By Stefano Vaccara
NEW YORK (UNITED STATES) (ITALPRESS) – Much ado about nothing? Almost. The debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance hosted at the Cbs network headquarters in New York saw the two candidates for deputy to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump answer an avalanche of questions posed by the two anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan. The two female journalists were good at keeping the show in check, but it is amazing that among the questions they “forgot” one about the war in Ukraine, as Americans remain apprehensive after Russia repeatedly threatened the West with the risk of nuclear conflict.
The debate exposed the political divide between the two parties on issues such as immigration, abortion and foreign policy. But the biggest surprise in the televised showdown between the Democratic governor of Minnesota and the senator from Ohio was the thoughtful “politeness” the two exchanged from the initial warm handshake and again at the end of the duel, when they greeted each other with surprising cordiality with their wives standing next to each other on stage.
The debate was as rich in argument as it was predictable in its responses, with the candidates making few mistakes-there were no bizarre “Haitian migrants eat cats and dogs” situations repeated by Trump with Harris bursting out laughing-but both Walz and Vance had moments of obvious awkwardness. Like when the Democratic governor of Minnesota confusedly tried to give an impossible explanation for his “invention” of having been in China during the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Or the gall with which Vance said it was an exaggeration of Democrats Trump danger to democracy when “he on January 20, 2021 peacefully ceded power as we have always done for the last 250 years in this country.” As if January 6, 2021 never happened!
Yet up to that point Vance had done much better than his opponent Walz, who had instead delivered a below-par performance. The senator from Ohio, who was born to a drug-addicted mother and raised by his grandmother in poverty but eventually, thanks to his military service, managed to graduate from the prestigious Yale University, appeared until almost the end of the debate more “presidential” with his eloquence and, at times, even more convincing (especially on the foreign policy part where he said that with Trump the chaos in the Middle East would not happen because it did not happen during his presidency). When asked at the outset if they supported a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran, while Walz skirted around it, eventually going so far as to talk about Trump’s age, Vance shrewdly replied, “The choice is up to Israel.”
In contrast, Walz, throughout the first part of the debate appeared to “flood himself” in too much preparation, repeating memorized phrases and forgetting to press his opponent when he appeared most vulnerable in certain answers. As for example happened with the questions on abortion. Indeed, Vance here shamelessly lied about his positions by saying that he had always been in favor, like Trump, of a state decision not imposed at the federal level, but it is well known, and there are countless rallies and interviews to testify to this, that before he was chosen for the vice presidential nomination, the Ohio senator supported an inflexible total and therefore federal abolition of abortion rights (tactically rejected by Trump). Walz there missed the lunge, although at least the Minnesota governor showed readiness in making the Harris-Walz ticket’s position on the right in the U.S. to birth control clear and strong, stating, “The crux of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights, as fundamental as the right to control your own body, are determined by geography?”
Even on health care, Walz did not take the opportunity to refute Vance when even the Republican said that “Trump had saved Obamacare”: it is exactly the opposite, from the White House Trump tried to have it abolished but failed thanks to the rebellion of then Arizona Republican Senator John McCain.
If it had ended at this point, the debate would have been won decisively by Vance – more for the style and confidence shown over his opponent than for the content of the answers – but right at the end.
Walz “resurrected” by lashing out at his opponent from Ko by asking him this question, “Who won the 2020 election?” Here Vance, who until then had managed to appear competent if not quite sincere, here he suddenly put the Trumpian mask back on and pulverized all that serious and trustworthy image he had provided to the cameras up to that point.
Evidently embarrassed, he first tried to sidestep the question by saying “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” but Walz did not let up this time and insisted while also looking at the camera with expressions of obvious disgust for his opponent who could not admit Trump’s electoral defeat and insisted on perpetuating the dangerous lie.
With that Vance’s refusal to admit that former President Donald J. Trump had lost the 2020 election, suddenly the stakes of the current campaign appeared in all its dangerousness for the resilience of American democracy.
“That’s a damn non-answer,” Walz replied dryly when Vance said he wanted to talk about the future.
Already, Vance could not answer the question of who won the 2020 election with the truth, because he would lose the “sine qua non” condition Trump would never choose him.
In that final exchange of the debate, Walz showed Vance naked before Trump’s action that led to Jan. 6, 2021.
At that point Walz, like a gladiator overthrowing his opponent in the fight he was losing, sank the final blow by recalling then Vice President Mike Pence who confirmed the election response because he remained loyal to the Constitution and democracy, instead with someone like him in the vice presidency everything, even democracy, would be sacrificed to obedience to the boss.
Just when the 39-year-old Senator Vance seemed set to win the debate, the 60-year-old Governor Walz tied the score.
At this point what good will this deputy debate do in the head-to-head race between Trump and Harris? Major U.S. commentators are convinced to little or no effect. Already, Vance and Walz’s performance could never have changed the minds of Trump’s Maga supporters or Harris’s Democrats and “never Trump” supporters.
But what about those 2% or 3% undecideds who still don’t know who to vote for? It is among them that the memory of what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 with the assault on Congress as Trump in the White House delayed recording a video for “retreat” could become decisive.
– Photo Ipa Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
