Speaker 1: Also media. I just want to start off by saying
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: Oh God, yeah, yeah, I love you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think jd Vance should be saying the word
Speaker 2: love because it it just makes it clear every time
Speaker 2: he does that he's never felt that emotion.
Speaker 4: No, No, there was something particularly unsettling about him saying that.
Speaker 2: It's like when I try to order food in French
Speaker 2: and it's like, Robert, you're not fooling anyone, Like you
Speaker 2: look this up on Google right before getting to the restaurant,
Speaker 2: Like you're not going to impress anyone. No, I guess
Speaker 2: let's start with a fuck Mary kill for the guys
Speaker 2: that know the Secret Service will get pissed at us
Speaker 2: if we do that one.
Speaker 4: No, it could happen here and this is the US
Speaker 4: the Shit VP Debate episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so Felix Triven. I'm here with Kirsten Davis
Speaker 1: at Robert Evans.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, what a great use of two hours that was?
Speaker 1: That really was?
Speaker 2: I am behind this week horribly, still haven't picked the
Speaker 2: subject for this week. Desperately desperately behind, and I shared
Speaker 2: in love that this was a complete waste of all
Speaker 2: of our fucking time, not a complete waste because we
Speaker 2: learned something important, which is that the Democrat who seemed
Speaker 2: to have the best understanding of how to fight Republicans
Speaker 2: maybe just got lucky or or got coached into some
Speaker 2: very bad advice by a Democrat who should have known better.
Speaker 4: Hey, Robert, I just want to say thank you for
Speaker 4: saying that, Like I agree with you. I just want
Speaker 4: to say thank you for saying Zoby.
Speaker 2: You and I are great friends. Everything you say is
Speaker 2: terrible and wrong, but I agree with you on most
Speaker 2: of it, And thank.
Speaker 1: You and thank you and thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: You know, whoever told him that Americans wanted to see
Speaker 2: him be friendly with jd Vance was not a friend
Speaker 2: of the republic or of him. I think I don't
Speaker 2: think it'll work. I've been wrong before. It definitely seems
Speaker 2: to have worked if your recollection of like what Fox
Speaker 2: and the other anchors were saying, they seem to be
Speaker 2: pretty positive on Walls's performance, So it may be working
Speaker 2: online media gules.
Speaker 1: But that's who watched the VP debate.
Speaker 3: That is who watches the debate.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean that is the audience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, only the fucking sickos. Who are keening on politics
Speaker 4: watch the VP debate.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't really believe this, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to like my devil's advocate would be, maybe it's smart
Speaker 2: strategy to accept that only media gules listen to this.
Speaker 2: The only real way for the debate to matter is
Speaker 2: if you like fuck up. Sure, And there was more
Speaker 2: risk of seeming like a lunatic if he went in
Speaker 2: there attacking JD as hard as he could and getting
Speaker 2: negative press, as opposed to this, which probably is not
Speaker 2: going to get him negative press.
Speaker 4: I think he probably had multiple strategies, And like if JD.
Speaker 4: Vance had come in there and started saying some of
Speaker 4: the things that he normally says, which are fucking weird
Speaker 4: and creepy, but he didn't an unhinged and fascist, misogynistic,
Speaker 4: and I could continue, but then we might have seen
Speaker 4: a different Tim Walls.
Speaker 1: But because JD.
Speaker 4: Vance's entire strategy was like, hey, I can appear normal
Speaker 4: even though I'm not.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't quite understand the hesitancy to then actually
Speaker 3: bring those things just forefront. They were there, and why
Speaker 3: not talk about it, Because like my initial takeaway here
Speaker 3: is I don't think anyone necessarily clearly won. I think
Speaker 3: both of them did just fine. But if anyone comes
Speaker 3: out slightly better than what they were going in, I
Speaker 3: would say it is Vance.
Speaker 2: It's Vance.
Speaker 3: I would agree, because somehow Walls was able to humanize
Speaker 3: Vance over the course of the debate. They were it
Speaker 3: was a very very friendly exchange, and that just serves
Speaker 3: to undercut the months of work that Walls has done
Speaker 3: to paint Vance as a weird, unhinged extremist, which he is,
Speaker 3: and instead making him seem like just a reasonable politician
Speaker 3: that although we may disagree on a few things, we
Speaker 3: actually agree on a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 3: problems and solutions.
Speaker 2: We both care about this country. We're trying to help people,
Speaker 2: and like no jd. Vance. Like there was that bit
Speaker 2: where they were talking about mass shootings and he was like,
Speaker 2: I truly believe that Vance cares about these kids. Jadie.
Speaker 2: Vance doesn't give a shit about dead kids, never has,
Speaker 2: never will. He's not capable of it. And it undercut
Speaker 2: one of the more powerful moments that Walls had where
Speaker 2: he was like, my son was at a.
Speaker 1: Mass shooting, christ have mercy.
