Read the full VP debate transcript from the Walz-Vance showdown

The first and only vice presidential debate between Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took place in New York on Tuesday, a largely collegial affair that touched on many pressing issues facing the country.

The debate, hosted by CBS News, covered foreign policy, reproductive rights, threats to democracy, immigration, housing and much more. Vance and Walz each defended their running mate at the top of their respective ticket — former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — while attacking their counterparts’ positions and record. 

CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan moderated the debate, which ran for 90 minutes at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. The candidates and moderators are referred to by their initials in the full transcript of the debate below:

The full VP debate transcript

NO: Good evening. I’m Norah O’Donnell and thank you for joining us for tonight’s CBS News vice presidential debate. We want to welcome our viewers on CBS, on other networks here in the U.S. and around the world.  We have a consequential night ahead, and our focus is the issues that matter to you, the voter. Let’s introduce the candidates: Minnesota’s democratic governor Tim Walz and Ohio’s republican senator JD Vance. Tonight, meeting for the first time.

MB: I’m Margaret Brennan. In order to have a thoughtful and civil debate, these are the rules that both campaigns have agreed to. Questions will be directed at one candidate who will have two minutes to respond. The other candidate will be allowed two minutes for rebuttal. Then each candidate will get another minute to make further points, with an additional 1 minute each at the discretion of the moderator. The primary role of the moderators is to facilitate the debate between the candidates, enforce the rules, and provide the candidates with the opportunity to fact check claims made by each other. CBS News reserves the right to mute the candidates microphones to maintain decorum. We have not shared the questions or topics with the campaigns. The stage is set. Governor, Senator, thank you for joining us. Let’s get started. Tonight, our country is facing several unfolding crises. The Middle East is on the brink of war. Americans are suffering from the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene and now a labor strike as 25,000 dock workers from Maine to Texas are picketing. We’re going to begin tonight with the Middle East, Margaret. 

MB: Thank you, Norah. Earlier today, Iran launched its largest attack yet on Israel. But that attack failed thanks to joint U.S. and Israeli defensive action. President Biden has deployed more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel and assets to that region over the past year to try to prevent a regional war. Iran is weakened, but the U.S. still considers it the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it has drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon.  It is down now to one or two weeks time. Governor Walz, if you are the final voice in the situation room, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? You have two minutes.

TW: Well, thank you. And thank you for those joining at home tonight. Let’s keep in mind where this started. October 7th, Hamas terrorists massacred over 1400 Israelis and took prisoners. Iran, or, Israel’s ability to be able to defend itself is absolutely fundamental, getting its hostages back, fundamental, and ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there. You saw it experienced today, where, along with our Israeli partners and our coalition, able to stop the incoming attack. But what’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter. It’s clear. And the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80 year old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment. But it’s not just that. It’s those that were closest to Donald Trump that understand how dangerous he is when the world is this dangerous. His Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said that he was the most flawed humanity being he’d ever met. And both of his Secretaries of Defense and his national security advisors said he should be nowhere near the White House. Now, the person closest to them, to Donald Trump, said he’s unfit for the highest office. That was Senator Vance. What we’ve seen out of Vice President Harris is we’ve seen steady leadership. We’ve seen a calmness that is able to be able to draw on the coalitions, to bring them together, understanding that our allies matter. When our allies see Donald Trump turn towards Vladimir Putin, turn towards North Korea, when we start to see that type of fickleness around holding the coalitions together, we will stay committed. And as the Vice President said today, is we will protect our forces and our allied forces, and there will be consequences.

MB: Governor, your time is up. Senator Vance, the same question, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? You have two minutes. 

JDV: So, Margaret, I want to answer the question. First of all, thanks, Governor. Thanks to CBS for hosting the debate. And thanks most importantly to the American people who are watching this evening and caring enough about this country to pay attention to this vice presidential debate. I want to answer the question, but I want to actually give an introduction to myself a little bit because I recognize a lot of Americans don’t know who either one of us are. I was raised in a working class family. My mother required food assistance for periods of her life. My grandmother required Social Security help to raise me. And she raised me in part because my own mother struggled with addiction for a big chunk of my early life. I went to college on the GI bill after I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq. And so I stand here asking to be your Vice President with extraordinary gratitude for this country, for the American dream that made it possible for me to live my dreams. And most importantly, I know that a lot of you are worried about the chaos in the world and the feeling that the American Dream is unattainable. I want to try to convince you tonight over the next 90 minutes that if we get better leadership in the White House, if we get Donald Trump back in the White House, the American Dream is going to be attainable once again. Now, to answer this particular question, we have to remember that as much as Governor Walz just accused Donald Trump of being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence. People were afraid of stepping out of line. Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they’re now launching against our allies and, God forbid, potentially launching against the United States as well. Donald Trump recognized that for people to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States’ global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world. Now, you asked about a preemptive strike, Margaret, and I want to answer the question. Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys. I think that’s the right approach to take with the Israel question. 

MB: Thank you, Senator. Governor Walz, do you care to respond to any of the allegations? 

TW: Well, look, Donald Trump was in office. We’ll sometimes hear a revisionist history, but when Donald Trump was in office, it was Donald Trump who… we had a coalition of nations that had boxed Iran’s nuclear program in in the inability to advance it. Donald Trump pulled that program and put nothing else in its place. So Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump’s fickle leadership. And when Iran shot down an American aircraft in international airspace, Donald Trump tweeted, because that’s the standard diplomacy of Donald Trump. And when Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as headaches. Look, our allies understand that Donald Trump is fickle. He will go to whoever has the most flattery or where it makes sense to him. Steady leadership like you witnessed today, like you witnessed in April. Both Iranian attacks were repelled. Our coalition is strong, and we need the steady leadership that Kamala Harris is providing.

MB: Senator Vance, the U.S. did have a diplomatic deal with Iran to temporarily pause parts of its nuclear program, and President Trump did exit that deal. He recently said just five days ago, the U.S. must now make a diplomatic deal with Iran because the consequences are impossible. Did he make a mistake? You have 1 minute. 

JDV: Well, first of all, Margaret, diplomacy is not a dirty word, but I think that’s something that Governor Walz just said is quite extraordinary. You, yourself, just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. And, Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump, who has been the Vice President for the last three and a half years, and the answer is your running mate, not mine. Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure. Now, we talk about the sequence of events that led us to where we are right now, and you can’t ignore October the 7th, which I appreciate Governor Walz bringing up. But when did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris. So Governor Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world. Donald Trump has already done it once before. Ask yourself at home, when, when was the last time? I’m 40 years old. When was the last time that an American President didn’t have a major conflict, breakout? The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was President.

MB: Gentlemen, we have a lot to get to. Norah?

NO: Margaret, thank you. Let’s turn now to Hurricane Helene. The storm could become one of the deadliest on record. More than 160 people are dead and hundreds more are missing. Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall. Senator Vance, according to CBS News polling, seven in ten Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change. Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change? I’ll give you two minutes.

JDV: Sure. So first of all, let’s start with the hurricane because it’s an unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy. I just saw today, actually, a photograph of two grandparents on a roof with a six year old child, and it was the last photograph ever taken of them because the roof collapsed and those innocent people lost their lives. And I’m sure Governor Walz joins me in saying our hearts go out to those innocent people, our prayers go out to them. And we want as robust and aggressive as a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible. And then, of course, afterwards, to help the people in those communities rebuild. I mean, these are communities that I love, some of them I know very personally. In Appalachia, all across the Southeast, they need their government to do their job. And I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster. And Norah, you asked about climate change. I think this is a very important issue. Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer, but one of the things that I’ve noticed some of our democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions. This idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change. Well, let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument, so we’re not arguing about weird science. Let’s just say that’s true. Well, if you believe that, what would you, what would you want to do? The answer is that you’d want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world. What have Kamala Harris’s policies actually led to? More energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world. When I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they’re doing per unit of economic output. So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite. 

NO: Governor Walz, you have two minutes to respond. 

TW: Well, we got close to an agreement because all those things are happening. Look, first of all, it is a horrific tragedy with this hurricane, and my heart goes out to the folks that are down there in contact with the Governors. I serve as co-chair of the council of governors as we work together on these emergency managements. Governors know no partisanship. They work together to… all of the Governors and the emergency responders are on the ground. Those happen on the front end. The federal government comes in, makes sure they’re there, that we recover. But we’re still in that phase where we need to make sure that they’re staying there, staying focused. Now, look, coming back to the climate change issue, there’s no doubt this thing roared onto the scene faster and stronger than anything we’ve seen. Senator Vance has said that there’s a climate problem in the past, Donald Trump called it a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in. What we’ve seen out of the Harris administration now, the Biden Harris administration is, we’ve seen this investment, we’ve seen massive investments, the biggest in global history that we’ve seen in the Inflation Reduction Act, has created jobs all across the country. Two thousand in Jeffersonville, Ohio. Taking the EV technology that we invented and making it here. Two hundred thousand jobs across the country. The largest solar manufacturing plant in North America sits in Minnesota. But my farmers know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back. But what they’re doing is adapting, and this has allowed them to tell me, “Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean, and I harvest wind.” We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We’re also producing more clean energy. So the solution for us is to continue to move forward, that climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical. But this is not a false choice. You can do that at the same time you’re creating the jobs that we’re seeing all across the country. That’s exactly what this administration has done. We are seeing us becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the current. And that’s what absolutely makes sense. And then we start thinking about, “How do we mitigate these disasters?”

