Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Going into the first and only vice presidential debate of
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four US election, Tim Walls and JD.
Speaker 2: Vance had a clear job keep the momentum going for
Speaker 2: their running mates and do no harm. Both candidates double
Speaker 2: down on their ticket stances on issues like climate change
Speaker 2: and conflict in the Middle East. But tonight, the major
Speaker 2: takeaway from the event was just how civil it all was.
Speaker 3: First of all, Governor, I agree with you. I agree
Speaker 3: with a lot of what gender vants said.
Speaker 4: If Tim Walls is the next vice president, he'll have
Speaker 4: my prayers, he'll have my best wishes, and he'll have
Speaker 4: my help.
Speaker 2: Tonight was a chance for the candidates to explain and
Speaker 2: sell their running mates' positions. Did they pull it off? Today?
Speaker 2: On the show, Walls and Vance faced off on the
Speaker 2: CBS debate stage. All the clips you'll hear are of
Speaker 2: CBS News. Bloomberg Senior editor Wendy Benjaminson joined me to
Speaker 2: break down the key moments from the night and what
Speaker 2: they say about the current state of the race. This
Speaker 2: is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. Wendy,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for being here and staying up late
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 1: Oh my pleasure, Wendy.
Speaker 2: This is the first time we've seen vice presidential candidates
Speaker 2: jd Vance and Tim Walls debate each other, and it's
Speaker 2: likely the last time we'll see them in conversation like
Speaker 2: this before the election. What did they have to do
Speaker 2: on behalf of their campaigns tonight and were they effective?
Speaker 1: I think they were somewhat effective. What they had to
Speaker 1: do was make the Boss look good. Basically, they had
Speaker 1: to give voters even more reason to vote for the
Speaker 1: top of the ticket of their choice. Jd Vance presented
Speaker 1: himself as a reasonable sounding version of Trump. He presented
Speaker 1: himself as senatorial, as a reasonable, policy focused, almost wonk type.
Speaker 1: Tim Wallas was every man. He was midwester or nice.
Speaker 1: But jd Vance did a better job of selling Donald
Speaker 1: Trump than Tim Walls did of selling Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: I think, well, it's interesting. The debate we watched tonight
Speaker 2: felt a lot different than the one we watched just
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago. Between Harris and Trump. There were
Speaker 2: a few tense moments, to be sure.
Speaker 3: Thank you, senator for describing the legal process. They have
Speaker 3: so much ticket to a senator. The audience can't hear
Speaker 3: you because your mics are cut.
Speaker 2: But overall it felt a lot nicer. How would you
Speaker 2: describe the tenor of the debate, Wendy, That might have been.
Speaker 1: The most shocking takeaway of the whole thing, after watching
Speaker 1: Trump's anger at the last debate, after watching Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: try to ensnare him and their performance, there was none
Speaker 1: of that tonight. They agreed with each other, They nodded
Speaker 1: at each other's answers, and it was actually a little
Speaker 1: bit surprising and maybe a harbinger for the post Trump
Speaker 1: era when candidates can go back to treating each other
Speaker 1: with respect. The most consequence that a vice presidential debate
Speaker 1: can have is booster and that politician's career, And in
Speaker 1: that sense, I think JD. Vance may have set himself
Speaker 1: up to be a possible Republican nominee for president in
Speaker 1: the future, especially if he and Trump win in November.
Speaker 1: Tim Walls wasn't really burdened by that. In this debate.
Speaker 1: He has made it clear that he has no presidential ambitions.
Speaker 1: He just wants to be Kamala Harris's vice president and
Speaker 1: then go back to Minnesota and probably retire. So tonight,
Speaker 1: he just really had to help the boss, not so
Speaker 1: much build his own care.
Speaker 2: And he did talk about those Midwestern bonafides his time
Speaker 2: in Minnesota a lot during the debate tonight.
Speaker 1: He absolutely did too, and so did Jadie Vance. Remember
Speaker 1: he wrote the book He'llbilly Elogy about his drug addicted
Speaker 1: mother and being raised by the single grandmother. Was really
Speaker 1: kind of striking how much he was pushing the Midwestern
Speaker 1: background over his time as a California venture capitalist.
Speaker 2: Despite all their talk of agreement, Vans and Walls do
Speaker 2: have very different approaches and they have very different policy views.
Speaker 2: Like the presidential candidates they represent. What were those competing
Speaker 2: visions for the country that Vance and Walls laid out
Speaker 2: for voters on that stage tonight, well.
