‘I’m focused on the future’: Vance refuses to say whether Trump lost 2020 election
During the debate, Tim Walz said the threat to democracy manifested because of Donald Trump’s “inability” to accept his 2020 election loss.
Turning to JD Vance, Walz said: “Did [Trump] lose the 2020 election?”
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied, to which Walz said:
That is a damning non-answer.
Key events
Fact check: Vance on Harris’ role as ‘border czar’
JD Vance attacked Kamala Harris’ record on the border. “The only thing that she did when she became the vice president, when she became the appointed border czar, was to undo Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border,”
This contains inaccuracies.
First, Harris was never a “border czar” – that’s a term invented by her critics. She had a role in the Biden government to look into addressing the root causes of migration to the US, including safety and economic turmoil in Central American countries.
Second, she did not “undo Donald Trump executive actions”. Presidents sign executive orders, and she was not president. Joe Biden did reverse some Trump executive orders on the border. He did initially keep in place Trump-era restrictions known as Title 42, which allowed the US to turn away migrants at the border on the grounds of preventing the spread of Covid-19, before eventually lifting them.
JD Vance told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that tonight’s debate was an opportunity “to get 90 minutes with the American people.”
He said that one of his goals on the debate stage was to “remind the American people that Donald Trump is not the caricature Kamala Harris and the media have made him out to be.”
Fact check: Donald Trump on January 6
JD Vance defended his running mate, picking out one line of Donald Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 – prior to the insurrection at the US Capitol:
Vance said that Trump “said on January 6 the protesters ought to protest peacefully”.
But Trump also repeatedly encouraged supporters to “fight”.
“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said.
Fact check: Trump’s plan for childcare
When the topic turned to childcare, JD Vance gave a bit of a non-answer when it came to how he and Trump would make it more accessible.
“A lot of young women would like to go back to work immediately … Some would like to spend longer at home with the kids. We should have a family care model that makes choice possible,” he said.
He also referred to Trump economic policies, saying they would create “additional revenue with higher economic growth” that makes it more possible for families to afford childcare, and blamed the childcare crisis on a lack of available workers to fill childcare roles.
Trump, too, has stumbled on this issue. And despite Vance saying it’s a priority, his campaign currently does not have a plan to address childcare.
‘I’m focused on the future’: Vance refuses to say whether Trump lost 2020 election
During the debate, Tim Walz said the threat to democracy manifested because of Donald Trump’s “inability” to accept his 2020 election loss.
Turning to JD Vance, Walz said: “Did [Trump] lose the 2020 election?”
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied, to which Walz said:
That is a damning non-answer.
Vance, in his closing remarks, says that one of the issues that wasn’t discussed tonight was energy.
He says that he remembers when his grandmother didn’t have enough money to turn on the heat on some nights.
Vance says that Americans should be able to turn on their heat in the middle of a cold winter night, whether they are rich and poor. He says that that has “gotten more difficult thanks to Kamala Harris”.
He goes on to blame Harris for Americans finding it more difficult to afford a nice meal for their family, or to buy a nice house.
Vance says that Americans will not be “able to achieve their full dreams with the broken leadership that we have in Washington”:
They’re not going to live their American dream if we do the same thing that we’ve been doing for the last three-and-a-half years. We need change.
And now we’re at closing remarks.
Walz says he appreciates that people are still up and watching the debate.
“The support of the democracy matters,” Walz says. He says that he is as surprised as anybody about the coalition that Kamala Harris has built that includes Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney and “a whole bunch of folks in between”:
They don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future for this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.
He says that freedom is about making choices for yourself, not about “the freedom of government to be in your bedroom or exam room”.
Walz says that Vance has made it clear during tonight’s debate that he will stand with Donald Trump’s agenda.
He says that Trump makes a lot of Americans afraid, but that “we don’t need to be afraid”:
Franklin Roosevelt was right. All we have to fear is fear itself. Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She’s bringing us a politics of joy.
Fact check: Vance on Trump and the Affordable Care Act
Vance claimed that Donald Trump bolstered or salvaged the Affordable Care Act.
That’s not true.
He cut millions in funding for helping people enroll in healthcare, repeatedly supported efforts in Congress to repeal the law and asked the supreme court to overturn it.
Walz asks: ‘America, will you stand up?’ to honor US democracy
Vance says that if Tim Walz is elected as vice-president, “he’ll have my prayers and my best wishes”.
Walz asks whether, if Donald Trump knows he can do anything, including taking an election. He says:
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?
He says that America has a “really clear choice”: “Who’s going to honor that democracy, and who’s going to honor Donald Trump?”
Walz, on the subject of Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the 2020 election results, says that as a football coach, he has worked with kids long enough to know that “sometimes you really want to win”.
Walz says that he is most concerned about the idea of Trump imprisoning political opponents, and of Trump “laying the groundwork” for not accepting this year’s election results.
“A president’s words matter. People hear that,” he says:
When this is over, we need to shake hands this election, and the winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart.
JD Vance talked in a circle about how, exactly, he and Donald Trump would work to protect access to affordable health insurance coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.
“We currently have laws and regulations in place right now that protect people with pre-existing conditions. We want to keep those regulations in place,” Vance said. Those regulations are included in the Affordable Care Act, which Trump repeatedly tried to repeal.
Vance could not explain any details about an alternative plan proposed by Trump.