NO: Thank you, Senator. I want to give you an opportunity to respond there. The Governor mentioned that President Trump has called climate change a hoax. Do you agree? 

JDV: Well, look, what the President has said is that if the Democrats, in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership, if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America, and that’s not what they’re doing. So clearly, Kamala Harris herself doesn’t believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump’s energy policies. Now, something Governor Walz said, I think is important to touch upon, because when we talk about “clean energy,” I think that’s a slogan that often the Democrats will use here. I’m talking, of course, about the Democratic leadership. And the real issue is that if you’re spending hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of American taxpayer money on solar panels that are made in China, number one, you’re going to make the economy dirtier. We should be making more of those solar panels here in the United States of America. 

TW: We are. In Minnesota.

JDV: Some of them are, Tim, but a lot of them are being made overseas in China, especially the components that go into those solar panels. So if you really want to make the environment cleaner, you’ve got to invest in more energy production. We haven’t built a nuclear facility, I think one, in the past 40 years. Natural gas. We got to invest more in it. Kamala Harris has done the opposite. That’s raised energy prices and also meant that we’re doing worse by the climate.

NO: Senator, your time is up.  Governor, would you like to respond?

TW: Well, look, we’re producing more natural gas than we ever have. There’s no moratorium on that. We’re producing more oil. But the folks know, and my… like I said, again, these are not liberal folks. These are not folks that are green, new deal folks. These are farmers that have been, drought one year, massive flooding the next year. They understand that it makes sense. Look, our number one export cannot be topsoil from erosion from these massive storms. We saw it in Minnesota this summer. And thinking about, “How do we respond to that?” we’re thinking ahead on this and what Kamala Harris has been able to do in Minnesota, we’re starting to weatherproof some of these things. The infrastructure law that was passed allows us to think about mitigation in the future. How do we make sure that we’re protecting by burying our power lines? How do we make sure that we’re protecting lakefronts and things that we’re seeing more and more of. But to call it a hoax and to take the oil company executives to Mar-a-Lago, say, give me money for my campaign and I’ll let you do whatever you want. We can be smarter about that. And an all above energy policy is exactly what she’s doing, creating those jobs right here.

NO: Governor, your time is up. The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. Margaret?

MB: Thank you, Norah. We’re going to turn now to immigration. The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border consistently ranks as one of the top issue for American voters. Senator Vance, your campaign is pledging to carry out the largest mass deportation plan in American history and to use the U.S. military to do so. Could you be more specific about exactly how this will work? For example, would you deport parents who have entered the U.S. illegally and separate them from any of their children who were born on U.S. soil? You have two minutes. 

JDV: So first of all, Margaret, before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding. We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies. Ninety-four executive orders suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens, massively increasing the asylum fraud that exists in our system, that has opened the floodgates. And what it’s meant is that a lot of fentanyl is coming into our country. I had a mother who struggled with opioid addiction and has gotten clean. I don’t want people who are struggling with addiction to be deprived of their second chance because Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our communities at record levels. So you’ve got to stop the bleeding. You’ve got to re-implement Donald Trump’s border policies, build the wall, re-implement deportations. And that gets me to your point, Margaret, about what do we actually do? So we’ve got 20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country. What do we do with them? I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants. About a million of those people have committed some form of crime in addition to crossing the border illegally. I think you start with deportations on those folks, and then I think you make it harder for illegal aliens to undercut the wages of American workers. A lot of people will go home if they can’t work for less than minimum wage in our own country. And by the way, that’ll be really good for our workers who just want to earn a fair wage for doing a good day’s work. And the final point, Margaret, is you ask about family separation. Right now in this country, Margaret, we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost. Some of them have been sex trafficked, some of them hopefully are at homes with their families, some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’s wide open southern border. And I’d ask my fellow Americans to remember when she came into office, she said she was going to do this. Real leadership would be saying, “You know what? I screwed up. We’re going to go back to Donald Trump’s border policies.” I wish that she would do that, it would be good for all of us.

MB: Governor, do you care to respond to any of those specific allegations, including that the Vice President is, quote, “letting in fentanyl and using kids as drug mules, among other things…” 

TW: Yeah, well…

MB: … regarding children?

TW: The drug mule is not true. But I will say about this, about the fentanyl, because this is a crisis of this, the opioid crisis. And the good news on this is the last twelve months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation’s history, 30% decrease in Ohio. But there’s still more work to do. But let’s go back to this on immigration. Kamala Harris was the Attorney General of the largest state and a border state in California. She’s the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions. But look, we all want to solve this. Most of us want to solve this. And that is the United States Congress. That’s the Border Patrol Agents, that’s the Chamber of Commerce. That’s most Americans out here. That’s why we had the fairest and the toughest bill on immigration that this nation’s seen. It was crafted by a conservative senator from Oklahoma, James Lankford. I know him. He’s super conservative, but he’s a man of principle, wants to get it done. Democrats and Republicans worked on this piece of legislation. The Border Patrol said, this is what we need in here. These are the experts. And the Chamber of Commerce in the Wall Street Journal said, pass this thing. Kamala Harris helped get there. Fifteen hundred new border agents, detection for drugs, DOJ money to speed up these adjudications on this. Just what America wants. But as soon as it was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this Donald Trump said “No,” told them to vote against it because it gives him a campaign issue. It gives him, what would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things? And they need to be done by the legislature. You can’t just do this through the executive branch. So, look, we have the options to do this. Donald Trump had four years. He had four years to do this. And he promised you, America, how easy it would be. I’ll build you a big, beautiful wall and Mexico will pay for it. Less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime. But here we are again, nine years after he came down that escalator, dehumanizing people and telling them what he was going to do. As far as a deportation plan, at one point, Senator Vance said it was so unworkable as to be laughable. So that’s where we’re at. Pass the bill. She’ll sign it.

MB: Governor, your time is up. Senator, the question was, will you separate parents from their children, even if their kids are U.S. citizens? You have 1 minute.

JDV: Margaret, my point is that we already have massive child separations thanks to Kamala Harris’ open border. And I didn’t accuse Kamala Harris of inviting drug mules, I said that she enabled the Mexican drug cartels to operate freely in this country, and we know that they use children as drug mules, and it is a disgrace and it has to stop. Look, I think what Tim said just doesn’t pass the smell test. For three years, Kamala Harris went out bragging that she was going to undo Donald Trump’s border policy. She did exactly that. We had a record number of illegal crossings. We had a record number of fentanyl coming into our country. And now, now that she’s running for President, or a few months before, she says that somehow she got religion and cared a lot about a piece of legislation. The only thing that she did when she became the Vice President, when she became the appointed border czar, was to undo 94 Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border. This problem is leading to massive problems in the United States of America. Parents who can’t afford health care, schools that are overwhelmed. It’s got to stop, and it will when Donald Trump is President again.

MB: Senator, your time is up. Governor, what about our CBS News polling, which does show that a majority of Americans, more than 50%, support mass deportations?

TW: Look, we fix this issue with a bill that is necessary. But the issue on this is this is what happens when you don’t want to solve it. You demonize it. And we saw this, and Senator Vance, and it surprises me on this, talking about and saying, “I will create stories to bring attention to this.” That vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield. The Republican Governor said, “It’s not true. Don’t do it.” There’s consequences for this. There’s consequences. We could come together. Senator Lankford did it. We could come together and solve this if we didn’t let Donald Trump continue to make it an issue. And the consequences in Springfield were the Governor had to send state law enforcement to escort kindergarteners to school. I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this. But by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point. And when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings.

JDV: Tim…

MB: Governor. Governor, your time is up. Senator, I’ll give you 1 minute, but let me just ask you the question first. The governor has made the point, and I think as a sitting lawmaker, you know that Congress controls the purse strings and any funding. So you have said repeatedly that Donald Trump would, through executive action, solve this. Do you disagree that Congress controls the purse strings and would need to support many of the changes that you would actually want to implement? You have 1 minute.

JDV: Look, Margaret, first of all, the gross majority of what we need to do at the southern border is just empowering law enforcement to do their job. I’ve been to the southern border more than our Borders are, Kamala Harris has been. And it’s actually heartbreaking because the Border Patrol Agents, they just want to be empowered to do their job. Of course, additional resources would help. But most of this is about the President and the Vice President empowering our law enforcement to say, “If you try to come across the border illegally, you’ve got to stay in Mexico, you’ve got to go back through proper channels.” Now, Governor Walz brought up the community of Springfield, and he’s very worried about the things that I’ve said in Springfield. Look, in Springfield, Ohio and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes. The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border. It is a disgrace, Tim. And I actually think, I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.

MB: Senator, your time is up. Governor, you have 1 minute to respond.