Speaker 2: It was so interesting too, because I know Walls is
Speaker 2: and I know that I'm coming into this as the
Speaker 2: guy who's generally pretty anti gun control, but I'm just
Speaker 2: from perspective of Democratic Party strategy. Number one, this is
Speaker 2: something they go after hard, so you can't half asset right.
Speaker 2: This is not like the border where they really do
Speaker 2: feel the need to lean into the right wing argument.
Speaker 2: The dims are very unequivocal about what they about, like
Speaker 2: the fact that they want to ban IRA fifteen's. Walls
Speaker 2: didn't really commit to that until a little bit when
Speaker 2: he was specifically pushed on whether or not he agreed
Speaker 2: with an assault weapons ban, and instead his language up
Speaker 2: until that point was not very different from Vance's aside
Speaker 2: from their disagreement over fortifying schools, but it was all
Speaker 2: stuff around the guns, whereas the Democratic Parties line and
Speaker 2: the line of most Democratic politicians has been it's about
Speaker 2: the guns. And I did find it interesting that Walls
Speaker 2: he had to kind of be goaded into really embracing
Speaker 2: that by the moderator.
Speaker 3: Now, one of the first things I noticed from watching
Speaker 3: the debate, which just happened like once or twice, then
Speaker 3: I realized this was just like a reoccurring trend across
Speaker 3: the whole night, is that each candidate would try to
Speaker 3: separate the other, yeah, from their running mate, to be like,
Speaker 3: I'm sure Walls or I'm sure Vance agrees with me
Speaker 3: on this, but their running mate doesn't and that's the
Speaker 3: real problem. And this just kept happening. They kept trying
Speaker 3: to like, yep, be nice to the actual opponent in
Speaker 3: the debate by separating them out from their running mate.
Speaker 3: Who's the real source of the problem. And that's just like,
Speaker 3: it just just kept happening, Like what are you doing,
Speaker 3: Like you're running on a joint ticket. There's no reason
Speaker 3: to do this. And I think kind of part of
Speaker 3: what their strategy may have been. Yes, these debates are
Speaker 3: probably only watched by freaks, but I think they're also
Speaker 3: in freaks who are like weird, like independent centristy freaks,
Speaker 3: and I think this is who they were going after this.
Speaker 3: This entire debate was focused on appealing to the center.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really based on like going heavy into like
Speaker 3: each side's own base because people they've already made up
Speaker 3: their minds. And I think the the issue for me
Speaker 3: at the end of this debate is because both of
Speaker 3: them were we're trying to court the center vote. I
Speaker 3: think Vans did about just as good as Walls did
Speaker 3: going after the center by and and Walls kind of
Speaker 3: even even helped them. And in effect, if Vance comes
Speaker 3: off as just a slightly better debater when they're going
Speaker 3: after the same base, that just leaves Walls with like
Speaker 3: not really making any ground where he could have actually
Speaker 3: just hit hit Vance quite hard and actually gone more
Speaker 3: on like a party line or actually just like gone
Speaker 3: more towards like all the reasons that Advance is fucked up,
Speaker 3: which he just would she would, she just avoided to do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so my my my main takeaway was like, if they're
Speaker 3: both according to the Center and Vance kind of barely edged
Speaker 3: him out in some regards, maybe Walls should have just
Speaker 3: actually been way more aggressive, and the kind of lack
Speaker 3: of aggression really only hurt the Democrats because in the
Speaker 3: end it kind of benefits Vance. If you give this
Speaker 3: like half assed mediocre performance.
Speaker 2: We'll see where it Because again, this is not being
Speaker 2: listened to by average people in the same way that
Speaker 2: like the last presidential debate was. This is not I
Speaker 2: don't think moves the needle one way or the other.
Speaker 2: Because it was so close, I would be inclined to
Speaker 2: agree with you that I think Vance did more of
Speaker 2: the things he needed to do for this to be
Speaker 2: a benefit to him. I'm not sure in a way
Speaker 2: that helps the campaign, because most of what Vance did
Speaker 2: that probably helps him was stuff that I think would
Speaker 2: set him up better in a world where Trump doesn't
Speaker 2: win reelection. Sure that would set him up to continue
Speaker 2: to have a career and to be re embraced by
Speaker 2: respectable kind of politics. The thing that makes me kind
Speaker 2: of doubt myself because I think there's a possibility this
Speaker 2: comes out as a Wall win. And if that is
Speaker 2: the case, it will be entirely because of the last
Speaker 2: question on January sixth, Because the way these things tend
Speaker 2: to work in popular memory, not again people like us
Speaker 2: who sit through the whole thing, all of nearly all
Speaker 2: of them are journalists or unusually engaged voters. But the
Speaker 2: thing that there's two moments that are most likely one
Speaker 2: from each of them, in my opinion, to get clipped
Speaker 2: out and go viral. And for Vance it was the
Speaker 2: January sixth thing where Walls drilled him, and I think
Speaker 2: this was actually one of his few fairly effective aggressive
Speaker 2: moments where he was like yeah, forced him to answer,
Speaker 2: and Vance refused to answer as to whether or not
Speaker 2: he thought Trump had lost in twenty twenty in a
Speaker 2: way that was I think kind of embarrassing for him
Speaker 2: and is easy, probably pretty easy to clip out. That
Speaker 2: might wind up being the big kind of viral moment
Speaker 2: of the night. If it's not that, it'll be Walls flubbing.
