It Could Happen Here - Vance & Walz Become Friends During Debate

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Robert, Sophie, and Garrison discuss the vice presidential debate between Minnesota governor Tim Walz and Ohio senator JD Vance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Gracias Come Again,

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Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end

of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Cool Zone Media. I just want to start out by saying I love you. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Love ya. Yeah. I don't think J.D. Vance should be saying the word love because it just makes it clear every time he does that he's never felt that emotion. No, no. There was something particularly unsettling about him saying that. It's like when I try to order food in French and it's like, Robert, you're not fooling anyone.

Sure. You look this up on Google right before getting to the restaurant. Like, you're not going to impress anyone. No. I guess let's start with uh fuck mary kill for uh the guys no the secret service will get pissed at us if we do that one no this is it could happen here and this is the who gives a shit bp debate episode yeah i'm sophie like trim and i'm here with kirsten davis and robert evans Wow. What a great use of two hours that was. That really was. I am behind this week horribly. Still haven't picked the subject for this week. Desperately, desperately behind. And I sure did love that this was a complete waste of all of

our fucking time. Not a complete waste because we learned something important, which is that the Democrat who seemed to have the best understanding of how to fight Republicans maybe just got lucky or got coached into some very bad advice by a Democrat who should have known better. Hey, Robert, I just want to say thank you for saying that. I agree with you. I just want to say thank you for saying that. Sophie, you and I are great friends. Everything you say is terrible and wrong, but I agree with you on most of it. And thank you for saying that. I just really appreciate that, you know?

Whoever told him that Americans wanted to see him be friendly with J.D. Vance was not a friend of the Republic or of him, I think. I don't think it'll work. I've been wrong before. It definitely seems to have worked If your recollection of like what Fox and the other anchors were saying They seem to be pretty positive On Walls' performance So it may be working on like media ghouls But that's who watched

The VP debate That is who watches the debate Well right I mean that is the audience Only the fucking sickos Who are keyed in on politics watch the VP debate. I guess I don't really believe this, but I'm going to like my devil's advocate would be maybe it's smart strategy to accept that only media ghouls listen to this. The only real way for the debate to matter is if you like fuck up. Sure.

is if you like fuck up sure and there was more risk of seeming like a lunatic if he went in there attacking jd as hard as he could and getting negative press as opposed to this which probably is not going to get him negative press i think he probably had multiple strategies and like if jd vance had come in there and started saying some of the things that he normally says which are fucking weird and creepy but he didn't and unhinged and fascist and misogynistic and i could continue but um then then we might have seen a different tim wallace but because jd vance's and creepy. But he didn't. And unhinged and fascist and misogynistic. I could continue. Then we might have seen a different Tim Walz. But because J.D. Vance's entire strategy was like, hey, I can appear normal even though

I'm not. Well, I don't quite understand the hesitancy to then actually bring those things to the forefront. Why? They were there. And why not talk about it? Because my initial takeaway here is, I don't think anyone necessarily clearly won. I think both of them did just fine.

But if anyone comes out slightly better than what they were going in, I would say it is Vance. It's Vance. I would agree. Because somehow, Walls was able to humanize Vance over the course of the debate. It was a very friendly exchange, and that just serves vance over the course of the debate they were it was a very very friendly

exchange and that just serves to undercut the the months of work that walls has done to paint vance as a weird unhinged extremist which he is and instead making him seem like just a reasonable politician that although we may disagree on a few things we actually agree on a lot of a lot of the problems and solutions. We both care about this country. We're trying to help people. And like, no, J.D. Vance, like there was that bit where they were talking about mass shootings. And he was like, I truly believe that Vance cares about these kids. J.D. Vance doesn't give a shit about dead kids.

