life. And he’s sort of like that annoying kid you knew in high school. Uh.

Jane Coaston: I hate debate team [?]. 

Tommy Vietor: That really cared about–

Jane Coaston: I really hate it. 

Tommy Vietor: –the debate team. And so I think, you know, the instant reaction out of the debate you saw on social media, because we all follow a bunch of political pundits. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: Was all on style. And then some of the polling came through and it seemed like actual normal voters actually really liked Tim Walz. Well–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: Actually, they they both helped their favorabilities in the polls. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tommy Vietor: It was sort of boring, but also nice compared to what they’re used to. It’s weird that this debate might be the last big moment of the campaign because it doesn’t seem like they’re going to debate again in an election this close. A few thousand votes in a swing state can really matter. And maybe the debate tonight will impact that many voters. But my guess is we all forget about it in like two days. 

Jane Coaston: [sigh] What a glorious two days– 

Tommy Vietor: Which will be nice. 

Jane Coaston: –it will be. Something people have brought up a lot is that Walz hasn’t been doing as many interviews lately? You know, he was all over the place. He was with you on Pod Save. Should the Harris Walz campaign be getting him out more? Because–

Tommy Vietor: Yes. 

Jane Coaston: I think that that was something people were talking about. Oh. Vance has done a lot of hard interviews, which I’m like, well, if you say insane shit, people are going to ask you about the insane shit. 

Tommy Vietor: Right. 

Jane Coaston: That you say, but like, Walz hasn’t been on the trail or talking to reporters as much. 

Tommy Vietor: There was a CNN poll where Tim Walz’s favorabilities before the debate were plus 14 and after the debate were plus 37, which to me says people liked what they saw. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: So let’s get him out there more. Let’s get him in, you know, nontraditional media. Dan just reminded me he just did like the rate that dog or I pet that dog. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: Account. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: That’s fun. Kamala Harris was just on the All the Smoke podcast. He can go out and talk to Sports World. I mean, I think I would love to see Tim Walz just just hit the gas. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: Kamala Harris, Tim Walz. Everyone hit the gas. Don’t worry about making a mistake. Just talk to people. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Tommy Vietor: Because I think the hardest thing in politics is not honing the message, it’s reaching people in 2024 when they’re like, checked out of politics. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jane Coaston: Especially because I think that if you just do one big interview, it becomes like, my God. 

Tommy Vietor: A thing. 

Jane Coaston: The most important thing that you’ve ever done. 

Tommy Vietor: Right. 

Jane Coaston: But, you know, Harris has been actually doing a fair number of interviews. She’s been doing a lot of local media. 

Tommy Vietor: Yup. 

Jane Coaston: Which I like. But I’m also like, get on some podcasts, talk to some people. You’re a likable person and people seem to respond to you. 

Tommy Vietor: I totally agree. You know, one of the first things Kamala Harris did was like the biggest local ABC station in Philly. And that’s really smart because a lot of people are going to watch that. You’re going to get in front of–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: –folks who are key swing voters. But I think like this All the Smoke podcast interview that Harris just did, it’s with two former NBA players. Normally, that audience is just there to hear about basketball, but they heard from Kamala Harris. Like you–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: –might not ever reach those people otherwise. So like–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: Thinking about spaces like that where she can just get out, she should talk to like the political reporters who are on–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Tommy Vietor: –the trail with her. She talked to the local press. But think like, okay, who do we need to reach and how do we get to them? 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for joining me, Tommy. 

Tommy Vietor: I love this. A tradition like the Masters. It’s us.

Jane Coaston: I know, I know. But it’s a– 

Tommy Vietor: Sweating it out in this room. [laugh]

Jane Coaston: Yeah, but it’s a tradition that isn’t boring, and we don’t have to whisper. 

Tommy Vietor: That’s right. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Tommy Vietor of Pod Save America. [music break] So Todd, part of the rules for Tuesday’s vice presidential debate were no fact checking by the CBS moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell. Now, we know as journalists it’s hard to let inaccurate statements pass us by without correcting them. As anyone who has ever watched a movie with me where someone does something that is obviously incorrect. I can’t even do it in my personal life. And this proved the case during the debate. 

Todd Zwillich: Or makes a mistake about legislation. I hate that in movies. I always pointed out that’s not how a bill passes. 