Speaker 2: We should talk about the China question now. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I don't think the China question that Walls flubbed is
Speaker 2: on an issue that like Americans overall care about, which
Speaker 2: is Tim Walls now maybe exaggerating when he talked about
Speaker 2: his vacation in China one time in the eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take a quick break and then let's dive
Speaker 4: in a little bit on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, first off, everyone in this debate pronounced China correctly,
Speaker 2: which is a step forward from the ones that have
Speaker 2: involved Trump the last couple of cycles. The downside is
Speaker 2: no one knows how to say it on not a
Speaker 2: single person.
Speaker 1: And not a single mention of Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well that was interesting to me, That is interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not one moment where we talked about Ukraine, which.
Speaker 3: They kind of blazed past foreign policy really quickly, which
Speaker 3: is a little surprising. Considering the events of this morning.
Speaker 2: There are literally missiles landing in Tel Aviv right now,
Speaker 2: like people are talking with I think some reason as
Speaker 2: to whether or not Israel might consider it nuclear response,
Speaker 2: Like shit is legitimately a problem.
Speaker 3: I mean, And this is how they started the debate.
Speaker 3: They started by talking about how this was going to
Speaker 3: be like a debate focused on how presidents or these
Speaker 3: vice presidents will handle like America in a sudden crisis
Speaker 3: as we've seen with the hurricane this weekend and now
Speaker 3: escalating or in the in the Middle East. And although
Speaker 3: that was their kind of opening framing, they really got
Speaker 3: over those hurdles quite quick and then started talking about
Speaker 3: extremely boring shit for the rest of the hour and
Speaker 3: a half.
Speaker 2: The very first question was basically, you know, Iran's bombing Israel,
Speaker 2: which like I don't know with the Israel do anything
Speaker 2: to fucking Lebanon right before that, like interesting context from
Speaker 2: the journalist there, But Iran's bombing Israel. If you're in
Speaker 2: the situation room, Tim Walls, what do you tell the
Speaker 2: president if you're the last voice, should he let Israel
Speaker 2: carry out a strike on Iran? And his response was
Speaker 2: a carbon copy of what Kamala has said every time
Speaker 2: she's been asked on it, Israel has a right to
Speaker 2: defend itself. October seventh was horrible, but you know, civilian
Speaker 2: casualty is bad too, So it was a non answer,
Speaker 2: but it was the same non answer that the campaign
Speaker 2: has always given, So I was not surprised by Well,
Speaker 2: it was exactly what I expected from him.
Speaker 3: Started off a little shakey, certainly sounded nervous. I think
Speaker 3: this immediately kind of gave Vance a head up.
Speaker 2: His first like three minutes, he was clearly uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: He got better, especially because like Vance has like a
Speaker 3: debate kid energy, right, But Walls did start getting better
Speaker 3: as soon as he pivoted away from this question to
Speaker 3: just attacking Trump, which is kind of his strong suit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Vance's responsor is interesting. So Walls gave
Speaker 2: He was a little shaky, I think just because they
Speaker 2: had started because he got better on that, But he
Speaker 2: gave what has become the standard non answer answer for
Speaker 2: the campaign. JD. Vance started his answer on the question
Speaker 2: of what would you tell the president if he was
Speaker 2: asking if he should allow potentially, you know, a massive
Speaker 2: escalative strike by Israel and Iran. What would you tell
Speaker 2: him if you're the last guy in the situation room,
Speaker 2: and Jdvan started the response to that by summarizing the
Speaker 2: book He'll Billy ellig That was in fact, the bulk
Speaker 2: of his response was him talking about who he is
Speaker 2: and where he comes from and then being like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess it's fine if Israel does whatever. It was
Speaker 2: an incredible response, and it struck me as the response
Speaker 2: of a guy who doesn't think his partner is going
Speaker 2: to become the president. Again, I thought that was very odd.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was positioning himself for future jobs.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, he was different kind of than the
Speaker 2: other answers. Maybe it was just they were both a
Speaker 2: little bit off their game. First question. You know that
Speaker 2: happens to everybody in a debate.
Speaker 1: They both were nervous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and this is this also when
Speaker 3: Vance deployed his one of his reoccurring catchphrases is a
Speaker 3: peace through strength. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, I hated that. I hated that because it's also
Speaker 2: I mean, that is very close to the quote from
Speaker 2: the Brotherhood of Nod and Command and Conquer and JD. Vance,
Speaker 2: you are no Kine. You know who lives in death?