Never has, never will. He's not capable of it. And it undercut one of the more powerful moments that walls had where he was like my son was at a mass shooting christ have mercy i was it was so interesting too because i know walls is and i know that i'm coming into this as the guy who's generally pretty anti-gun control but i'm just from perspective of democratic party strategy number one this is something they go after hard so you can't half-ass it, right? This is not like the border where they really do feel a need to lean into the right-wing

argument. The Dems are very unequivocal about the fact that they want to ban IR-15s. Walls didn't really commit to that until a little bit when he was specifically pushed on whether or not he agreed with an assault weapons ban. And instead, his language up until that point was not very different from Vance's, aside from their disagreement over fortifying schools. But it was all stuff around the guns, whereas the Democratic Party's line and the line of most Democratic politicians has been it's about the guns. And I did find it interesting that Walls, he had to kind of be goaded into really embracing

that by the moderator now one of the first things i noticed from watching the debate which just happened like once or twice i didn't realize this was just like a reoccurring trend across the whole night is that each candidate would try to separate the other yeah from their running mate to be like i'm sure walls or i'm sure vance agrees with me on this but their running mate doesn't and that's the real problem and this just kept happening they kept trying to like yeah be nice to the actual like opponent in the debate by separating them out from their running mate who's the real source of the problem and that's just like it just just kept happening like what are you doing like you're running on a joint ticket there's no reason to do

this and i i think kind of part of what their strategy may have been yes these debates are probably only watched by freaks but i think they're also certain freaks who are like weird like independent centrist freaks and yeah i think this is who they were going after yep this this entire debate was focused on appealing to the center. It wasn't really based on going heavy into each side's own base, because they've already made up their minds. And I think the issue for me at the end of this debate is, because both of them were trying to court the center vote, I think Vance did about just as good as Walls did going after the center,

and Walls kind of even helped him. And in effect, if Vance comes off as just a slightly better debater when they're going after the same base, that just leaves Walls with not really making any ground, where he could have actually just hit Vance quite hard and actually gone more on a party line, or actually just gone more towards all the reasons that Vance is fucked up, which he just, which he, which he just avoided to do. Yeah. So my, my, my main

takeaway was like, if they're both courting the center and Vance kind of barely edged him out in some, in some regards, maybe walls should have just actually been way more aggressive. And the kind of lack of aggression really only hurt the Democrats because in the end it kind of benefits Vance if you give this like half-assed mediocre performance. We'll see where it, because again, this is not being listened to by average people in the same way that like the last presidential debate was. This is not, I don't think moves the needle one way or the other because it was so close. I would be inclined to agree with you that I think Vance did more of the things he needed to do for this to be a benefit to him. I would be inclined to agree with you that I think Vance did more of the

things he needed to do for this to be a benefit to him. I'm not sure in a way that helps the campaign because most of what Vance did that probably helps him was stuff that I think would set him up better in a world where Trump doesn't win re-election. Sure. That would set him up to continue to have a career and to be re-embraced by respectable kind of politics. The thing that makes me kind of doubt myself, because I think there's a possibility this comes out as a Walls win. And if that is the case, it will be entirely because of the last question on January 6th. Because the way these things tend to work in popular memory, not again, people like us who sit through the whole thing, nearly all of whom are journalists or unusually engaged voters. But the thing that

there's two moments that are most likely one from each of them, in my opinion, to get clipped out and go viral. And for Vance, it was the January 6th thing where Walls drilled him. And I think this was actually one of his few fairly effective aggressive moments where he was like yeah forced him to answer and vance refused to answer as to whether or not he thought trump had lost in 2020 in a way that was i think kind of embarrassing for him and is easy probably pretty easy to clip out that might wind up being the big kind of viral moment of the night if it's not that it'll be walls flubbing we should talk about the china question yeah but i don't think the china question that walls flubbed is on an issue that like americans overall care about which is tim walls now maybe exaggerating when he talked about his vacation in china one time in the 80s yeah let's uh let's take a quick break and then let's dive in a little bit on that. Yeah. and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High

is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all.

It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI

to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though.

I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack

Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom and refuge between the chapters. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards.