TW: Yeah, well, it is law enforcement that asked for the bill. They helped craft it. They’re the ones that supported it. It was… that’s because they know we need to do this. Look, this issue of continuing to bring this up, of not dealing with it, of blaming migrants for everything. On housing, we could talk a little bit about Wall Street speculators buying up housing and making them less affordable, but it becomes a blame. Look, this bill also gives the money necessary to adjudicate. I agree. It should not take seven years for an asylum claim to be done. This bill gets it done in 90 days. Then you start to make a difference in this and you start to adhere to what we know. American principles. I don’t talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 25:40 talks about, “To the least amongst us, you do unto me.” I think that’s true of most Americans. They simply want order to it. This bill does it. It’s funded, it’s supported by the people who do it, and it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people.

MB: Thank you, Governor. And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status. Temporary protected status. Norah.

JDV: Well, Margaret, Margaret, I think it’s important because… 

MB: Thank you, senator. We have so much to get to. 

NO: We’re going to turn out of the economy. Thank you.

JDV: Margaret. The rules were that you guys were going to 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.

MB: Thank you, Senator.

JDV: That is the facilitation of illegal immigration, Margaret, by our own leadership. And Kamala Harris opened up that pathway.

MB: Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process. We have so much to get to.

TW: Those laws have been in the book since 1990.

MB: Thank you, gentlemen. We want to have – 

TW: The CBP app has not been on the books since 1990. It’s something that Kamala Harris created, Margaret.

MB:  Gentlemen, 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?

NO: Thank you, Margaret. The economy is a top concern for voters. Each of your campaigns has released an economic plan, so let’s talk about the specifics. Governor Walz, Vice President Harris unveiled a plan that includes billions in tax credits for manufacturing, housing and a renewed child tax credit. The Wharton School says your proposals will increase the nation’s deficit by $1.2 trillion. How would you pay for that without ballooning the deficit? Governor, I’ll give you two minutes.

TW: Yeah. Thank you. And Kamala Harris and I do believe in the middle class because that’s where we come from. We both grew up in that. We understand. So those of you out there listening tonight, you’re hearing a lot of stuff back and forth. And it’s good. It’s healthy. That’s what this is supposed to happen. You should be listening. “How’s this going to impact me?” The bold forward plan that Kamala Harris put out there is, one, is talking about this housing issue. The one thing is there’s 3 million new houses proposed under this plan with down payment assistance on the front end. To get you in a house. A house is much more than just an asset to be traded somewhere. It’s foundational to where you’re at. And then making sure that the things you buy every day, whether they be prescription drugs or other things, that there’s fairness in that. Look, the $35 insulin is a good thing, but it costs $5 to make insulin. They were charging $800 before this law went into effect. As far as the housing goes, I’ve seen it in Minnesota, 12% more houses in Minneapolis, prices went down on rent, 4%. It’s working. And then making sure tax cuts go to the middle class, $6,000 child tax credit. We have one in Minnesota, reduces childhood poverty by a third. We save money in the long run and we do the right thing for families and then getting businesses off the ground. The law, as it stands right now, is $5,000 tax credit for small business, increasing that to $50,000. Now, this is a philosophical difference between us. Donald Trump made a promise, and I’ll give you this. He kept it. He took folks to Mar-a-Lago. He said, “You’re rich as hell. I’m going to give you a tax cut.” He gave the tax cuts that predominantly went to the top caste. What happened there was an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever. Now he’s proposing a 20% consumption or sales tax on everything we bring in. Everyone agrees, including businesses. It would be destabilizing it. It would increase inflation and potentially lead to a recession. Look, this is simple for you. Where are we going? Kamala Harris has said to do the things she wants to do. We’ll just ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share. When you do that, our system works best. More people are participating in it, and folks have the things that they need. 

NO: Senator, I want to give you a moment to respond on that. But similarly, the Wharton School has done an analysis of the Trump plan and says it would increase the nation’s deficit by 5.8 trillion. My question is the same for you. How do you pay for all that without ballooning the deficit? I’ll give you two minutes.

JDV: Well, first of all, you’re going to hear a lot from Tim Walz this evening, and you just heard it in the answer, a lot of what Kamala Harris proposes to do. And some of it, I’ll be honest with you, it even sounds pretty good. Here’s what you won’t hear, is that Kamala Harris has already done it. Because she’s been the Vice President for three and a half years, she had the opportunity to enact all of these great policies. And what she’s actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25%, drive the cost of housing higher by about 60%, open the American southern border and make middle class life unaffordable for a large number of Americans. If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle class problems, then she ought to do them now, not when asking for a promotion, but in the job the American people gave her three and a half years ago. And the fact that she isn’t, tells you a lot about how much you can trust her actual plans. Now, Donald Trump’s economic plan is not just a plan, but it’s also a record. A lot of those same economists attack Donald Trump’s plans, and they have PhDs, but they don’t have common sense and they don’t have wisdom, because Donald Trump’s economic policies delivered the highest take home pay in a generation in this country, 1.5% inflation, and to boot, peace and security all over the world. So when people say that Donald Trump’s economic plan doesn’t make sense, I say “Look at the record he delivered: rising take home pay for American workers.” Now, Tim admirably admits that they want to undo the Trump tax cuts. But if you look at what was so different about Donald Trump’s tax cuts, even from previous Republican tax cut plans, is that a lot of those resources went to giving more take home pay to middle class and working class Americans. It was passed in 2017, and you saw an American economic boom unlike we’ve seen in a generation in this country. That is a record that I’m proud to run on and we’re going to get back to that common sense wisdom so that you can afford to live the American Dream again. I know a lot of you are struggling. I know a lot of you are worried about paying the bills. It’s going to stop when Donald Trump brings back common sense to this country.

NO: Governor, do you want to respond to that? What has Kamala Harris done for the middle class?

TW: Yeah. Yeah, well, Kamala Harris’ day one was Donald Trump’s failure on COVID that led to the collapse of our economy. We were already before COVID, in a manufacturing recession. But 10 million people out of work, largest percentage since the Great Depression, 9 million jobs closed on that. That was day one. Whether it was the Infrastructure Act or other things, we moved. Now, you made a question about experts, said this, I made a note of this. “Economists don’t, can’t be trusted. Science can’t be trusted. National security folks can’t be trusted.” Look, if you’re going to be President, you don’t have all the answers. Donald Trump believes he does. My pro tip of the day is this, if you need heart surgery, listen to the people at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, not Donald Trump. And the same thing goes with this and I ask you out there, teachers, nurses, truck drivers, whatever, how is it fair that you’re paying your taxes every year and Donald Trump hasn’t paid any Federal Tax 10 to last 15 years, in the last year as President? That’s what’s wrong with the system. There’s a way around it. And he’s bragged about that. We’re just asking for fairness in it, and that’s all you want. 

NO: You have a minute. 

JDV: Governor, you say trust the experts, but those same experts for 40 years said that if we shipped our manufacturing base off to China, we’d get cheaper goods. They lied about that. They said if we shipped our industrial base off to other countries, to Mexico and elsewhere, it would make the middle class stronger. They were wrong about that. They were wrong about the idea that if we made America less self-reliant, less productive in our own Nation, that it would somehow make us better off. And they were wrong about it. And for the first time in a generation, Donald Trump had the wisdom and the courage to say to that bipartisan consensus, we’re not doing it anymore. We’re bringing American manufacturing back. We’re unleashing American energy. We’re going to make more of our own stuff. And this isn’t just an economic issue. I mean, I’ve got three beautiful little kids at home: seven, four and two. And I love them very much. And I hope they’re in bed right now. But look, so many of the drugs, the pharmaceuticals that we put in the bodies of our children are manufactured by nations that hate us. This has to stop. And we’re not going to stop it by listening to experts. We’re going to stop it by listening to common sense wisdom, which is what Donald Trump governed on.

NO: Senator, your time is up. Governor Walz, can you address that? I mean, voters say they trust Donald Trump on the economy more. Why?

TW: If you’re listening tonight, and you want billionaires to get tax cuts, you heard what the numbers were. 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 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 in 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. Folks that, folks that are venture capital, in some cases, putting money into companies that were overseas, we’re in agreement that we bring those home. The issue is Donald Trump is talking about it. Kamala Harris has a record. Two hundred fifty thousand more manufacturing jobs just out of the IRA. 

JDV: May I respond to that? 

NO: Yes. 

JDV: So, appreciate that. So if you notice, what Governor Walz just did is he said, “First of all, Donald Trump has to listen to the experts.” And then when he acknowledged that the experts screwed up, he said, well, “Donald Trump didn’t do nearly as good of a job as the statistics show that he did.” 

TW: No, that’s a gross generalization. 

JDV: So what Tim Walz is doing. And I honestly, Tim, I think you got a tough job here because you’ve got to play whack-a-mole. You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver rising take home pay. Which, of course, he did. You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver lower inflation, which, of course, he did. And then you’ve simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris’s atrocious economic record, which has made gas, groceries, and housing unaffordable for American citizens. I was raised by a woman who would sometimes go into medical debt so that she could put food on the table in our household. I know what it’s like to not be able to afford the things that you need to afford. We can do so much better. To all of you watching, we can get back to an America that’s affordable again. We just got to get back to common sense, economic principles. 