Jane Coaston: Exactly. We are terrible people to watch movies with. Don’t do it. So this came up during the debate. So here’s the exchange that led to both Walz and Vance’s mics being muted. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] But but–

[clip of Norah O’Donnell] Thank you. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Senator we have–

[clip of J.D. Vance] No. Of course. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] –so much to get to. 

[clip of Norah O’Donnell] Thank you. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Norah? 

[clip of J.D. Vance] Margaret I think it’s important because the debate–

[clip of Norah O’Donnell] We’re going to turn now to the economy. Thank you.

[clip of J.D. Vance] Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to–

[clip of Norah O’Donnell] The economy, we’re–

[clip of J.D. Vance] –fact check. And since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on. So there’s an application called the CBP one app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand that is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for ten years. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Thank you, senator. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] That is the faciliation of illegal immigration, Margaret. By our own–

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Thank you, senator,. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] –leadership. And Kam–

[clip of Margaret Brennan] For describing the legal process. [banter] We have so much to get to senator. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] [?] opened up that pathway. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] We have so much–

[clip of Tim Walz] Those laws have been on the books since 1990. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Thank you gentlemen. We want to have–

[clip of J.D. Vance] The CBP one app has not been on the books [mic turns off] since 1990. It’s something that Kamala Harris created, Margaret. 

[clip of Margaret Brennan] Gentleman you’re, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut. We have so much we want to get to. Thank you for explaining the legal process. Norah? 

[clip of Norah O’Donnell] Thank you, Margaret. 

Jane Coaston: Todd, that was weird. And it was weird for a couple of reasons to me. First, J.D. Vance yelling at a woman is always weird, but it was also interesting because it gets at again Vance’s role in this race is the normalizer. Trump’s going to scream about Haitian immigrants eating cats. And then J.D. Vance is going to come in and be like, well, actually, there’s uh some complicated legalese you need to know about. But even the little things about, like Kamala Harris’s open border and illegal migrants, which like there is something about how you’re putting a thin veneer on a very unpleasant pig here. 

Todd Zwillich: But even J.D. Vance was the OG retweeter of the whole lie about eating dogs and cats. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Todd Zwillich: He’s the origin. 

Jane Coaston: Absolutely, he gets to do it both ways. He gets to be like I’m the normalizer who looked up this particular piece of immigration legislation. But also I’m the one who says that making up stories about immigrants is helpful because the stories will get people to pay attention to us. 

Todd Zwillich: I made it up and I’ll do it again. But look, I have a suspicion here. I think CBS executives who didn’t want to go to war with Donald Trump and all of his online flying monkeys said there’s not going to be any fact checking during this debate. Click on this QR code, if you like things that are true. That was their message. And I just have a suspicion that these two journalists said, mm we’ll see about that. We’re going to be on live. They can’t stop us. So we’re going to slip it. Look, they did like one. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Todd Zwillich: One and a half fact checks. It wasn’t rampant. But I think on this issue, they just weren’t going to let it slide. And I don’t think it came from the C-suite at CBS. I think it came from these two women. 

Jane Coaston: It was just such a wild moment because you have nonsense and then you try to put a veneer of sense onto the nonsense. But it was a weird night. But we did it. We got through it. 

Todd Zwillich: And look back to the insane campaign that we’ve come to know and love, full of constant lying, constant invective, sicking online mobs on vulnerable immigrants, and saying that the vice president of the United States is mentally disabled. Back to that. I think the debate is over. Back to your regularly scheduled campaign. [music break]

Jane Coaston: One more thing before we go. If you love What a Day, but are dying to see the face behind the voice, you should know we have a YouTube channel. Subscribe to What a Day on YouTube in full color and tell us what you think in the comments. [music break] That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Ask J.D. Vance where he gets the human skin he wears as a suit. And tell your friends to listen. 

Todd Zwillich: And if you’re into reading and not just transcripts of two midwesterners trying to be polite through their seething hatred like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. 

Jane Coaston: I’m Jane Coaston. 

Todd Zwillich: And I’m Todd Zwillich. 

[spoken together] And cut J.D. Vance’s mic forever. [music break]

Jane Coaston: What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded by Jerik Centeno and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Tyler Hill, JoHanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Collin Gilliard and Kashaka.