Speaker 3: By the way, in general, I think vance painted Trump
Speaker 3: is having like a provable track record of proving him
Speaker 3: as like, like Trump is going to end the chaos
Speaker 3: that we've faced as a nation in the past four years,
Speaker 3: whether that be economic or with war.
Speaker 2: He was extremely consistent on that.
Speaker 3: And he's trying to point to, like was your life
Speaker 3: better under Trump? Especially economically, and like everyone's brains were
Speaker 3: completely fired by twenty twenty, so we actually no one
Speaker 3: remembers what twenty seventeen was like at all, So you
Speaker 3: actually can't recall that because whatsoever, let alone kind of
Speaker 3: Trump's mishandling of the pandemic led to like the biggest
Speaker 3: recession in modern history, which also for some reason Walls
Speaker 3: just never brought up.
Speaker 2: Now, well he does it. He did a little. He
Speaker 2: said that, like he talked about how when they came
Speaker 2: in they were dealing with a massive recession.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The second thing they talked about was climate change, which
Speaker 4: was Jesse Waters of Foxes was very mad that that
Speaker 4: was the second thing they talked about.
Speaker 3: Were framing through Hurricane Helene.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was very he was very upset about which
Speaker 4: is okay, sir.
Speaker 3: That's oddly, you know, quickly accepted the climate change framing
Speaker 3: for the sake of the argument, talked about how moving
Speaker 3: energy production from the quote unquote dirtiest parts of the
Speaker 3: world back to America, where we are the cleanest, would
Speaker 3: be one way to help.
Speaker 2: I think it would have worked on my dad that response,
Speaker 2: like the whole you know, well, we'd cleave, so we
Speaker 2: just got to bring back manufacturing. You know. It was
Speaker 2: not a bad answer in terms of doing what he
Speaker 2: needed to do. It was obviously nonsense, and the moderator
Speaker 2: called him very well on that, like by just being like,
Speaker 2: by the way, like there's no argument among scientists about
Speaker 2: like how carbon impacts global warming. I think overall a
Speaker 2: tire maybe slightly favoring walls that whole section. Yea, Like
Speaker 2: he did not, Oh, I don't think he did badly there.
Speaker 3: No, I think Walls did a good job. Connecting the
Speaker 3: economy to the environment. Yeah, how as the environment gets worse,
Speaker 3: the local economy gets worse, especially for like farmer. It's
Speaker 3: not like fly yeah green New Deal Democrats, but for
Speaker 3: like everyday farmers. And again pivoted very quickly to just
Speaker 3: attacking Trump and Trump's climate denial. I tried to press
Speaker 3: vance on Trump's climate denial, and Vance kind of, you know, again,
Speaker 3: tried to just blame for manufacturing, saying that Kamala's like
Speaker 3: rhetorican record does not match her actual actions, which are
Speaker 3: increasing foreign manufacturing in general. Advance kind of fell back
Speaker 3: on a whole bunch of like nationalistic framing regarding the
Speaker 3: environment and regarding like the economy, especially manufacturing. That was
Speaker 3: one of his reoccurring talking points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are getting to see some of the
Speaker 2: times as spent in real time where they just published
Speaker 2: Ross Duthat's article Vance's dominant debate performance shows why he's
Speaker 2: Trump's running mate, And the url of the article shows
Speaker 2: that it was initially put into the CMS about a
Speaker 2: week ago on the twenty fifth, and they dropped the
Speaker 2: article about halfway through the debate.
Speaker 5: So cool.
Speaker 2: That said, it's kind of unclear to me how the
Speaker 2: rest of this is going to shake out.
Speaker 3: They also could have just written two articles, one where
Speaker 3: Vans did well and one where Walls did well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that is still that's funny.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that'll matter either. We'll see where
Speaker 2: people land. It was interesting to me Walls did do
Speaker 2: something that I liked twice. Neither time did he give
Speaker 2: it enough force. But he pointed out twice that a
Speaker 2: big part of the housing crisis is vcs buying up
Speaker 2: affordable housing, jacking up the price, jacking up the price
Speaker 2: of rent, that that is like a massive issue. He
Speaker 2: brought that up. He said housing shouldn't be treated as
Speaker 2: a commodity, which I never expected to hear from a
Speaker 2: candidate in one of these debates, but he brought them
Speaker 2: both up like like a guy on a debate who
Speaker 2: is like just kind of throwing out a side point
Speaker 2: so you don't forget to say it as opposed to
Speaker 2: someone emphasizing it. And the thing to do with jd
Speaker 2: Vance is to point that you are one of those
Speaker 2: venture capitalists. You are one of the people who was
Speaker 2: hollowing out this country. And you know, Walls was good
Speaker 2: at trying to repeatedly say it's not migrants who are
Speaker 2: ruining like housing in this country, but he failed to
Speaker 2: connect enough and he had the pieces there to be like,
Speaker 2: it's guys like you, Yeah, it's fucking it's fucking white
Speaker 2: dudes in suits and earpieces who have made housing expensive.