That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars,

from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, first off, everyone in this debate pronounced China correctly, which is a step forward from the ones that have involved Trump the last couple of cycles. The downside is no one knows how to say Iran. Not a single person. And not a single mention of Ukraine.

Oh, yeah. Well, that was interesting to me. That is interesting. Yeah, not one moment where we talked about Ukraine, which they kind of blazed past foreign policy uh really quickly which is a little uh surprising considering the events of this morning there are literally missiles landing in tel aviv right now like people are talking with i think some reason as to whether or not israel might consider a nuclear response like shit is legitimately a problem i mean and this is how they started the the debate they started by talking about how this was going to be like a debate focused on how presidents or these vice presidents will handle like America in a sudden crisis.

As we've seen with the hurricane this weekend and now escalating war in the Middle East. And although that was their kind of opening framing, they really got over those hurdles quite quick and then started talking about extremely boring shit for the rest of the like hour and a half. The very first question was basically, you know, Iran's bombing Israel, which like, oh, did Israel do anything to fucking Lebanon right before that? Like interesting context from the journalist there. But Iran's bombing Israel. If you're in the situation room, Tim Walls, what do you tell the president? If you're the last voice, should he let Israel carry out a strike on Iran? And his response was a carbon copy of what Kamala has said every time she's been asked on it. Israel has a right to defend itself. October 7th was horrible. But, you know, civilian casualties, bad too. So it was a

non-answer, but it was the same non-answer that the campaign has always given so i was not surprised by it was exactly what i expected from him started off a little shaky certainly sounded nervous i think this immediately kind of gave vance a head up his first like three minutes he was clearly uncomfortable he got better especially because like vance has like debate kid energy right uh-huh buts did start getting better as soon as he pivoted away from this question to just attacking Trump, which is kind of his strong suit. Yeah, I think Vance's response there is interesting. So Walls gave, he was a little shaky, I think just because they had started because he got better on that.

But he gave what has become the standard non-answer answer for the campaign. J.D. Vance started his answer on the question of what would you tell the president if he was asking if he should allow potentially, you know, a massive escalative strike by Israel in Iran? What would you tell him if you're the last guy in the situation room? And J.D. Vance started the response to that by summarizing the book, Hillbilly Elegy. That was, in fact, the bulk of his response was him talking about who he is and where he comes from and then being like yeah i guess it's fine if israel does whatever it was a an incredible

response and it struck me as the response of a guy who doesn't think his partner is going to become the president again i thought that was very odd yeah yeah he was positioning himself for future jobs correct yeah yeah i mean he was different kind of than the other answers. Maybe it was just they were both a little bit off their game. First question. You know, that happens to everybody in a debate. They both were nervous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and this is this also when Vance deployed

his one of his reoccurring catchphrases is a peace through strength. Yeah. Oh, I hated that. I hated that because it's also I mean, that is very close to the quote from the Brotherhood of Nod and Command and Conquer. And J.D. Vance, you are no Cain, you know, who lives in death, by the way. In general, I think Vance painted Trump as having like a provable track record of proving him as like, like Trump is going to end the chaos that we faced as

a nation the past four years, whether that be economic or with war. He was extremely consistent on that. And he's trying to point to like, was your life better under Trump, especially economically? And like everyone's brains were completely fired by 2020. So actually no one remembers what 2017 was like at all. So you actually can't recall that just whatsoever let alone kind of trump's mishandling of the pandemic led to like the biggest recession in modern history which also for some reason walsh just never brought up no well he does he did a little he said that like

he talked about how when they came in they were dealing with a massive recession yeah yeah the like second thing they talked about was climate change which was jesse jesse waters of fox news was very mad that that was the second thing they talked about framing through uh hurricane helene yeah he was very he was very upset about it which is okay sir vance oddly uh you know quickly accepted the climate change framing for the sake of the argument um talked about how moving energy production from the quote-unquote dirtiest oddly, you know, quickly accepted the climate change framing for the sake of the argument. Talked about how moving energy production from the quote-unquote dirtiest parts of the world back to America, where

we are the cleanest, would be one way to help. I think it would have worked on my dad, that response. Like the whole, you know, well, we're clean so we just gotta bring back manufacturing. You know, it was not a bad answer in terms of doing what he needed to do. It was obviously nonsense.