TW: I hope we have a conversation on health care then.

NO: Senator. Governor.

JDV: Please.

NO: Thank you, Margaret. 

MB: We have a lot to get to ahead, gentlemen, on many topics. But right now I want to talk about personal qualifications. The Vice President is often the last voice the President hears before making consequential decisions. We want to ask you about your leadership qualities, Governor Walz. You said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protest in the spring of 1989. But Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are reporting that you actually didn’t travel to Asia until August of that year. Can you explain that discrepancy?  You have two minutes.

TW: Yeah. Well, and to the folks out there who didn’t get at the top of this, look, I grew up in small, rural Nebraska, town of 400. Town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service. I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms, and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher. Passionate about it, a young teacher. My first year out, I got the opportunity in the summer of 89 to travel to China, 35 years ago, be able to do that. I came back home and then started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams, we would take baseball teams, we would take dancers, and we would go back and forth to China. The issue for that was, was to try and learn. Now, look, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. They, look, I will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community. I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect. And I’m a knucklehead at times, but it’s always been about that. Those same people elected me to Congress for twelve years. And in Congress I was one of the most bipartisan people. Working on things like farm bills that we got done, working on veterans benefits. And then the people of Minnesota were able to elect me to governor twice. So look, my commitment has been from the beginning, to make sure that I’m there for the people, to make sure that I get this right. I will say more than anything, many times, I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric. But being there, the impact it made, the difference it made in my life. I learned a lot about China. I hear the critiques of this. I would make the case that Donald Trump should have come on one of those trips with us. I guarantee you he wouldn’t be praising Xi Jinping about COVID. And I guarantee you he wouldn’t start a trade war that he ends up losing. So this is about trying to understand the world. It’s about trying to do the best you can for your community, and then it’s putting yourself out there and letting your folks understand what it is. My commitment, whether it be through teaching, which I was good at, or whether it was being a good soldier or was being a good member of Congress, those are the things that I think are the values that people care about.

MB: Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy? 

TW: No. All I said on this was, is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.

MB: Thank you, governor. Senator Vance, in 2016, you called your running mate, Donald Trump, unfit for the nation’s highest office, and you said he could be America’s Hitler. I know you’ve said, you’ve been asked many times, and you’ve said you regret those comments and explained, you then voted for Donald Trump in 2020. But the Washington Post reported new messages last week in which you also disparaged Trump’s economic record while he was President. Writing to someone in 2020, quote, “Trump thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism.” You’re now his running mate, and you’ve shifted many of your policy stances to align with his. If you become Vice President, why should Americans trust that you will give Donald Trump the advice he needs to hear, and not just the advice he wants to hear? You have two minutes.

JDV: Well, first of all, Margaret, because I’ve always been open and sometimes, of course, I’ve disagreed with the President, but I’ve also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump. I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people rising wages, rising take home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans. A secure southern border. A lot of things, frankly, that I didn’t think he’d be able to deliver on. And yeah, when you screw up, when you misspeak, when you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people about it. It’s one of the reasons, Margaret, why I’ve done so many interviews is because I think it’s important to actually explain to the American people where I come down on the issues and what changed.  Now you pointed out to messages from 2020. Margaret, I’ve been extremely consistent that I think there were a lot of things that we could have done better in the Trump administration the first round, if Congress was doing its job. I strongly believe, and I’ve been a United States Senator, that Congress is not just a high-class debating society. It’s not just a forum for senators and congressmen to whine about problems. It’s a forum to govern. So there were a lot of things on the border, on tariffs, for example, where I think that we could have done so much more if the Republican Congress and the Democrats in Congress had been a little bit better about how they governed the country. They were so obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump, they couldn’t actually govern. And I want to talk about this tariff issue in particular, Margaret, because, you know, Tim just accused this of being a national sales tax. Look, the one thing, and you’re not probably surprised to hear me praising Joe Biden, but the one thing that Joe Biden did is he continued some of the Trump tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs. And it’s the one issue, the most pro-worker part of the Biden administration. It’s the one issue where Kamala Harris has run away from Joe Biden’s record. Think about this. If you’re trying to employ slave laborers in China at $3 a day, you’re going to do that and undercut the wages of American workers unless our country stands up for itself and says you’re not accessing our markets unless you’re paying middle class Americans a fair wage.

MB: Senator, your time is up. Norah.

NO: Thank you. Now to the issue of reproductive rights. Governor Walz, after Roe v. Wade was overturned, you signed a bill into law that made Minnesota one of the least restrictive states in the nation when it comes to abortion. Former President Trump said in the last debate that. You believe abortion, quote, in the 9th month is absolutely fine. Yes or no? Is that what you support? I’ll give you two minutes.

TW: That’s not what the bill says. But look, this issue is what’s on everyone’s mind. Donald Trump put this all into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe versus Wade, 52 years of personal autonomy. And then he tells us, oh, we send it to the states. It’s a beautiful thing. Amanda Zaworski would disagree with you on it’s a beautiful thing. A young bride in Texas waiting for their child at 18 weeks. She has a complication, a tear in the membrane. She needs to go in. The medical care at that point needs to be decided by the doctor. And that would have been an abortion. But in Texas, that would have put them in legal jeopardy. She went home, got sepsis, nearly dies, and now she may have difficulty having children. Or in Kentucky, Hadley Duvall, a twelve year old child raped and impregnated by her stepfather. Those are horrific. Now, when got asked about that, Senator Vance said, two wrongs don’t make a right. There is no right in this. So in Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. But look, this is not what, if you don’t know Amanda or a Hadley, you soon will. Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It’s going to make it more difficult, if not impossible to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access to infertility treatments. For so many of you out there listening, me included, infertility treatments are why I have a child. That’s nobody else’s business. But those things are being proposed, and the catchall on this is, is, well, the states will decide what’s right for Texas might not be right for Washington. That’s not how this works. This is basic human right. We have seen maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas, outpacing many other countries in the world. This is about health care. In Minnesota, we are ranked first in health care for a reason. We trust women. We trust doctors.

NO: Senator, do you want to respond to the governor’s claim? Will you create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency?

JDV: No, Norah, certainly we won’t. And I want to talk about this issue because I know a lot of Americans care about it, and I know a lot of Americans don’t agree with everything that I’ve ever said on this topic. And, you know, I grew up in a working class family in a neighborhood where I knew a lot of young women who had unplanned pregnancies and decided to terminate those pregnancies because they feel like they didn’t have any other options. And, you know, one of them is actually very dear to me. And I know she’s watching tonight, and I love you. And she told me something a couple years ago that she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship. And I think that what I take from that, as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable is that my party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American People’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us. And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do. I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies. I want it to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there’s so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options. Now, of course, Donald Trump has been very clear that on the abortion policy specifically, that we have a big country and it’s diverse. And California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona. And the proper way to handle this, as messy as democracy sometimes is, is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy. And I think that’s what makes the most sense in a very big, a very diverse, and let’s be honest, sometimes a very, very messy and divided country.

NO: Governor, would you like to respond and also answer the question about restrictions?

TW: Yeah. Well, the question got asked, and Donald Trump made the accusation that wasn’t true about Minnesota. Well, let me tell you about this idea that there’s diverse states. There’s a young woman named Amber Thurmond. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth. The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right to control your own body is determined on geography? There’s a very real chance, had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. That’s why the restoration of Roe v. Wade. When you listen to Vice President Harris talk about this subject, and you hear me talk about it, you hear us talking exactly the same. Donald Trump is trying to figure out how to get the political right of this. I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said about what’s happening. His running mate, though, does not. And that’s the problem.

NO: Governor, your time is up. Senator, let me ask you about that. He mentioned it was, I think, referring to a national ban. In the past, you have supported a Federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. In fact, you said if someone can’t support legislation like that, quote, you are making the United States the most barbaric pro-abortion regime anywhere in the entire world. My question is, why have you changed your position?

JDV: Well, Norah, first of all, I never supported a national ban. I did during, when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial birth abortion ban in this, in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody’s trying to get rid of that, or at least I hope not, though I know that Democrats have taken a very radical pro-abortion stance. But, Norah, 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. And that’s why Donald Trump and I are committed to pursuing pro-family policies. Making childcare more accessible, making fertility treatments more accessible, because we’ve got to do a better job at that. And that’s what real leadership is.

NO: Governor, your response? 

TW: I’m going to respond on the pro-abortion piece of that. No, we’re not. We’re pro-women. We’re pro-freedom to make your own choice. We know what the implications are to not be that women having miscarriages, women not getting the care, physicians feeling like they may be prosecuted for providing that care. And as far as making sure that we’re educating our children and giving them options. Minnesota’s a state with one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates. We understand that, too. We know that the options need to be available, and we make that true. We also make it, we’re a top three state for the best place to raise children. But these two things to try and say that we’re pro-children but we don’t like this or, or you guys are pro-abortion, that’s not the case at all. We are pro-freedoms for women to make their choices. And we’re going, and Kamala Harris is making the case to make options for children more affordable. A $6,000 child tax credit. But we’re not going to base out on the backs of making someone like Amber Thurmond drive 600 miles to try and get health care.

