October 2, 2024 • 48 mins
On this episode of The Middle we'll be asking you about your thoughts on the first Vice Presidential debate between Governor Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance. We're joined by USA Today Chief Political Correspondent Phillip Bailey and Politico Senior Politics Editor Charlie Mahtesian. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country. #debate #Walz #Vance #2024 #election
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our
house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver. In that debate, I have
to say I was surprised at how much we heard
things like I actually agree with JD about that, I
actually agree with Tim. But then I realized this is
the first time that we have had two Midwesterners in
a debate, the vice presidential debate since nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Honestly, I think we just saw them become best friends.
I think they hung out.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
After sure about that, But anyway, we're going to get
to that. I do want to say as we start here,
we are thinking of everybody recovering from Hurricane Helene in
North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and Tennessee and South Carolina.
I've been listening to some of the public radio stations
in those places. They're doing an incredible job keeping listeners
up to date on what's going on, especially at a
time when people don't have a cell service. So thanks
(00:51):
to all those stations for doing that. So to the
debate between Tim Walls and JD. Vance, we want to
get your reaction. Did what you see and hear solidify
your choice in this election or has it changed your
views about the candidates? Toliver? How can people reach.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Us thinking Call us at eight four four four Middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five three,
or you can write to us at Listen to the
Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And before we get to your calls. Last week, we
asked you do you expect Social Security to be there
for you when you need it? And do you want
to see it reformed in any way? Here's what we
heard from some of you who left us a voicemail
after the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
My name is Candace.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
I'm calling from Colorado's Spring. I don't believe that Social
Security will be around when I am ready to retire,
and so that's disappointing to me, of course, and I
think absolutely the tap needs to be lifted and folks
with access to more resources need to pay their fair share.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
My name is Josh.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
I live in eaves Landing.
Speaker 8 (01:50):
People are living longer.
Speaker 9 (01:52):
I think it only makes sense to have my generation
and the generations behind us work longer before we can
take so long security.
Speaker 10 (02:00):
HU.
Speaker 11 (02:01):
Hi, I'm Stephanie Southard from Oxford, Ohio. I'm not under twenty.
I just turned sixty social Security moneies are only collected
on earned income i e.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Wages.
Speaker 11 (02:12):
What about all the wealth of scheduled D income and
Schedule E income? Certainly, if the amount at which we
stop collecting Social Security on has not kept pace with inflation,
why not?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that full episode on our podcast in partnership with
iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app or wherever you listen
to podcasts. So now to our topic for this hour,
your reaction to the first debate between vice presidential running
mates Tim Walls and JD Vance Tolliver. The number again, please.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, it's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four
four four six four three three five three or right
to us at listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And let's meet our panel. Politico Senior Politics editor Charlie
Mettessian is with us. Charlie, Welcome to the Middle. Hi, Jeremy,
it's great to have you here. And USA Today Chief
corresponding Philip Bailly is also with us from Louisville, Kentucky. Phillip,
great to have you.
Speaker 10 (03:03):
Back, Jeremy.
Speaker 12 (03:05):
As always, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, before we get to the calls, let me hear
from each of you what stood out to you in
this debate. I'll start with you, Philip.
Speaker 12 (03:13):
Well, look, if you know, a large part of this
campaign Jeremy has been marked by this unprecedented clash. We've
had two assassination attempts, former president who has gone through
many legal trials, conversations about toning down the rhetoric. Well,
ladies and gentlemen, you got the debate of old You
have a very civil minded I mean, we all.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Thought we were going to get a bloody.
Speaker 12 (03:37):
Bruising boxing match, and we got a Midwestern romance going
on here. I mean, this was a This was old
school civility. I think for a lot of people who
may have been used to polities for the past eight years,
it feels like we all just got into the DeLorean
and went back in time to the nineteen seventies and
maybe eighties. The two men certainly had disagreements, sharp disagreements
(03:58):
on immigration, abortion, January sixth, and democracy itself. But at
the end of the day, if you notice, the two
of them will always very complimentary of each other. You know,
Senator Vance often called Governor Walls by his first name.
I think of the gun debate in the school conversation,
they definitely came off and bonded as dad's being very
empathetic to one another, often saying I agree with you,
(04:20):
I see your point, you know, Governor Walls, I see
your point, Senator Advance. So this is this is such
an odd thing that happened today because it's been defined
by how nasty our politics is. No, this was the
old school point politics that everyone says they love and
want so much.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Charlie Matesti in your thoughts on the debate.
Speaker 13 (04:39):
I think at the broadest level, they both met their mandate,
which is, you know, when you're a vice presidential nominee,
you go into a debate like this, you're only supposed
to have one of them, and your mandate is do
no harm, you know, don't screw it up for your ticket.
And I think at the end of the day, both
of them probably met the bar on that, you know,
regardless of who you think may have won or lost.
Speaker 10 (04:57):
I mean, I think they both met that bar.