And the moderator called him very well on that, like ended by just being like, by the way, like there's no argument among scientists about like how carbon impacts global warming. I think overall, a tie or maybe slightly favoring Walls, that whole segment, like he did not, I don't think he did badly there. No, I think Walls did a good job connecting the economy to the environment. Yeah. How as the environment gets worse, the local economy gets worse, especially for like farmers, not like for like Green New Deal Democrats, but for like everyday farmers. And again, pivoted very quickly to just attacking Trump and Trump's climate denial, tried to press Vance on Trump's climate denial and vance kind of you know again tried to just blame

for manufacturing saying that kamala's like rhetoric and record does not match her actual actions which are which are increasing foreign manufacturing in general vance kind of fell back on a whole bunch of like nationalistic framing regarding the environment and regarding like the economy, especially manufacturing. That was one of his reoccurring talking points. Yeah. So we are getting to see some of the times this spin in real time where they just published Ross Duthat's article, Vance's dominant debate performance shows why he's Trump's running mate. And the URL of the article shows that it was initially put into the CMS about a week ago on the 25th. And they dropped the article about halfway through the debate. So cool.

That said, it's kind of unclear to me how the rest of this is going to shake out. They also could have just written two articles, one where Vance did well and one where Walls did well. Yeah. But that is still that's funny. I don't know that that'll matter either we'll see where people land it was interesting to me walls did do something that i liked twice neither time did he give it enough force but he pointed out twice that a big part of the housing crisis is vcs buying up affordable housing jacking up the price jacking up the price of rent that that is like a massive

issue he brought that up he said housing shouldn't be treated as a commodity, which I never expected to hear from a candidate in one of these debates. But he brought them both up like a guy on a debate who is like just kind of throwing out a side point so you don't forget to say it, as opposed to someone emphasizing it. And the thing to do with J.D. Vance is to point that you are one of those venture capitalists. You are one of the people who is hollowing out this country. And, you know, Walls was good at trying to repeatedly say it's not migrants who are ruining like housing in this country, but he failed to connect enough. And he had the pieces there to be like, it's guys like you. Yeah, it's fucking it's fucking white dudes in suits and earpieces who have made housing expensive. It is not people coming here from fucking Honduras. Like, it's people like you who need to be reined in by the government.

And he just wasn't willing to commit to the answer that he clearly had in his pocket. No, he just never went on the attack. And it's just odd because he kept, he was probably coached on this, but like. I think it's coaching. He did not do any of the things that gave him this job in the first place. He didn't play to any of his strengths. Instead, Vance was able to play to Vance's own strengths

and Walls was able to just be a slightly less polished moderate, which why are you trying to frame him as a slightly less polished moderate going up against a debate kid like Vance? Walls needs to be on the attack. He actually needs to show a strong resistance in order to actually make a large impact in the

debate. And that's why I think this kind of largely swung towards Vance by the end, if they're both trying to court this same moderate vote. Now, as always, the immigration section of these is always frustrating. No one talks about how fentanyl is largely brought in via citizens. No one feels the need to bring that up. CBS did have a little fact check or not a fact check necessarily, but like a little comment talking about how the majority of Americans polled are in favor of deportations. But they specifically asked Vance, like, how is your military deportation plan going to work? And will you separate like children that are born in the United States from illegal immigrants?