NO: Senator. 

JDV: May I respond to that? First of all, Governor, I agree with you. Amber Thurmond should still be alive. And there are a lot of people who should still be alive, and I certainly wish that she was. And maybe, you’re free to disagree with me on this and explain this to me, but as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion, where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late term abortion. That is, I think, whether it’s not pro-choice or pro-abortion, that is fundamentally barbaric. And that’s why I use that word, Norah, is because some of what we’ve seen, do you want to force catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will? Because Kamala Harris has supported suing catholic nuns to violate their freedom of conscience? We can be a big and diverse country where we respect people’s freedom of conscience. And make the country more pro-baby and pro-family. But please.

NO: Yes, Governor, please respond. 

TW: Look, this is one where there’s always something there. This is a very simple proposition. These are women’s decisions to make about their healthcare decisions and the physicians who know best when they need to do this, trying to distort the way a law is written, to try and make a point. That’s not it at all.

JDV: What was I wrong about? Governor, please tell me. What was I wrong about?

TW: That is not the way the law is written. Look, I’ve given.

JDV: But how.

TW: I’ve given this advice on a lot of things that getting involved, getting, that’s been misread. And it was fact checked at the last debate. But the point on this is, is there’s a continuation of these guys to try and tell women or to get involved. I use this line on this. Just mind your own business on this. Things worked best when Roe v. Wade was in place. When we do a restoration of Roe, that works best. That doesn’t preclude us from increasing funding for children. It doesn’t increase us from making sure that once that child’s born, like in Minnesota, they get meals, they get early childhood education, they get healthcare. So the hiding behind we’re going to do all these other things when you’re not proposing them in your budget? Kamala Harris is proposing them. She’s proposing all those things to make life easier for families.

JDV: I asked a specific question, Governor. And you gave me a slogan as a response.

TW: It’s not the case. It’s not true. That’s not what the law says. So they fact checked it with President Trump.

NO: Gentlemen, there’s a lot to discuss. We have to move on. And we’re going to be right back with much more of the CBS News vice presidential debate in just a moment.

Second Segment

NO: Welcome back to the CBS News vice presidential debate. We want to turn now to America’s gun violence epidemic, the leading cause of death for children and teens in America is by firearms. Senator Vance, you oppose most gun legislation that Democrats claim would curb gun violence. You oppose red flag gun laws and legislation to ban certain semi automatic rifles, including AR-15s. So let me ask you. Earlier this year, for the first time, the parents of a school shooter were convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison. Do you think holding parents responsible could curb mass shootings? I’ll give you two minutes. 

JDV: Yeah. Well, Norah, on that particular case, I don’t know the full details, but I certainly trust local law enforcement and local authorities to make those decisions. I think in some cases the answer is going to be yes, and in some cases the answer is going to be no. And the details really matter here. Of course. For example, if a kid steals a gun, that’s going to be different than if a parent hands over a gun knowing that their kid is potentially dangerous. Look, I want to just sort of speak as a father of three beautiful little kids, and our oldest is now in second grade. And like a lot of parents, we send our kids to school with such hope and such joy and such pride at their little faces on the first day of school. And we know, unfortunately, that a lot of kids are going to experience this terrible epidemic of gun violence. And of course, our hearts go out to the families that are affected by this terrible stuff. And we do have to do better. And I think that Governor Walz and I actually probably agree that we need to do better on this. The question is just how do we actually do it? Now, here’s something that really bothers me and worries me about this epidemic of violence. The gross majority, close to 90%, and some of the statistics I’ve seen of the gun violence in this country is committed with illegally obtained firearms. And while we’re on that topic, we know that thanks to Kamala Harris’s open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartel. So that number, the amount of illegal guns in our country is higher today than it was three and a half years ago. But what do we do about the schools? What do we do to protect our kids? And I think the answer is, and I say this not loving the answer because I don’t want my kids to go to school and a school that feels unsafe or where there are visible signs of security. But I unfortunately think that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger. And of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experience. So we’ve got to make our schools safer, and I think we’ve got to have some common sense, bipartisan solutions for how to do that.

NO: Governor, you have two minutes. 

TW: Well, I think all the parents watching tonight, this is your biggest nightmare. Look, I got a, I got a 17 year old, and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball. Those things don’t leave you.

JDV: Awful.

TW: As a member of Congress. I sat in my office surrounded by dozens of the Sandy Oak parents, and they were looking at my seven year old picture on the wall. Their seven year old were dead. And they were asking us to do something. And look, I’m a hunter. I own firearms. The Vice President is. We understand that the Second Amendment is there, but our first responsibility is to our kids to figure this out. In Minnesota, we’ve enacted enhanced red flag laws, enhanced background checks, and we can start to get data. But here’s the problem. If we really want to solve this, we’ve got folks that won’t allow research to be even done on gun violence. And this idea that we should just live with it. And I, here’s what I do think and this is a good start to the conversation. I 100% believe that Senator Vance hates it when these kids, it’s abhorrent, and it breaks your heart. I agree with that. But that’s not far enough when we know there are things that worked. I’ve spent time in Finland and seen some Finnish schools. They don’t have this happen even though they have a high gun ownership rate in the country. There are reasonable things that we can do to make a difference. It’s not infringing on your Second Amendment. And the idea to have some of these weapons out there. It just doesn’t make any sense. Kamala Harris, as an Attorney General, worked on this issue. She knows that it’s there. No one’s trying to scaremonger and say, we’re taking your guns. But I ask all of you out there, do you want your school’s hardened to look like a fort? Is that what we have to go… when we know there’s countries around the world that their children aren’t practicing these types of drills? They’re being kids. We owe it to them to get a fix. These are things that shouldn’t be that difficult. You can still keep your firearms, and we can make a difference. We have to. If you’re listening tonight, this breaks your heart. 

NO: Senator?

JDV: Tim, first of all, I didn’t know that your 17 year old witnessed the shooting. And I’m sorry about that. And I hope,

TW: I appreciate that.

JDV: Christ, have mercy. It is awful. And I appreciate what Tim said, actually, about Finland. ‘Cause I do think it illustrates some of the, frankly weird differences between our own country’s gun violence problem and Finland is. Okay, first of all, we have way higher rates of mental health abuse or mental health substance abuse. We have way higher rates of depression, way higher rates of anxiety. We, unfortunately, have a mental health crisis in this country that I really do think that we need to get to the root causes of because I don’t think it’s the whole reason why we have such a bad gun violence problem. But I do think it’s a big piece of it. Another driver of the gun violence epidemic, especially that affecting our kids. It doesn’t earn as many headlines, but is the terrible gun violence problem in a lot of our big cities. And this is why we have to empower law enforcement to arrest the bad guys, put them away, and take gun offenders off the streets. I think there’s a whole host of things that we can do here, but I do think at our schools, we’ve got to talk about more security.

NO: Senator, thank you. Governor, you previously opposed an assault weapons ban, but only later in your political career did you change your position. Why? 

TW: Yeah. I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents. I’ve become friends with school shooters. I’ve seen it. Look, the NRA. I was the NRA guy for a long time. They used to teach gun safety. I’m of an age where my shotgun was in my car so I could pheasant hunt after football practice. That’s not where we live today. And several things I want to mention on this is talking about cities and where it’s at. The number one, where the most firearm deaths happen in Minnesota are rural suicides. And we have an epidemic of children getting guns and shooting themselves. And so we have, and we should look at all of the issues, making sure folks have healthcare and all that. But I want to be very careful. This idea of stigmatizing mental health, just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent. And I think what we end up doing is we start looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just the guns. And there are things that you can do about it. But I do think that this is one, and I think this is a healthy conversation. I think there’s a capacity to find solutions on this that work, protect Second Amendment, protect our children. That’s our priority.

NO: Gentlemen, thank you. Margaret. 

MB: Thank you, Norah. Let’s turn now to the top contributor to inflation, the high cost of housing and rent. There’s a shortage of more than 4 million homes in the United States and this contributes to the high housing crisis. Governor Walz, the Harris campaign promises a $25,000 down payment assistance for first time homebuyers and a $10,000 tax credit. They also promise to build 3 million new homes. Where are you building these new homes and won’t handing out that kind of money just drive up prices higher?