Speaker 13 (04:58):
But I have to say, if talking about what struck
I agree with Philip it is the civility it was.
It was really shocking to me, and it just reminded
me that we have been conditioned in recent election to
to expect this Donnybrook to go to for you know,
the sharp elbowed, smash mouth in your face, canned lines,
just going at each other the entire time. And I
(05:20):
was a little bit stunned, in part because I was
in part because I was, I think conditioned by the
other debates, but also because yesterday there was a press
call that Republicans had in advance. They had, you know,
the way they do these for the media sometimes before
a big event like this, and they had a bunch
of Republican surrogates talking about j D I'm sorry about
(05:41):
Tim Walls and just trashing him, trashing his military record,
talking about stolen valor. In fact, Vance himself was sending
out email fundraising emails calling Walls a radical socialist, liberal,
Marxist an extremists. And then with all that set up,
we get Minnesota and or Midwestern nice.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
That really caught me off guard.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Let's get to the phones, because I'm really curious to
hear what ordinary Americans thought about this. Terrell is in Birmingham, Alabama. Terrell,
go ahead, what did you think of the debate?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I really enjoyed the debate. I thought It was very
civil in comparison to whenever Donald Trump is debating, because
he acts like a child. These two men act like men.
But I really noticed, and I didn't like. I'm a
former marine, and you know, January sixth, in my opinion,
(06:35):
that was treason on behalf of ex President Trump. A
lot of people don't want to mention that, but that's
exactly what it was. But they asked ing jd who
did Biden win the election? And he wouldn't answer that question,
and that to me, he should have answered, because you know,
(06:58):
this is America, the greatest country in the world. You
don't have to make it great again. It's already great.
But him running for vice president, he should have just
answered the question.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I thought, Terrelle, thank you very much for that, and
thank you for your service as well. Philip Bailey. One
thing that he's talking about there is at the very
end of the debate. January sixth didn't come up to
the very end of the debate. But Tim Walls was
answering a question. He turned to J. D. Vance and said,
do you believe that Donald Trump lost the twenty twenty election?
And Jadvance wouldn't answer the question. That is going to
(07:31):
be a moment probably that spins around on the internet
for the next twenty four hours.
Speaker 12 (07:36):
Well, look, Senator Vance has an audience of one in
this debate, and it's Donald Trump. He knew, as probably
others did, that if he answered that question forthrightly and
said that no, Donald Trump lost the twenty twenty election,
as everyone else with a half a brain in this
country knows that he lost in twenty twenty, that he
would probably be thrown off the ticket, or at least
a new cycle of conversation by him being thrown off
(07:58):
the ticket. Other than that, I think JD. Vance, though,
did what he was supposed to do in this but
he was the one underwater when you look at the
polls compared to Governor Wallas and also Donald Trump and
Vice President Harris So I think he came off not
as a fire breather, not as Maga Junior. He came
off as very reasonable, very polite. Again, I think I
(08:20):
don't think we can really say who won the debate.
I think both of them pretty much came out even
as as we said earlier, that they did no harm
to their top of their ticket. But I think that Vance,
more than anyone, needed to come out of here showing
that he was a likable person. And I think both
of them won the likability argument, and I think Vance
needed that more so than anyone else on that one issue. Yeah,
he's talking to Donald Trump in that conversation, in that
(08:42):
portion of the debate.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And however, many millions of people were watching that debate
is the last one with sixty seven million I think
live on TV. Let's go to Ken, who's in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Ken,
Welcome to the middle. What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Hi? Yeah, I'm just going to repeat what I told
the lady that answered I was presently prize. I don't
mean it was perfect. However, I don't take this as
a representative sampling of who vanceits what.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Do you it was an act.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I'm sorry, you know I would have known to do
the same thing. The one thing I mentioned. It's a
powerful question that the Republicans come up with. If you
have all these solutions, why are you waiting? Why haven't
you done anything in the past three or four years.
And the lady I talked to when I'm called, I
(09:29):
think she answered it. I missed it. I think she said, well,
what do you think? What do you think he didn't
have the power?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Ken, thank you for that, you know, Charlie BETESSI. And
one of the things that Ken brings up there is
that it wasn't just Vance saying that. You know, Kamala
Harris has been in office for a few years. She
could have done some of the things she's talking about.
The same argument could be made about Donald Trump, who
was in office for many years and now he's promising
new things. Yeah.