Speaker 1: Tim Walls, for his part, definitely reflected Kamala Harris's policies
Speaker 1: in terms of helping the middle class and by cutting
Speaker 1: their taxes, cutting their expenses, using federal largess to help
Speaker 1: family make it financially, and paying for that by increasing
Speaker 1: taxes heavily on those who make over four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year and then billionaires as well. Vance did
Speaker 1: something kind of interesting. He took Donald Trump's policies, which,
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump describes him, sounds so extreme. Vance dressed
Speaker 1: them up in reasonable sounding, very policy deep sort of
Speaker 1: approaches that softened the edges of the sort of rough
Speaker 1: language that Donald Trump used in his rallies. One of
Speaker 1: the very interesting things was on the child tax credit.
Speaker 1: For example, Tim Wallas and Kamala Harris both propose increasing
Speaker 1: the child tax credit for families up to a certain income.
Speaker 1: What Vance talks about sounded almost like more it came
Speaker 1: from Ronald Reagan, then from Donald Trump. It was this, well,
Speaker 1: childcare is very expensive, but we should let churches get
Speaker 1: federal money.
Speaker 5: To do it.
Speaker 4: Let's say you'd like your church maybe to help you
Speaker 4: out with childcare. Maybe you live in a rural area
Speaker 4: or an urban area, and you'd like to get together
Speaker 4: with families in your neighborhood to provide childcare. And the
Speaker 4: way that makes the most sense.
Speaker 1: Which doesn't work under the separation of church and state
Speaker 1: and church's tax exem status. And so he's giving this
Speaker 1: sort of leave it to Beaver's family vision that he
Speaker 1: has embraced, and Donald Trump does too, but Donald Trump
Speaker 1: talks about it in ways that make it sound less appealing.
Speaker 1: Than Vance may have made.
Speaker 2: It sound tonight, the economy is the biggest issue going
Speaker 2: into the selection. Walk me through their appeals to voters
Speaker 2: who are concerned about affording basics like groceries and housing.
Speaker 1: Well, it was very interesting the way the debate moderators
Speaker 1: presented it because they talked about how both candidates policies
Speaker 1: risk ballooning the federal budget deficit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, moderators pointed to this analysis from the Wharton School
Speaker 2: which estimates the Harris policy plan would add one point
Speaker 2: two trillion dollars to the deficit and the Trump plan
Speaker 2: would add five point eight trillion. Why the big discrepancy there, Well.
Speaker 1: It's largely because of the tariffs that Donald Trump wants
Speaker 1: to place on countries that we import from and even
Speaker 1: from American companies who move their manufacturing overseas. The Harris
Speaker 1: campaign has dubbed the tariffs in national Sales Tax, because
Speaker 1: of course, the manufacturers and retailers who sell those goods
Speaker 1: will have to pass the extra cost on to consumers,
Speaker 1: and economists widely believe that this will increase prices, increase inflation,
Speaker 1: and will not pay for the massive tax cuts that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is proposing.
Speaker 2: How did the VP candidates explain how they would pay
Speaker 2: for those plans, then.
Speaker 1: Well, the Vance Trump plan or the Trump Vance plan,
Speaker 1: I should say, they don't really explain how they're going
Speaker 1: to pay for it. At this point in the campaign,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump hasn't seen a tax cut that he doesn't like.
Speaker 1: He's offering tax cuts to everyone from billionaires to tip
Speaker 1: workers in Las Vegas, and the tariffs. Those costs will
Speaker 1: be passed on to consumers, and that will of course
Speaker 1: raise the deficit urt the economy according to large numbers
Speaker 1: of economists. The Harris Walls campaign says that for every
Speaker 1: tax cut given to middle class families and to low
Speaker 1: wage workers, that a tax hike will be placed on corporations, billionaires,
Speaker 1: and those who make over four hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: The question is whether the math really adds up.
Speaker 2: Coming up what Vance and Walls had to say on immigration, abortion,
Speaker 2: and January sixth, Wendy. Immigration is the second most important
Speaker 2: issue to voters, and while Trump is pulling ahead of
Speaker 2: Harris on this issue, Vance has undermined the campaign by
Speaker 2: promoting false claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets.
Speaker 2: How did Advance approach questions about border policy tonight and
Speaker 2: how did Walts engage with him on it.
Speaker 1: There was one moment where jd Vance doubled down on
Speaker 1: one of the false claims that he and Trump have
Speaker 1: been making.
Speaker 4: That is not a person coming in applying for a
Speaker 4: green cart and waiting for ten years. That is the
Speaker 4: adaptation of a legal immigration margaret.