TW: No, it’s not handing out. First, let me say this, this issue of housing. And I think those of you listening on this. The problem we’ve had is that we’ve got a lot of folks that see housing as another commodity. It can be bought up. It can be shifted. It can be moved around. Those are not folks living in those houses. Those of you listening tonight, that house is a big deal. I bought and owned one house in my life. My mom still lives in the house where I was. And when I think of a house, I’m thinking of Christmas services after midnight Mass, where you go with your family. We need to make it more affordable. And one of the things, as I said, this program that the Vice President is pushing forward and bringing a new way of approaching. This is something we’re doing in Minnesota from that lead. We in the state invested in making sure our housing was the biggest investment that we’d ever made in housing. It starts to make it easier. We cut some of the red tape. Local folks, look, we can’t do at the Federal level, but local folks make it easier to build those homes. And then that down payment assistance. I can tell all of you out there, one of the, certainly for me, using the GI bill was one thing, but a veteran’s home loan, the big thing about a veteran’s home loan is you don’t have to pay the down payment. Those are things that make it there. Now, look, you’re going to pay it back and you’re going to pay your mortgage. Those are things that we know in the long run, the appreciated value, the generational wealth that’s created from it. And I will give Minneapolis an example. Minneapolis is the one city where we’ve seen the lowest inflation rates. We’ve seen a 12% increase in stock because we put some of these things in. And we’re implementing a state program to make sure we give some of that down payment assistance. We get it back from people, because here’s what we know. People with stable housing end up with stable jobs. People with stable housing have their kids able to get to school. All of those things in the long run, end up saving our money. And that’s the thing that I think we should be able to find some common ground in. But we can’t blame immigrants for the only reason that’s not the case that’s happening in many cities. The fact of the matter is, is that we don’t have enough naturally affordable housing, but we can make sure that the government’s there to help kickstart it, create that, create that base.

MB: Governor, your time is up. Senator Vance, as far as your campaign’s position, the promise is to seize federal lands to build homes, remove regulation, provide tax breaks, and cut back on immigration, which you say pushes up prices. Where are you going to build all the new homes you’re promising? And what part of any of this plan will provide immediate relief? You have two minutes.

JDV: Well, first of all, Tim just said something that I agree with. We don’t want to blame immigrants for higher housing prices. But we do want to blame Kamala Harris for letting in millions of illegal aliens into this country…

TW: Pass the bill.

JDV: …which does drive up costs, Tim. Twenty-five million illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country. It’s why we have massive increases in home prices that have happened right alongside massive increases in illegal alien, alien populations under Kamala Harris’s leadership. Now, Tim just mentioned a bunch of ideas. Now, some of those ideas I actually think are halfway decent, and some of them I disagree with. But the most important thing here is Kamala Harris is not running as a newcomer to politics. 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. Now, you asked Margaret what would immediately change the equation for American citizens? If you lower energy prices. As Donald Trump says, “Drill, baby, drill.” One of the biggest drivers of housing costs, aside from illegal immigration, is think about it: if a truck driver is paying 40% more for diesel, then the lumber he’s delivering to the job site to build the house is also going to become a lot more expensive. If we open up American energy, you will get immediate pricing release, relief, for American citizens, not, by the way, just in housing, but in a whole host of other economic goods too.

MB: Senator Vance, you still have 23 seconds there. Do you want to answer?

TW: Can I have it?

MB: Where, Governor, we will get to you in a moment. But, Senator, where are you going to seize the federal lands. Can you clarify?

JDV: Well, what Donald Trump has said is we have a lot of federal lands that aren’t being used for anything. They’re not being used for national parks. They’re not being used. And they could be places where we build a lot of housing. And I do think that we should be opening up building in this country. We have a lot of land that could be used. We have a lot of Americans that need homes. We should be kicking out illegal immigrants who are competing for those homes, and we should be building more homes for the American citizens who deserve to be here.

MB: Senator, your time is up. Governor, I do want to let you respond to the allegation that the Vice President is letting in migrants

TW: Well, of course, that’s not true. And again, you have the facts. I guess we agreed not to fact check. I’ll check it. That, look, crossings are down compared to when Donald Trump left office. But it’s, again, blaming and not trying to find the solution. I was going to ask, though, on this question, are we going to drill and build houses in the same federal land. And I think when people hear federal lands, these are really important pieces of land. Now, Minnesota doesn’t have a lot of federal lands. I know in the western part of the countries we do. There’s not a lot of federal lands in and around Minneapolis, for example. So the issue is, I don’t understand the federal lands issue unless we see this. And I worry about this as someone who cares deeply about our national parks and our federal lands. Look, Minnesota, we protect these things. We’ve got about 20% of the world’s fresh water. These lands protect. They’re there for a reason. They belong to all of us. But again, this is when you view housing and you view these things as commodities, like there’s a chance to make money here. Let’s take this federal land and let’s sell it to people for that. I think there’s better ways to do this. We’ve seen it in Minnesota. We’re able to refurbish some of these houses. We’re able to make some investments, that gets people in. And I’m still on the fact, on this, economist, Senator Vance, you said you don’t like the economist, which economists are saying that it is immigrants that’s adding to the cost.

MB: Governor, governor, your time is, your time is up. 

TW: Sorry.

MB: But, Senator, on that point, I’d like for you to clarify. There are many contributing factors to high housing costs. What evidence do you have that migrants are part of this problem?

JDV: Well, there’s a Federal Reserve study that we’re happy to share after the debate. We’ll put it up on social media. Actually, that really drills down on the connection between increased levels of migration, especially illegal immigration, and higher housing prices. Now, of course, Margaret, that’s not the entire driver of higher housing prices. It’s also the regulatory regime of Kamala Harris. Look, we are a country of builders. We’re a country of doers. We’re a country of explorers. But we increasingly have a Federal administration that makes it harder to develop our resources, makes it harder to build things, and wants to throw people in jail for not doing everything exactly as Kamala Harris says that they have to do. And what that means is that you have a lot of people who would love to build homes who aren’t able to build homes. I actually agree with Tim Walz. We should get out of this idea of housing as a commodity. But the thing that has most turned housing into a commodity is giving it away to millions upon millions of people who have no legal right to be here. 

TW: What are the federal regulations? I deal with this as a Governor. 

MB: You can very quickly reply.

TW: I’m sorry. I get this as a Governor, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that, that in some cases, many of those are local, many of them are state. I don’t know which ones are federal, but I think whenever we talk regulations, people think they can get rid of them. I think you want to be able to get out of your house in a fire. I think you want to make sure that it’s fireproof and those types of things. So which are the regulations? Because the vice president’s not responsible for those. Congress writes those.

MB: Governor, thank you, gentlemen. We have a lot to get through. You’re passionate about the housing crisis. I can tell. But Norah?

NO: Thank you. One of the top problems facing Americans is the high cost of health care. Senator Vance, at the last Presidential debate, former President Trump was asked about replacing the Affordable Care act. In response, he said, I have concepts of a plan. Since then, Senator, you’ve talked about changing how chronically ill Americans get health insurance. Can you explain how that would work? And can you guarantee that Americans with pre-existing conditions won’t pay more? I’ll give you two minutes.

JDV: Well, of course, we’re going to cover Americans with pre-existing conditions. In fact, a lot of my family members have gotten health care, I believe, you know, members of my family actually got private health insurance, at least, for the first time, switched off of Medicaid onto private insurance for the first time, under Donald Trump’s leadership. And I think that, you know, a lot of people have criticized this “concepts of a plan” remark. I think it’s very simple common sense. I think, as Tim Walz knows from twelve years in Congress, you’re not going to propose a 900 page bill standing on a debate stage. It would bore everybody to tears and it wouldn’t actually mean anything because part of this is the give and take of bipartisan negotiation. Now, when Donald Trump was actually President, and again, he has a record to be proud of, prescription drugs fell in 2018 for the first time in a very long time. Under Kamala Harris’s leadership, prescription drugs are up about 7%. Under Donald Trump’s entire four years, they were up about one and a half percent. He introduced pricing transparency. Think about healthcare. You go into a hospital, you try to buy something, and nobody knows what it actually costs. That price transparency will actually give American consumers a little bit more choice and will also drive down costs. And we talked about, you know, the reinsurance regulations is what I was talking about. Look, Donald Trump has said that if we allow states to experiment a little bit on how to cover both the chronically ill, but the non chronically ill. It’s not just a plan. He actually implemented some of these regulations when he was President of the United States. And I think you can make a really good argument that it salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along. I think this is 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 healthcare 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 healthcare policies. He’s earned it because he did it successfully the first time. 

NO: Governor.

TW: All right, here’s where being an old guy gives you some history. I was there at the creation of the ACA, and the reason it was so important is I come from a major healthcare state, home of the Mayo Clinic, home to Medical Alley, 3M, Medtronic, all of those. We understand healthcare. It’s why we’re ranked first on affordability and accessibility and quality of health care. And so what I know is under Kamala Harris, more people are covered than they have before. Those of you listening, this is critical to you. Now, Donald Trump all of a sudden wants you… go back and remember this. He ran on, the first thing he was going to do on day one, was to repeal Obamacare. On day one, he tried to sign an executive order to repeal the ACA. He signed onto a lawsuit to repeal the ACA, but lost at the Supreme Court. And he would have repealed the ACA had it not been for the courage of John McCain to save that bill. Now fast forward. What that means to you is you lose your pre-existing conditions if you’re sitting at home and you got asthma, too bad. If you’re a woman, probably not. Broke your foot during football, might kick you out. Your kids get kicked out when they’re 26. Kamala Harris negotiated drug prices for the first time with Medicare. We have ten drugs that will come online, the most common ones that’ll be there. But look, this issue, and when Donald Trump said, “I’ve got a concept of a plan,” it cracked me up as a fourth grade teacher because my kids would have never given me that. But what Senator Vance just explained might be worse than a concept, because what he explained is pre-Obamacare. And I’ll make this as simple as possible because I have done this for a long time. What they’re saying is if you’re healthy, why should you be paying more? So what they’re going to do is let insurance companies pick who they insure. Because guess what happens? You pay your premium. It’s not much. They figure they’re not going to have to pay out to you. But those of you a little older, gray, you know, got cancer? You’re going to get kicked out of it. That’s why the system didn’t work. Kamala Harris will protect and enhance the ACA.