Speaker 2: It is not people coming here from fucking Honduras, like
Speaker 2: it's people like you who need to be rained in
Speaker 2: by the government, and he just wasn't willing to commit
Speaker 2: to the answer that he clearly had in his pocket.
Speaker 3: No, he just never went on the attack. And it's
Speaker 3: just odd because he kept he was probably coached on this.
Speaker 2: But like I think it's coaching.
Speaker 3: He did not do any of the things that gave
Speaker 3: him this job in the first place. He didn't play
Speaker 3: to any of his strengths. Instead, Vance was able to
Speaker 3: play to Vance's own strengths, and Walls was able to
Speaker 3: just be a slightly less polished moderate, Which why are
Speaker 3: you trying to frame him as a slightly less polished
Speaker 3: moderate going up against a debate kid like Vance. Walls
Speaker 3: needs to be like on the attack. He actually needs
Speaker 3: to show like a strong resistance in order to actually
Speaker 3: like make a large impact in the debate. And that's
Speaker 3: why I think this kind of largely swung towards Vance.
Speaker 3: Yes by the end, if they're both trying, if they're
Speaker 3: trying to court this same like moderate vote. Now, as always,
Speaker 3: the immigration section of these is always frustrating. No one
Speaker 3: talks about how fentanyl was largely brought in via citizens.
Speaker 3: No one feels the need to bring that up CBS
Speaker 3: did have a little fact check, or not a fact
Speaker 3: check necessarily, but like a little comment talking about how
Speaker 3: the majority of Americans pulled are in favor of deportations.
Speaker 3: But they specifically asked Vance, like, how is your military
Speaker 3: deportation plan going to work and willly separate like children
Speaker 3: that are born in the United States from illegal immigrants,
Speaker 3: And Vance just refused to answer that question repeatedly to
Speaker 3: try to get him to answer multiple times, he continually
Speaker 3: refused it, instead saying that, like kommlass, border policy is
Speaker 3: already a child separation policy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a great moment there where he got angry
Speaker 2: at them for fact checking, fact checking specifically on his clims.
Speaker 3: But illegal immigrants in Springfield.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because those migrants in fact had legal status.
Speaker 2: And he was like, you guys said you weren't going
Speaker 2: to fact check.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, he didn't say, he shouted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he yelled the rules were that you were not
Speaker 3: kind of fact checked that. He just explained how immigration
Speaker 3: like works, how legal immigration works.
Speaker 2: They were like, thank you for explaining how immigration works.
Speaker 3: Thank you for explaining the legal process of immigration. This
Speaker 3: has been one thing that Vance has been doing on
Speaker 3: the campaign trails just explaining the legal process of immigration
Speaker 3: and just saying I'm still gonna call this illegal because
Speaker 3: I wanted to be illegal, and you're like, okay, you can't.
Speaker 3: Like I guess, I guess we could just use words
Speaker 3: to read whatever we want. Sure, why not?
Speaker 2: M Yeah, if this comes out in the public opinion
Speaker 2: being in Wolves's favor, it'll be because of those moments. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that one at the end, in those moments where Vance
Speaker 2: was like yelling and they cut out his mic at
Speaker 2: one point. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Again, I don't think anyone's going to
Speaker 2: really listen to this beta debate enough for there to
Speaker 2: be it to make much of an impact. But those
Speaker 2: were not great moments for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but those are the kind of things that get
Speaker 4: clipped out and spread across the internet. Yeah, so we'll
Speaker 4: see and so the people that didn't watch the entire thing,
Speaker 4: well some of them will see clips like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the immigration section certainly showed kind of walls.
Speaker 3: In his stronger moments, talking about how the past year
Speaker 3: we've actually seen a decrease in opia deaths, he continued
Speaker 3: to talk about how Trump killed the bipartisan, a conservative
Speaker 3: immigration bill, which we're probably not fans of, but he's
Speaker 3: trying to make it play well electorally. And then pivoted
Speaker 3: to Springfield and said, how like the Republican mayor came
Speaker 3: out and said none of this stuff was true, but
Speaker 3: Trump and Vance kept viewing it. State law enforcement had
Speaker 3: to escort kids to school. But even in this like
Speaker 3: Springfield section, which Walls was the first one to bring up,
Speaker 3: Vance was the big driver of this lie. But even
Speaker 3: in Walls's mention of this, he tries to separate Vans
Speaker 3: from Trump. He primarily blamed Trump for this and totally
Speaker 3: just like ignore Advance's massive contribution to this, like big
Speaker 3: this information campaign that led to these bomb threats. You
Speaker 3: just let Vance get off easy, and I think this
Speaker 3: part was saved. Kind of buy this little fact check
Speaker 3: and Vance's little meltdown over this legal immigration comment. But
Speaker 3: still it kind of showed a little bit of Even
Speaker 3: in Walls's stronger moments, he refused to like really harp
Speaker 3: on Vance for being weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of people who watched the debate, I don't
Speaker 2: think our sponsors did because they have real jobs.