And Vance just refused to answer that question repeatedly. He tried to get him to answer multiple times. He continually refused it, instead saying that like Kamala's border policy is already a child separation policy. Yeah, there was a great moment there where he got angry at them for fact checking fact checking specifically on his claims but illegal immigrants in springfield yeah yeah because those those migrants in fact had legal status and he was like you guys said you weren't gonna fact check no no no he didn't say he shouted yeah he yelled the rules were that you were not gonna fact check that he just explained how

immigration like works how legal immigration works they were like thank you for explaining how immigration works thank you for explaining the legal process of immigration and this has been one uh thing that vance has been doing on the campaign trail is just explaining the legal process of immigration and just saying i'm still gonna call this illegal because i want it to be illegal um and you're like, okay, you can't like, I guess, I guess we could just use words to,

to mean whatever we want. Sure. Why not? Yeah. If this comes out in the public opinion, being in walls, his favor, it'll be because of those moments. Yeah.

That one at the end and those moments where Vance was like yelling and they, they cut out his mic at one point. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff. I don't think i don't know i again i don't think anyone's gonna really listen to this beta debate enough for there to be it to make much of an impact but those were not great moments for him yeah but those are the kind of things that get clipped out and spread across the internet yeah so we'll see and so the people that didn't didn't watch the entire thing will some of them will see clips like that yeah i think the immigration

section certainly uh showed kind of walls in his stronger moments talking about how the past year we've actually seen a decrease in opiate deaths he continued to talk about how trump killed the bipartisan conservative immigration bill which we're probably not fans of, but he's trying to make it play well electorally. And then pivoted to Springfield and said how like the Republican mayor came out and said none of this stuff was true, but Trump and Vance kept spewing it. State law enforcement had to escort kids to school. But even in this like Springfield section, which which Walls was the first one to bring up, Vance was the big driver of this lie. But even in Walls' mention of this,

he tries to separate Vance from Trump. He primarily blamed Trump for this and totally just ignored Vance's massive contribution to this big misinformation campaign that led to these bomb threats. He just let Vance get off easy. And I think this part was saved kind of by this little fact check and Vance's little meltdown

over this legal immigration comment. But still, it kind of showed a little bit of, even in Walls' stronger moments, he refused to like really harp on Vance for being weird. Yeah. Speaking of people who watched the debate, I don't think our sponsors did

because they have real jobs. Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens.

So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge Thank you. better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the

chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast

where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hello, we are back.

Now, one of the biggest issues for me in this campaign is how much time exactly did Walls spend in Hong Kong? This is really one of the primary issues impacting my vote. There were 150,000 people in the streets in New York City today demanding to know whether or not Tim Walls was really in China during the Tiananmen Square uprisings, you know? Thankfully, CBS News is on the case. Yes. We didn't have a second for Ukraine. Not one second. There was at no point any questions asked about the loss of life due to the genocide in Gaza. Not one, but by God. This was really goofy. Basically, they asked Walls about this comment he made in 2014 about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre

when kind of reporting shows that he only arrived in August, basically like two or three months later. And I don't know if either Walls just misunderstood the question or purposely avoided it, but instead of talking with this he just summarized his entire career both as a school teacher and in politics and then emphasized that

although he spent time in china he is he is loyal to the united states and it was just really odd and like you can even see vince like slowly like smirking the longer walls just kept going on about his career and at the end of his like weird like non-answer about his commitment to the united states the moderators asked again they're like well were you there for the massacre and then he very quickly clarified it was like uh i mean yeah i might have i might have misspoke i don't understand why you wouldn't just very clearly say, yeah, I misspoke. I was there for the aftermath of the massacre.

I was there during the uprising. Or I got misquoted. I was there the year of the uprising. Yeah. He was there during some of the uprising, but he arrived in the aftermath of the massacre. I don't know why you can just say, yes, I arrived at the aftermath of the massacre.

I misspoke 10 years ago. Like, it's very simple. Your weird, long, two minute avoided answer just makes you like look like weak and unnecessarily slimy. It doesn't make any sense. It just is weird because of course they were going to ask that question. Why? Why did you not have a prepared answer? I mean, this only became a new story today.