NO: Governor, thank you. Senator, you have not yet explained how you would protect people with preexisting conditions, or laid out that plan. 

JDV: Well, look, we currently have laws and regulations in place, in place right now that protect people with preexisting conditions. We want to keep those regulations in place, but we also want to make the health insurance marketplace function a little bit better. Now, what Governor Walz just said is actually not true. A lot of what happened and the reason that Obamacare was crushing under its own weight is that a lot of young and healthy people were leaving the exchanges. Donald Trump actually helped address that problem, and he did so in a way that preserved people’s access to coverage who had preexisting conditions. But again, something that these guys do, is they make a lot of claims about if Donald Trump becomes President, all of these terrible consequences are going to ensue. But in reality, Donald Trump was President. Inflation was low, take home pay was higher, and he saved the very program from a Democratic administration that was collapsing and would have collapsed absent his leadership. He did his job, which is govern in a bipartisan way and get results, not just complain about problems, but actually solve them.

NO: Governor, did enrollment under the Affordable Care Act go up under the Trump Administration?

TW: It’s higher now that we’ve seen it go up. Look, people are using it. The system works. And the question about this of young people or whatever, that’s the individual mandate piece of this. And Republicans fought tooth and nail, saying, well, Americans should be free to do this. Well, then what happens? 

JDV: You think the individual mandate’s a good idea?

TW: I think the idea of making sure the risk pool is broad enough to cover everyone, that’s the only way insurance works. When it doesn’t, it collapses. You are asking pre-ACA where we get people out. Look, people know that they need to be on healthcare. People expect it to be there. And when we are able to make it, and we are making it this way, when we incentivize people to be in the market, when we help people who might not be able to afford it get there, and we make sure then when you get sick and old, it’s there for you. Because I heard people say, well, I don’t want to buy into Medicare or whatever. Good luck buying healthcare once you get past 70. So look, the ACA works. We can continue to do better. Kamala Harris did that. The way she made everything better was negotiating those ten drugs on Medicare for the first time in American history.

NO: Thank you. Margaret?

JDV: Can I address that?

NO: We’re, I apologize. We’re out of time. We have a number of subjects to discuss. Margaret?

MB: Let’s talk about families in America. There is a childcare crisis in this country, and the United States is one of the very few developed countries in the world without a national paid leave program for new parents. Governor Walz, you said that if Democrats win both the White House and Congress, this is a day one priority for you. How long should employers be required to pay workers while they are home taking care of their newborns? You have two minutes.

TW: Yeah, well, that’s negotiable. And that’s what Congress worked. But here’s what the deal is. Americans sitting out there right now, you may work for a big company. Look, we’re home in Minnesota to some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Kamala Harris knows that in California. Those companies provide paid family medical leave. One is, I think they’re moral and they think it’s a good thing, but it also keeps their employees healthy. We in Minnesota passed a paid family medical leave. You have a child. You, and I had to go back to work five days after my kids were born. This allows you to stay home a certain amount of time. What we know is that gets the child off to a better start. The family works better. We stay in their employers. We get more consistency in that. So Kamala Harris has made it a priority. We implemented it in Minnesota, and we see growth. That’s how you become a pro-business state. But the negotiations on it, and here’s the issue, those big companies are able to offer it. Those of you out there who don’t have it, just imagine what happens if you get cancer or your child gets sick. We know what happens. You end up staying home. In some places, that means no paycheck, because you’ve got no protection on that. This is the case of an economy that Donald Trump has set for the wealthiest amongst us. He’s willing to give those tax breaks to the wealthiest, he’s willing to say, “Bust those unions up. Do whatever.” What we’re saying is the economy works best when it works for all of us. And so a paid family medical leave program, and I will tell you, go to the families or go to the businesses and ask them. As far as childcare on this, you have to take it at both the supply and the demand side. You can’t expect the most important people in our lives to take care of our children or our parents, to get paid the least amount of money. And we have to make it easier for folks to be able to get into that business and then to make sure that folks are able to pay for that. We were able to do it in Minnesota, and I’m still telling you this, we were listed as the best state. We’re still in crisis on this. A Federal program of paid family medical leave and help with this will enhance our workforce, enhance our families, and make it easier to have the children that you want.

MB: Governor, your time is up. Senator, do you support a national paid leave program? And if so, for how long should employers be mandated to pay their employees while they are home taking care of their newborn? You have two minutes. 

JDV: Yeah. Well, first of all, Margaret, a number of my Republican colleagues and some Democrats, too, have worked on this issue, and I think there is a bipartisan solution here because a lot of us care about this issue. I mean, look, I speak from this very personally because I’m married to a beautiful woman who is an incredible mother to our three beautiful kids, but is also a very, very brilliant corporate litigator, and I’m so proud of her. But being a working mom, even for somebody with all of the advantages of my wife, is extraordinarily difficult. And it’s not just difficult from a policy perspective. She actually had access to paid family leave because she worked for a bigger company. But the cultural pressure on young families, and especially young women, I think, makes it really hard for people to choose the family model they want. A lot of young women would like to go back to work immediately. Some would like to spend a little time home with the kids. Some would like to spend longer at home with the kids. We should have a family care model that makes choice possible. And I think this is a very important substantive difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’s approach. I mean, look, if you look at the Federal programs that we have that support paid family leave right now, the community development block grant, and there’s another block grant program that spends a lot of money from the federal government. These programs only go to one kind of childcare model. Let’s say you’d like your church, maybe, to help you out with child care. Maybe you live in a rural area or an urban area, and you’d like to get together with families in your neighborhood to provide childcare in the way that makes the most sense. You don’t get access to any of these federal monies. We want to promote choice in how we deliver family care and how we promote childcare because, look, it is unacceptable. And, you know, of course, Tim and I have been on the campaign trail a lot the past seven or eight weeks. And one of the biggest complaints I hear from young families is people who feel like they don’t have options, like they’re choosing between going to work or taking care for their kids. That is an incredible burden to put on American families. We’re the only country that does it. I think we could do a heck of a lot better.

MB: Senator, thank you. You have also said, Senator Vance, many things about the American family. The Federal Reserve says parents will spend nearly as much on childcare as they do on housing each month. So I want to get your thoughts on this. President Trump recently said, as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kinds of numbers we’ll be taking in. Is President Trump committed to the $5,000 per child tax credit that you have described? You have 1 minute.

JDV: Well, what President Trump said, Margaret, I just want to defend my running mate here a little bit, is that we’re going to be taking in a lot of money by penalizing companies for shipping jobs overseas and penalizing countries who employ slave laborers and then ship their products back into our country and undercut the wages of American workers. It’s the heart of the Donald Trump economic plan. Cut taxes for American workers and American families. Cut taxes for businesses that are hiring and building companies in the United States of America. But penalize companies and countries that are shipping jobs overseas. That’s the heart of the economic proposal. And I think what President Trump is saying is that when we bring in this additional revenue with higher economic growth, we’re going to be able to provide paid family leave, childcare options that are viable and workable for a lot of American families. 

MB: Can you clarify how that will solve the childcare shortage? 

JDV: Well, because, 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 child care options for American families because the reason it’s so expensive right now is because you’ve got way too few people providing this very essential service.

MB: Thank you, Senator. Governor Walz, your ticket also has some childcare tax credit proposals. Do you think Congress will agree to the $6,000 credit for newborns and $3,000 credit for children over the age of six, as your campaign has promised? Is that realistic?

TW: Well, well, if these members of Congress are listening to anybody, I can tell you, and this is the biggest issue everybody listening tonight knows. I mean, I’m sure they were shocked to hear it’s not that expensive. And let’s be clear whether it’s $5000 or $6000, that pays you about three or four months. Let’s be clear of where we’re at on this. It’s because we got out of an imbalance on this. We thought we were going to get by by not paying people. I don’t think Senator Vance and I are that far apart. I’m not opposed to what he’s talking about on options. We’ve done scholarships, types of things. I think we need to be open to making the case. But the issue here is, the question you asked is you’re not going to pay for it with these tariffs. That’s just adding another $4,000 on the family and taking less. So not only do they not get the money to pay for that, they’re $4,000 in the hole. That’s Wharton School. That’s his alma mater. And so I think the issue here is those members of Congress, I can’t believe they’re not here. When I go to businesses, sure, they’ll talk about taxes sometimes. But they will lead with childcare and they will lead with housing, because we know the problem is, especially in a state like Minnesota, we need more workers because our economy is growing, but we need the workforce.

MB: Governor, thank you. We need to move on. Norah?