Speaker 3: Hello, we are back now. One of the biggest issues
Speaker 3: for me in this campaign is how much time exactly
Speaker 3: did Walls spend in Hong Kong. This is like really
Speaker 3: one of the primary issues impacting my vote.
Speaker 2: There were one hundred and fifty thousand people in the
Speaker 2: streets in New York City today demanding to know whether
Speaker 2: or not to Walls was really in China during the
Speaker 2: Taneman Square uprisings.
Speaker 3: You know, thankfully CBS News is on the case.
Speaker 2: Yes, we didn't have a second for Ukraine, not one second.
Speaker 2: There was at no point any questions asked about the
Speaker 2: loss of life due to the genocide in Gaza, not one.
Speaker 3: But by god, this this was really goofy. Basically, they
Speaker 3: asked Walls with this comment he made in twenty fourteen
Speaker 3: about being in Hong Kong during the Tanneman Square massacre,
Speaker 3: when kind of reporting shows that he only arrived in August,
Speaker 3: basically like two or three months later. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if either Walls just misunderstood the question or purposely
Speaker 3: avoided it. But instead of talking with this, you know,
Speaker 3: summarized his entire career, both as a school teacher and
Speaker 3: in politics, and then emphasized that although he spent time
Speaker 3: in China, he is he is loyal to the United States,
Speaker 3: And it was just really odd and like you can
Speaker 3: even see events like slowly like smirking the longer. Walls
Speaker 3: just kept going on about his career, and at the
Speaker 3: end of his like weird like non answer about his
Speaker 3: commitment to the United States, the moderators asked again, They're like, well,
Speaker 3: were you there for the massacre? And then he very
Speaker 3: quickly clarified. I was like, uh, I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 3: might have. I might have misspoke. I don't understand why
Speaker 3: you wouldn't just very clearly say yeah, I misspoke. I
Speaker 3: was there for the aftermath of the massacre. I was
Speaker 3: there during the uprising.
Speaker 2: More I got misquoted. I was there the year of
Speaker 2: the uprising. Yeah, he was there.
Speaker 3: During some of the uprising, but he was but he
Speaker 3: arrived in the aftermath of the massacre. I don't know
Speaker 3: why I can just say, yes, I arrived the aftermath
Speaker 3: of the massacre. I misspoke ten years ago. Like it's
Speaker 3: very simple. Your weird, long, two minute avoided answer just
Speaker 3: makes you like look like weak and unnecessarily slimy. It
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 4: It just is weird, because of course were gonna ask
Speaker 4: that question, why, Why did you not have a prepared answer?
Speaker 3: I mean, this only became a new story today, like
Speaker 3: this this, this only became a new story like like
Speaker 3: a few hours ago.
Speaker 4: Still have some kind of a prepared generic answer.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he did. My guess is that if I
Speaker 2: was debate prepping him, I would have assumed they were
Speaker 2: going to ask one of the questions about his service
Speaker 2: based on all of like the different sort of like
Speaker 2: totally right wing shit coming out. Everything about his performance
Speaker 2: was the result of a guy who was over prepared
Speaker 2: and prepared by people whose focus was on him not
Speaker 2: upsetting the apple cart and embarrassing the campaign, not on
Speaker 2: him winning. That is how he was coached, and he
Speaker 2: was well prepared as a general rule for the most part.
Speaker 2: When JD. Vance would like make a claim about you know, Fittanel,
Speaker 2: he had a counter fact right that he could bring up,
Speaker 2: and he did that reasonably well. He seemed confident about
Speaker 2: the information he clearly put in the work, but none
Speaker 2: of what he was prepared for was hurting Vance. He
Speaker 2: was entirely prepared to not make an easy fuck up,
Speaker 2: which maybe is the smart move if you're just like
Speaker 2: we just don't want this to upset anything, because there's
Speaker 2: no way it'll help. Like, my guess is that he
Speaker 2: was told going into this by his handlers this debate
Speaker 2: is not going to win us the election, but it
Speaker 2: could lose us the election. So what we need to
Speaker 2: make sure happens is that you don't fuck anything up
Speaker 2: or seem too mean or seem too weird yourself. So
Speaker 2: we are going to like train you to be as
Speaker 2: boring as possible, and they did that.
Speaker 3: And like, as a follow up, Vance was asked about
Speaker 3: his previous like anti Trump like Hitler comments and specifically
Speaker 3: was asked, like if he can be trusted to actually
Speaker 3: like give Trump good honest advice and not just to
Speaker 3: say whatever he thinks Trump wants to hear, which Vance
Speaker 3: gave us similarly avoidant answer and just talked about tariffs.