Like this, this, this only became a new story today like this this this only became a new story like like a few hours ago still have some kind of a prepared generic answer i'm sure he did my guess is that if i was debate prepping him i would have assumed they were going to ask one of the questions about his service based on all of like the different sort of like totally right wing shit coming out everything about his performance was the result of a guy who was overprepared and prepared by people whose focus was on him not upsetting the apple cart and embarrassing the campaign, not on him winning. That is how he was coached.

And he was well-prepared as a general rule. For the most part, when J.D. Vance would make a claim about fentanyl, he had a counter fact that he could bring up fact, right, that he could bring up. And he did that reasonably well. He seemed confident about the information. He clearly put in the work, but none of what he was prepared for was hurting Vance. He was entirely prepared to not make an easy fuck up, which maybe is the smart move if you're just like, we just don't want this to upset anything because there's no way it'll help like my guess is that he was told going into this by his handlers this debate is not going to win us the election but it could lose us the

election so what we need to make sure happens is that you don't fuck anything up or seem too mean or seem too weird yourself so we are going to to train you to be as boring as possible. And they did that. And as a follow-up, Vance was asked about his previous anti-Trump, Hitler comments, and specifically was asked if he can be trusted to actually give Trump good, honest advice and not just say whatever he thinks Trump wants to hear, which Vance gave us similarly, avoid an answer and just talked about tariffs. And then the moderators did not follow up with Vance

about his avoided answer. So there you go. The abortion segment is basically a rehash of what happened in the Kamala Trump debate with Vance talking about a bill in Minnesota that he claimed leads to the death of babies who were aborted after birth or some kind of

odd thing that just isn't true. That was pretty silly. This was one of the issues where he was weakest, and I think we were all maybe slightly upset that Walls, again, was kind of hands-off on this. Historically, Vance has made a lot

of crazy comments on podcasts. Historically, Vance has made a lot of crazy comments on podcasts about this topic, and neither the moderators nor Walls really pressed him super hard on it. And Vance himself tried to largely be on the attack with this late-term abortion, killing babies after birth thing. That Walls just tried to easily kind of brush aside

as just not being true. Speaking of healthcare, Vance oddly uh tried to claim that trump like saved obamacare at this point in the debate things just kind of started getting a little bit boring i don't think this debate had as many like good questions as the last one no it was a very like 2012 style debate it just it was flat it was flat it didn't feel kind of like present so they talked about Obamacare, how Trump saved Obamacare,

and Wallace talked about how Trump hurt Obamacare, just kind of boring back and forth. And then finally, the last question was about democracy on January 6th, election denial, that kind of stuff. And Vance opened by saying, we have other issues to solve beyond election denial. He said that we should have open debate about the issues to solve beyond election denial. He said that we should, we should have like open debate about the issues of the 2020 election.

He then downplayed January 6th and emphasized instead, the bigger threat to democracy was Facebook censorship and, and how people are like ending friendships over political disagreements. And this was bizarre. I think this was wall's like strongest moment uh he talked about how there was 140 police officers assaulted on january 6th some who later died he mentioned this other story about how like on january 6th there were similar protests in a whole bunch of different states and he mentioned one in minnesota where people

like threatened to like march to his home and his kid and his dog needed to be like escorted out by police because people were like threatening to go to his home saying that there might be casualties I thought that was maybe that that was that was a pretty good moment four walls brought up how people on January 6th tried to kill Mike Pence which everyone seems to forget it's not talked about enough I mean yeah look that's one of those things where like my issues there are political not about the specific yes yes yeah um vance tried to be like hey you know everyone does a little election denial uh in 2016 there was russia gate and i i i think walls did a pretty good follow-up by saying like january 6th wasn't about facebook ads it wasn't like that wasn't the problem the

problem was the people storming the capitol trying to kill everyone inside like that was the real issue and real censorship is stuff like book banning first time we had a mention of any of that but even in this section about j6 he still like thanked vance for having this conversation and then asked him if trump lost the election, which Vance just avoided answering. Instead, asking Walls, did Kamala censor Americans on Facebook? Which is just a great, just a great, equally important problem.