NO: Let’s talk about the State of Democracy, the top issue for Americans after the economy and inflation. After the 2020 election, President Trump’s campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting the results. Judges, including those appointed by President Trump and other Republican Presidents looked at the evidence and said there was no widespread fraud. The Governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6th. Senator Vance, you have said you would not have certified the last Presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every Governor certifies the results? I’ll give you two minutes.

JDV: Well, Norah, first of all, I think that we’re focused on the future. We need to figure out how to solve the inflation crisis caused by Kamala Harris’s policies. Make housing affordable, make groceries affordable, and that’s what we’re focused on. But I want to answer your question because you did ask it. Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020. And my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square. And that’s all I’ve said. And that’s all that Donald Trump has said. Remember, he said that on January 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully. And on January 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the President. Donald Trump left the White House. And now, of course, unfortunately, we have all of the negative policies that have come from the Harris-Biden administration. I believe that we actually do have a threat to democracy in this country, but unfortunately, it’s not the threat to democracy that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to talk about. It is the threat of censorship. It’s Americans casting aside lifelong friendships because of disagreements over politics. It’s big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens. And it’s Kamala Harris saying that rather than debate and persuade her fellow Americans, she’d like to censor people who engage in misinformation. I think that is a much bigger threat to democracy than anything that we’ve seen in this country in the last four years, in the last 40 years. Now I’m really proud, especially given that I was raised by two lifelong blue collar Democrats to have the endorsement of Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, lifelong leaders in the democratic coalition. And of course, they don’t agree with me and Donald Trump on every issue. We don’t have to agree on every issue, but we’re united behind a basic American First Amendment principle that we ought to debate our differences. We ought to argue about them. We ought to try to persuade our fellow Americans. Kamala Harris is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale. She did it during COVID, she’s done it over a number of other issues. And that, to me, is a much bigger threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said that protesters should peacefully protest on January 6th.

MB: Governor.

TW: Well, I’ve enjoyed tonight’s debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here. And I’m sympathetic to misspeaking on things. And I think I might have with the Senator, but…

JDV: Me too, man.

TW: There’s one, there’s one, though, that this one is troubling to me. And I say that because I think we need to tell the story. Donald Trump refused to acknowledge this. And the fact is, is that I don’t think we can be the frog in the pot and let the boiling water go up. He was very clear. I mean, he lost this election, and he said he didn’t. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag. Several later died. And it wasn’t just in there. In Minnesota, a group gathered on the state capitol grounds in St. Paul and said we’re marching to the Governor’s residence and there may be casualties. The only person there was my son and his dog, who was rushed out crying by state police. That issue. And Mike Pence standing there as they were chanting, hang Mike Pence. Mike Pence made the right decision. So, Senator, it was adjudicated over and over and over. I worked with kids long enough to know, and I said, as a football coach, sometimes you really want to win, but the democracy is bigger than winning an election. You shake hands and then you try and do everything you can to help the other side win. That’s, that’s what was at stake here. Now, the thing I’m most concerned about is the idea that imprisoning your political opponents already laying the groundwork for people not accepting this. And a President’s words matter. A President’s words matter. People hear that. So I think this issue of settling our differences at the ballot box, shaking hands when we lose, being honest about it, but to deny what happened on January 6, 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. I will tell you this, that 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. 

NO: Margaret. 

MB: Senator Vance, did you want to respond to that? 

JDV: Yeah, well, look, Tim, first of all, it’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country. We are going to shake hands after this debate and after this election. And of course, I hope that we win, and I think we’re going to win. But if Tim Walz is the next vice president, he’ll have my prayers, he’ll have my best wishes, and he’ll have my help whenever he wants it. But we have to remember that for years in this country, Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought, like, $500,000 worth of Facebook ads. This has been going on for a long time. And if we want to say that we need to respect the results of the election, I’m on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had. I don’t buy that.

NO: Governor.

TW: January 6th was not Facebook ads. And I think a revisionist history on this. Look, I don’t understand how we got to this point, but the issue was that happened. Donald Trump can even do it. And all of us say there’s no place for this. It has massive repercussions. This idea that there’s censorship to stop people from doing, threatening to kill someone, threatening to do something, that’s not censorship. Censorship is book banning. We’ve seen that. We’ve seen that brought up. I just think for everyone tonight, and I’m going to thank Senator Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear, and I think there’s a lot of agreement. But this is one that we are miles apart on. This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say, he is still saying he didn’t lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?

JDV: Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?

TW: That is a damning. That is a damning non answer.

JDV: 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. But you guys attack us for not believing in democracy. The most sacred right under the United States democracy is the First Amendment. You yourself have said there’s no First Amendment right to misinformation. Kamala Harris wants to use the power of government and big tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment. I would like Democrats and Republicans to both reject censorship. Let’s persuade one another. Let’s argue about ideas, and then let’s come together afterwards.

TW: You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme court test.

JDV: Tim. Fire in a crowded theater. You guys wanted to kick people off of Facebook for saying that toddlers should not wear masks.

NO: Senator, the governor does have the floor.

TW: Sorry.

JDV: That’s not fire in a crowded theater. That is criticizing the policies of the government, which is the right of every American.

NO: Senator, the governor does have the floor for 1 minute to respond to you.

TW: Please. Yeah, well, I don’t run Facebook. What I do know is I see a candidate out there who refused, and now again. And this, I’m pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate. 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. So, America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.

MB: Governor, your time is up. Thank you, gentlemen. We will be right back with both of our candidates. The CB’s news vice presidential debate continues.

Segment 3

NO: Welcome back to the CBS News vice presidential Debate. It is now time for the closing statement. Senator Vance won the virtual coin toss and elected to go last. So, Governor Walz, you are first. You have two minutes.

TW: Well, thank you, Senator Vance. Thank you to CBS News. And most importantly, thank you to all of you. If you’re still up and the folks who miss Dancing with the Stars, I appreciate it. But look, the support of the democracy matters. It matters that you’re here. And I’m as surprised as anybody of this coalition that Kamala Harris has built. From Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift and a whole bunch of folks in between there. And they don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future of this country. And one where our politics can be better than it is. And I have to tell you that, that better than it is is the sense of optimism that there can be an opportunity economy that works for everyone, not just to get by, but to get ahead. And the idea that freedom really means something. Not the freedom of government to be in your bedroom or exam room, but the freedom for you to make choices about yourself. Now, look, we all know who Donald Trump is. He’s told us. And as Maya Angelou said, “Believe him when he told you that.” His first inaugural address talked about American carnage and then he spent four years trying to maybe do that. Senator Vance tonight made it clear he will stand with Donald Trump’s agenda. He will continue to push down that road. Excuse me. Kamala Harris gives us a different option. Now, I have to tell you, I’m going to be careful about the quotes, but there’s one that Senator Vance said that does resonate with me. He said, “Donald Trump makes the people I care about afraid.” A lot of America feels that way. 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. She’s bringing real solutions for the middle class. And she’s centering you at the heart of that, all the while asking everyone, “Join this movement. Make your voices heard. Let’s look for a new day where everybody gets that opportunity and everybody gets a chance to thrive.” I humbly ask for your vote on November 5 for Kamala Harris.

MB: Governor Walz. Thank you. Senator Vance, your closing statement.

JDV: Well, I want to thank Governor Walz, you folks at CBS and, of course, the American people for tuning in this evening. And one of the issues we didn’t talk about was energy. And I remember when I was being raised by my grandmother, when she didn’t have enough money to turn on the heat some nights because Ohio gets pretty cold at night and because money was often very tight. And I believe, as a person who wants to be your next Vice President, that we are a rich and prosperous enough country where every American, whether they’re rich or poor, ought to be able to turn on their heat in the middle of a cold winter night. That’s gotten more difficult thanks to Kamala Harris’s energy policies. I believe that whether you’re rich or poor, you ought to be able to afford a nice meal for your family. That’s gotten harder because of Kamala Harris’s policies. I believe that whether you’re rich or poor you ought to be able to afford to buy a house. You ought to be able to live in safe neighborhoods. You ought to not have your communities flooded with fentanyl. And that, too, has gotten harder with Kamala, because of Kamala Harris’s policies. Now, I’ve been in politics long enough to do what Kamala Harris does when she stands before the American people and says that on day one she’s gonna work on all these challenges I just listed. She’s been the Vice President for three and a half years. Day one was 1400 days ago. And her policies have made these problems worse. Now I believe that we have the most beautiful country in the world. I meet people on the campaign trail who can’t afford food, but have the grace and generosity to ask me how I’m doing and to tell me they’re praying for my family. What that has taught me is that we have the greatest country, the most beautiful country, the most incredible people anywhere in the world. But they’re not going to be able to achieve their full dreams with the broken leadership that we have in Washington. They’re not going to be able 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. We need a new direction. We need a President who has already done this once before and did it well. Please vote for Donald Trump. And whether you vote for me or vote for Tim Walz, I just want to say I’m so proud to be doing this, and I’m rooting for you. God bless you and good night.

MB: Senator Vance, thank you. And thank you both for participating in the only vice presidential debate of this election cycle. I’m Margaret Brennan.

NO: And I’m Norah O’Donnell. And a reminder, there are just 35 days until Election Day. Please get out and vote. And for all of us here at CBS News, thank you.