Speaker 3: And then the moderators did not follow up with Vance
Speaker 3: no about his avoided answers, So there you go. The
Speaker 3: abortion segment is basically a rehash of what happened in
Speaker 3: the in the Kamala Trump debate, with like Vance talking
Speaker 3: about a billin Minnesota who that he claimed like leads
Speaker 3: to the death of like babies who were aborted, Like
Speaker 3: after birth or like some kind of odd thing that
Speaker 3: just isn't true. That was pretty silly. This was one
Speaker 3: of the issues where he was weakest, and I think
Speaker 3: we were also maybe slightly upset that Walls again was
Speaker 3: kind of was kind of hands off on this. Historically,
Speaker 3: Vance has made some a lot of crazy comments on
Speaker 3: podcasts about this topic, and neither the moderators nor Walls
Speaker 3: really pressed him super hard on it. Advanced himself tried
Speaker 3: to largely be on the attack with this like late
Speaker 3: term abortion, killing babies after birth thing that Walls just
Speaker 3: tried to easily kind of brush aside as just not
Speaker 3: being true. Speaking of healthcare, Vance oddly tried to claim
Speaker 3: that Trump like saved Obamacare. At this point in the debate,
Speaker 3: things just kind of started getting a little bit boring.
Speaker 3: I don't think this debate had as many like good
Speaker 3: questions as the last one. It was a very like
Speaker 3: twenty twelve style debate. It just it just it was flat.
Speaker 3: It didn't feel kind of like present. So they talked
Speaker 3: about Obamacare, how Trump saved Obamacare, and Walls talked about
Speaker 3: how Trump hurt Obamacare. Just kind of boring back and forth,
Speaker 3: and then finally the last question was about like democracy
Speaker 3: in January sixth, election denial, that kind of stuff. Vance
Speaker 3: opened by saying, like, we have other issues to solve
Speaker 3: beyond election denial. He said that we should we should
Speaker 3: have like open debate about the issues of the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty election. He then downplayed January sixth and emphasized instead
Speaker 3: the bigger threat to democracy was Facebook censorship and how
Speaker 3: people are like ending friendships over political disagreements, and this
Speaker 3: was bizarre. I think this was Wall's strongest moment. He
Speaker 3: talked about how there was one hundred and forty police
Speaker 3: officers assaulted on January sixth, some who later died. He
Speaker 3: mentioned this other story about how, like on January sixth,
Speaker 3: there were similar protests in a whole bunch of different states,
Speaker 3: and he mentioned one in Minnesota whre people threatened to
Speaker 3: like march to his home and his kid and his
Speaker 3: dog need to be like escorted out by police because
Speaker 3: people were like threatening to go to his home saying
Speaker 3: that there might be casualties. I thought that was maybe
Speaker 3: that was that was a pretty good moment for Walls
Speaker 3: brought up how people in January sixth tried to kill
Speaker 3: Mike Pence, which everyone seems.
Speaker 1: To forget it's not talked about enough.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, look that's one of those things where
Speaker 2: like my issues, so there are political not about the
Speaker 2: specific ads.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: Vans tried to be like, hey, you know everyone does
Speaker 3: a little election denial. In twenty sixteen, there was Russia Gate,
Speaker 3: and I think Walls did a pretty good follow up
Speaker 3: by saying, like January sixth wasn't about Facebook ads, It
Speaker 3: wasn't like that wasn't the problem. The problem was the
Speaker 3: people storming the capital trying to kill everyone inside, like
Speaker 3: that was the real issue. And real censorship is stuff
Speaker 3: like book banning. First time we had a mention of
Speaker 3: any of that. But even in this section about Jay
Speaker 3: six he still like thanked Vance for having this conversation
Speaker 3: and then asked him if Trump lost the election, which
Speaker 3: Vance just avoided avoided answering, instead asking Walls did Combalesce
Speaker 3: censor Americans on Facebook? Which is just great, Yeah, just
Speaker 3: a great equally important problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these two, these two issues, and unfortunately Walls's initial
Speaker 2: response was like I don't run Facebook, which just say
Speaker 2: he's lying, Like, just call him a liar to him, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's a liar.
Speaker 3: It's wild that like we're talking about like January sixth,
Speaker 3: and Advance's biggest concern is people being banned on Facebook. Like,
Speaker 3: I think that's not going to play well for him.
Speaker 2: It's not going to play well. But also, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was just a missed opportunity. There were a lot of those.
Speaker 1: The entire debate was a missed opportunity.
Speaker 3: RT. Yeah, and like Walls is I think slight fumble here.
Speaker 3: You can point to his like closing statements saying like
Speaker 3: I'm surprised that we have this coalition from like Bernie
Speaker 3: Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that is that is a little surprising. Maybe that's the
Speaker 3: bit of the problem.
Speaker 2: Oh, that was a nightmare line for.
Speaker 1: Me, Of all the names to drop Dick Cheney.
Speaker 3: Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift hand in hands.
Speaker 2: Well, because like even among moderates, do you think Dick
Speaker 2: Cheney's popular?
Speaker 1: That was my last straw.
Speaker 4: I was like, who who prepped him? Who did his
Speaker 4: debate prep? Who agreed that statement?
