There was a strange feeling as the vice presidential debate began Tuesday night in the CBS News studios, and it only intensified as 90 minutes of detailed policy discussions unfolded. Is America in danger of regaining its sanity?
After weeks and months of bombardment with Donald Trump’s dystopian evocations of a nation on the brink of self-destruction, amplified by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ dire warnings of the crisis of democracy, here we are. Then something was very different. Both vice-presidential candidates had embraced the most at-risk of American political species: the consensus.
“Tim, I actually think I agree with you,” President Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, said to his opposite number, Tim Walz, during a debate on immigration. Ta.
Walz, the Democratic candidate for Minnesota governor, turned the conversation to trade policy, saying, “Many of the things the senator said there, I agree with him.”
Of course it wasn’t. The two men were no closer to an agreement than their bosses, who showed their differences in last month’s presidential debate.
But on Tuesday, the CBS News studio in midtown Manhattan felt like a trip back in time to a prelapsarian, or at least premaga, era. To a time when politicians were polite and didn’t have to denounce their opponents as enemies of the people in order to get along.
For Vance, the transformation was particularly shocking. After all, he is the vice president of the architect of “American genocide.”
An Ohio senator spread a malicious falsehood that Haitian immigrants legally residing in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s cats and dogs. Needless to say, he’s a “childless cat lady” guy.
An unfamiliar Vance appeared on stage in New York. This president listened respectfully to his debate partners, spoke in generally and largely measured sentences, and went so far as to admit he was wrong. These are three traits that former presidents rarely emulate.
Perhaps Vance had a reason to present himself differently than Trump. Now 40 years old, compared to Trump’s 78 years old, he has a future to think about, his own.
But his amiable demeanor was also artificial. When it came to the content of his statements, the Republican vice presidential nominee was as concerned with truth as he was with the director.
In fact, he just lied. He just did it with his silky tongue.
He talked about the vice president leading an “open border” effort with Mexico at a time when the number of people crossing the border is actually at a four-year low. He claimed he doesn’t support a national abortion ban — yes, he did so repeatedly during his 2022 Senate campaign.
Regarding the Middle East crisis, he accused the “Kamala Harris administration” of giving $100 billion to Iran in the form of unfrozen assets, which is not true. The amount was $55 billion and was negotiated under President Barack Obama’s administration.
Perhaps most damning of all, President Trump said he had “rescued” the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama administration’s wildly popular health care plan, commonly known as Obamacare. “Salvaged” was an interesting word choice to apply to President Trump, who has tried 60 times to destroy the ACA without offering an alternative.
But careful viewers could have seen what was behind Vance’s calm acceptance of his lies. The former tech investor and best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy looked comfortable on stage and in his raw form, playing the rational Trump, a MAGA lion in sheep’s clothing.
Walz, by contrast, had moments of nervousness and anxiety, but the pre-debate tension reported by CNN appeared to be genuine. While Mr. Vance flashed his bright blue eyes at the camera, the Minnesota governor frequently glanced down at his notes.
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Since he was plucked from obscurity in Minnesota to be Harris’ running mate, there has been very little of the folksy, foul-mouthed “Coach Waltz,” who has taken the nation by storm.
He stumbled at times and misspoken words about being “friends” with school shooting victims instead of their families. When asked why he falsely claimed to have visited China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, he mishandled the question by calling himself a “knucklehead” and trying to avoid the issue.
But when cornered, Waltz prevailed. He grilled Vance harshly, politely but harshly on the subject most important to Harris, who is seeking to become the first female president and the first woman of color in the Oval Office.
He followed his vice presidential candidate’s lead on abortion, speaking movingly about the personal impact of President Trump’s de facto watering down of Roe v. Wade. He cited the story of Amber Thurman, who died while traveling from Georgia to North Carolina seeking reproductive health care.
It featured one of the most surprising “I agree” statements of the night, excerpted from Mr. Vance, a staunch opponent of abortion.
There was only one point in the evening where the kid gloves came off, with a gentleman’s display of cod discarded by both sides. That said, Harris’ attempts to “censor” misinformation in public discourse pose a far greater threat to democracy than Trump’s efforts to overturn the January 6, 2020 election. That’s when Vance boldly – smoothly, naturally – claimed that he would.
“Tim, I’m thinking about the future,” Vance deflected when Walz asked directly whether Trump had lost the election. “That’s a complete non-answer,” the Democrat retorted, his face hurt.
As it turned out, both players were only playing the role of sidekicks. They may have raised hopes that civility might return to American politics, but let Trump have the final word.
“Waltz was a low IQ disaster. Much like Kamala,” President Trump wrote on his website Truth Social immediately after the debate. And then business continued as usual.