Speaker 1: They keep saying that the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio
Speaker 1: are there illegally. They are not. They are there under
Speaker 1: temporary protected status which the US government of any party
Speaker 1: can give two migrants who are coming from countries where
Speaker 1: there are coups or natural disasters or something that happens
Speaker 1: that just makes the country unlivable. What Tim Walls did
Speaker 1: that was very very smart, I thought, was to hammer
Speaker 1: home that Congress had teed up a bipartisan immigration bill
Speaker 1: that everyone from Oklahoma Senator Jim Langford, who wrote with
Speaker 1: Democrats everyone in Congress wanted that bill. And then Trump
Speaker 1: called the Republicans and said I need this as a
Speaker 1: campaign issue. Kill the bill, and the bill disappeared, and
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Tim Walls now have both been pushing
Speaker 1: that that bill would have solved the problem. Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: they say, didn't solve the problem in his first term
Speaker 1: as president, he won't solve it in his second, and
Speaker 1: in fact, even while he was out of office, he
Speaker 1: stymiede progress on immigration.
Speaker 2: Abortion will be another major issue motivating voters this November.
Speaker 2: It's an issue that Democrats really own. How did the
Speaker 2: candidates discuss the state of abortion access state to state
Speaker 2: and what were their proposals for reproductive health policy nationwide?
Speaker 1: For Tim Walls, it was to restore the freedoms under
Speaker 1: Roe versus Wade, that abortion and reproductive rights have no
Speaker 1: place in a legislative setting, only in a doctor's office,
Speaker 1: between a doctor and a woman and her family. And
Speaker 1: what he did was tell these gripping, heartbreaking stories about
Speaker 1: the effects of the Supreme Court overturning roversus way on
Speaker 1: real women.
Speaker 5: There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to
Speaker 5: be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she
Speaker 5: had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to
Speaker 5: try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that
Speaker 5: journey back and forth.
Speaker 1: That was a very very powerful moment. What Jadie Vance
Speaker 1: did was very surprising.
Speaker 4: Again, we've got to do so much better of a
Speaker 4: job at earning the American people's trust back on this
Speaker 4: issue where they frankly just don't trust us.
Speaker 1: He acknowledged the Republicans have lost voter trust on this
Speaker 1: issue because Donald Trump appointed the justices who overturned Roe
Speaker 1: versus Way.
Speaker 2: Another striking moment was when January sixth came up, and
Speaker 2: we've seen Trump recast the events of that date many times.
Speaker 2: What struck you about the way Vance talked about the insurrection?
Speaker 1: I was very surprised by Jadi Vans's response on this.
Speaker 1: It seemed as if he was referring to it as
Speaker 1: a peaceful protest by voters instead of the violent insurrection
Speaker 1: that caused fatalities that it was. And I think Tim
Speaker 1: Walls really scored a point when he said to JD Vance,
Speaker 1: do you believe the twenty twenty election was stolen?
Speaker 3: Did he lose the twenty twenty election?
Speaker 4: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor
Speaker 4: Americans from speaking their mind? And the wake of the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty COVID situation?
Speaker 3: That is damning? That is a damning non answer.
Speaker 1: This is where you see a vice presidential candidate not
Speaker 1: wanting to irritate the Boss because Trump's position. I mean,
Speaker 1: we saw it only a few weeks ago when he
Speaker 1: said he still believes he won the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: He still believes January sixth, the insurrection was a just
Speaker 1: act by his supporters. So jd Vance really had to
Speaker 1: dance carefully there to give an answer that would not
Speaker 1: get him in trouble but would also not get him
Speaker 1: in trouble with Trump.
Speaker 2: How would you rate their performances as campaign representatives tonight?
Speaker 1: I don't think Tim Wallas did any harm to Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's candidacy. I don't think he did that much to
Speaker 1: boost it. I think if jd Vance can stop talking
Speaker 1: about childless cat ladies and stop talking about migrants eating
Speaker 1: pets and presents this reasonable, traditional Republican sort of attitude,
Speaker 1: that it actually could ease the fears of those Republicans
Speaker 1: who really don't want to vote for Donald Trump, but
Speaker 1: they're Republicans and they can't see themselves voting for Harris.
Speaker 1: It might move some of those voters back into the
Speaker 1: Republican column, but we'll have to see in a month.
Speaker 2: Much for being here, Wendy, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Julia Press.
Speaker 2: It was edited by Aaron Edwards. It was fact checked
Speaker 2: by Adrian Atapia and mixed by Alexander Dubois. Naomi Shavin,
Speaker 2: who also edited this episode, is our senior producer. We
Speaker 2: get editorial direction from Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beemsterbor is our
Speaker 2: executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please
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