Yeah, these two issues. And unfortunately, Walls' initial response was like, I don't run Facebook, which just say he's lying. Like, just call him a liar, which just say he's lying. Like, just call him a liar, Tim. He's a liar. It's wild that, like, we're talking about, like, January

6th, and Advance's biggest concern is people being banned on Facebook. Like, I think that's not going to play well for him. It's not going to play well, but also yeah, it was just a missed opportunity. There were a lot of those. The entire debate was a missed opportunity, Robert. lot of those the entire debate was a missed opportunity robert yeah and like walls is i think slight fumble here you can point out his like

closing statement saying like i'm surprised that we have this coalition from like bernie sanders to dick cheney to taylor swift you're like yeah that is that is a little surprising maybe that's a bit of the problem oh that was a nightmare line for me. Of all the names to drop, Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift, hand in hand. Well, because like even among moderates, do you think Dick Cheney's popular? That was my last straw. I was like, who prepped him? Who did his debate prep?

Who agreed that statement? Someone who really likes fucking Dick Cheney. Was it Karl Rove? Did they get carl rove again god damn it was hillary involved with this debate prep like shoot like i know the clindons were involved with with comel's debate prep were they involved with with tim walsh's debate prep yeah i'm not sure but i think this kind of underlines i know this is kind of a larger issue with like the democratic party in the year 2024 but i think this also underlines like my issue with walsh's performance here is like this debate both candidates were going after the dick cheney voter they were going after like neocons and independents the literal devil yes and and like for for that

base i think vance does appeal to them more in this debate i think vance did a better job appealing to those people in this debate, which left Walls coming off as just slightly worse and not really giving him any standout performances. I think if Walls actually emphasized all the reasons that Vance is a freak and is bad, I think that may have showed

him to be more of a unique candidate. Instead, they both came off as just kind of boring moderates, which just doesn't make sense because that's the opposite reason that both of these men were picked for their chops. They were both picked to represent this slightly more extreme wing of the party, with Walls being a bit more progressive and Vance being a bit more fascist.

Now, it makes sense that Vance is going to go after the moderates. I just don't think Walls needed to. Agree. That's kind of all my thoughts on this riveting, riveting two-hour debate. I have to say me too man uh well we've got a flash poll from cbs news 42 for vance 41 for walls great 17 set a tie great yeah that was the general that was the general like that was the general vibe yep

fox news was walls was good. Vance did just fine. No. Moderators obnoxious. Moderators smug and arrogant bias. But that's just typical. I think the moderators were fine. I think overall it wasn't a very well laid out debate. I think the fact that Vance was able to be

humanized with the assistance of Walls makes Vance kind of the winner in the way that this did more to benefit Vance than it did to benefit Walls. And the fact that Walls kind of acted counter intuitively to his whole line of messaging from the past year is a fundamental

mistake that I hope the Democrats would re-evaluate going forward. But they're the Democrats. Just interesting take that i've seen online and also a take for my midwest uh moderate democrat mother is she said to me just remember tim is from the midwest and minnesota is the most midwest there is it is not in his nature to be anything but polite not what we're used to seeing in a debate but it was a little refreshing so okay so i'm just

saying yeah if you went into this already liking walls this this won't make you dislike walls my mom definitely already like right like and like that's why i think this is largely just largely inconsequential even if vance got a little bit of a leg up it is largely inconsequential do you know who the winner of the debate was minnesota sounds like a great place to live got great pr tonight i guess so walls walls was clearly doing the best here when he was like just talking about how nice minnesota is it's great here and tim we all know what the winters are like there you're not you're not fooling anybody. Like, come on. That said, if you live in the Portland area or really anywhere in Southern California,

move to Minnesota. Just get on out of here. You'll love it. You're gonna have a great time. Everyone in Minnesota is gonna love you. People love Californians when they move other places. It goes well. It's always happy.

Always a good time. So if I had any advice to end on, it's people who are currently in Los Angeles, move to Minnesota. You will be beloved. People will want to listen to your policy ideas. It'll be great. from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

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