Speaker 2: Someone who really likes fucking Dick Cheney? Was it Carl Rove?
Speaker 2: Did they get Carl Rove again? God damn?
Speaker 1: It was Hillary involved with this debate prep.
Speaker 4: Like shoot, like, I know the Clintons were involved with
Speaker 4: with commwa's debate prep.
Speaker 1: Were they involved with with Tim Wallas's debate prep?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure, but I think this kind of
Speaker 3: underlines I know, this is kind of a larger issue
Speaker 3: with like the Democratic Party in the year twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: but I think this also underlines, like the my issue
Speaker 3: with Walls's performance here is, like this debate, both candidates
Speaker 3: were going after the Dick Cheney voter. They were going
Speaker 3: after like neo cons and independence.
Speaker 2: The literal devil yes, and like for that base.
Speaker 3: I think Vance does appeal to them more in this debate.
Speaker 3: I think Vance did a better job appealing to those
Speaker 3: people in this debate, which left Walls coming off is
Speaker 3: just slightly worse and not really giving him any like
Speaker 3: standout like performances. I think if if Walls actually like
Speaker 3: emphasized all the reasons that Vance is a freak and
Speaker 3: is bad, I think that may have showed him to
Speaker 3: be more of a unique candidate. Instead, they both came
Speaker 3: off as just kind of boring moderates, which just doesn't
Speaker 3: make sense because that's like the opposite reason that both
Speaker 3: of these men were picked for their chops. They were
Speaker 3: both picked to represent this slightly more extreme wing of
Speaker 3: the party, with Walls being a bit more progressive and
Speaker 3: Vance being a bit more fascist. Now it makes sense
Speaker 3: that Vance is going to go after the moderates. I
Speaker 3: just don't think Walls needed to agree.
Speaker 5: Hmm.
Speaker 3: That's kind of all my all my thoughts on this
Speaker 3: riveting to our debate.
Speaker 1: I have to say me too, man, m Well, we've.
Speaker 2: Got a flash poll from CBS News forty two percent
Speaker 2: for Vance, forty one percent for Walls sixteen percent set
Speaker 2: a tie.
Speaker 1: Great, Yeah, that was the general. That was the general.
Speaker 3: That was the general vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fox Fox News was Walls was good enough. Vance
Speaker 1: did just fine.
Speaker 4: No, the moderator's obnoxious moderators smug and arrogant bias, but
Speaker 4: that's just typical.
Speaker 3: I think the moderators were fine. I think overall, it
Speaker 3: wasn't a very well laid out debate. I think the
Speaker 3: fact that Vans was able to be humanized with the
Speaker 3: assistance of Walls makes Vance kind of the winner in
Speaker 3: the way that like this did more to benefit Advance
Speaker 3: than it did to benefit Walls, and the fact that
Speaker 3: Walls kind of acted counterintuitively to his whole line of
Speaker 3: messaging from the past year is a fundamental mistake that
Speaker 3: I think I hope that Democrats would like reevaluate going forward,
Speaker 3: but they're the Democrats.
Speaker 4: So just interesting, interesting take that I've seen online, and
Speaker 4: also a take for my Midwest moderate Democrat mother is
Speaker 4: She said to me, just remember Tim is from the Midwest.
Speaker 4: In Minnesota is the most Midwest there is. It is
Speaker 4: not it is nature to be anything but polite. Not
Speaker 4: what we're used to seeing in a debate. But it
Speaker 4: was a little refreshing, So okay, So I'm.
Speaker 3: Just saying, yeah, if you went into this already liking Walls,
Speaker 3: this won't make you dislike Wall.
Speaker 1: I'm already My mom definitely already liked.
Speaker 3: Right like and like. That's why I think this is
Speaker 3: largely just largely inconsequential. Even e Vance got a little
Speaker 3: bit of a lake up, it is largely inconsequential.
Speaker 1: Do you know who the winner of the debate was?
Speaker 4: Minnesota sounds like a great place to live, got great
Speaker 4: pr tonight, I guess.
Speaker 2: So Walls was clearly doing the best here when he
Speaker 2: was like just talking about how nice Minnesota is.
Speaker 1: It's great here.
Speaker 2: And Tim. We all know what the winters are like there.
Speaker 2: You're fool You're not fooling anybody like come on, sir.
Speaker 2: That said, if you live in the Portland area, or
Speaker 2: really anywhere in southern California, move to Minnesota. Just just
Speaker 2: get on out of here. You'll love it. You're gonna
Speaker 2: have a great time. Everyone in Minnesota is gonna love you.
Speaker 2: People love Californians when they move other places, it goes well.
Speaker 2: It's always happy, always is always a good time. So
Speaker 2: if I had any advice to end on, it's people
Speaker 2: who are currently in Los Angeles. Move to Minnesota. You
Speaker 2: will be beloved. People will want to listen to your
Speaker 2: policy ideas. It'll be great.
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