Speaker 13 (09:55):
And I think though what you saw is a big
different stylistic between the two. You know, I think Advance
was much more comfortable for a lot of the evening,
especially in the beginning. Uh took took Walls a little
time to warm up, and so he may have missed
some of the opportunities that that more polished debaters might
have had to to really poke holes in the Vance
(10:15):
argument on some of these areas that that we're talking
about here. You know, that was something that democrats in Advance,
you know, sort of warned and you know, talked a
little bit about, you know, the manic energy that that
Walls brings to debates and things like that, and you know,
the strengths he has are not really as a debater,
they're you know, in sort of approachability and and you know,
(10:37):
being able to break complex ideas down, uh into things
that that average people can understand. I think it's the
the you know, the whole suburban dad, big dad energy
persona that he brings, and so that's not always really
well suited to a debate stage where you really need
to to you know, uh thrust in parry and and
at times I think some Democrats will will will probably
(10:59):
say privately that they wished maybe he would have poked
more holes in in Dvance's arguments, but I think again
that wasn't really.
Speaker 10 (11:09):
His mission so much.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Well, tell of our vice presidential debates have given us
some very memorable moments over the years.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, look no further than this famous put down from
Democratic Senator Lloyd Benston when he faced off against Republican
Senator Dan Quayle in a nineteen eighty eight VP debate.
Speaker 14 (11:25):
I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack
Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.
Speaker 10 (11:32):
I will be prepared to deal with the people in the.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Bush administration that unfortunate then would ever occur.
Speaker 11 (11:40):
Senator Benson, Senator.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 15 (11:49):
Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.
Speaker 10 (11:52):
Senator, You're no Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
Burn I know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Really it is worth noting, though, Tolliver, that in fact,
dan Quail did, I guess win because he became the
vice president. Benson did not. So there is that anyway.
We'll be right back with more of your reaction to
the debate coming up on the Middle. This is the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in the Middle
is a national call in show. We are focused on
elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, philosophically, or maybe
(12:23):
you just want to meet in the middle. This hour,
we're asking for your reaction to the vice presidential debate
between Tim Walls and JD Vance Tolliver. What is our number?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I'm here with USA Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey
and Politico Senior Politics editor Charlie Metessian. And before we
go back to the phones, Charlie We've talked about the
fact that both of these candidates are from Midwestern states.
Was there pressure therefore on both of them to appeal
in a debate like this to the geographic middle where
a lot of these swing states are.
Speaker 13 (13:02):
I think there was probably more pressure on Vance than Walls.
Walls's roll out love has been a lot more smooth.
I think, you know, he's been kind of a star
on social media. Democrats have really embraced him in every way,
whereas I think Vance's rollout was a little bit more unsteady.
You see the video circulating of the awkward donut shop encounters,
(13:25):
and it's reflected in the favorability ratings, and you know,
those are the polling ratings that are just sort of
measuring your likability with the public. And Vance is underwater,
meaning you know, he is more His ratings are higher
on the unfavorable side than the favorable side, whereas Walls
is the opposite. And so I think for Vance, part
of it was and he tried to hit at this
(13:46):
when he talked about many of you don't know me
or my story. So his mission, I think tonight was
to introduce people to him, but also to show him
in a different kind of light than I think they've
seen him on the trail, because from what they've seen,
they haven't necessarily loved him, with the childless cat ladies
comment and some other comments he's made that have seen
(14:07):
maybe unnecessarily brusque or rude. And I think this was
his first big opportunity before a pretty big audience, to
sort of change the perception surrounding him.
Speaker 10 (14:17):
And this matters.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
The favorability really matters for somebody like Vance when he's
on a ticket with Donald Trump, who has always almost
probably from the moment he was first elected president, been
under water in terms of favorability ratings, and so that
is something that gets reflected, particularly among certain demographic groups
who just can't stand them together. And so I think
(14:39):
it was very important that Vance show a different side.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Let's go to Carlos, who's in Los Angeles. Carlos, what
did you think of the debate?
Speaker 16 (14:48):
Yes, well, thank you for thinking my call. I think
that what we saw today was a massive deception by Vance.
He's a totally different person, came as a totally different person,
different message, almost enticing women that we are your saviors,
we are here for you, we are pro family in
(15:11):
all the sense of the word, when in fact they
are the opposite. We are hearing the thing message from
Trump where he's saying, I will be your protector.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
So that's what I see.
Speaker 17 (15:23):
I see right through them.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
They broke the window.
Speaker 16 (15:27):
They hide in your hand, And I ask you now,
who broke the window.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Oh my goodness, I'm here to say to you.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Carlos, thank you for that call. Philip Ale your thoughts
on what Carlo has had to say there.
Speaker 12 (15:39):
Well, look, I think you're already seeing it now. I
think early reactions. I think you're going to have some
Democrats are gonna be pretty upset because they've been revved
up on anti Trump a cocktail.
Speaker 18 (15:49):
For so long.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
They want this fight right.
Speaker 12 (15:52):
The one thing that they were very energized when the
Harris Trump debate was how Harris sort of came out
and challenged Donald Trump and was continuing to sort of
poke and prod him. Even when the microphones were muted,
you could still still hear the Vice President speaking while
Trump was speaking. And I'm already seeing reactions from a
lot of Democrats saying that I think this was just
a missed opportunity. It humanized vance, right, you didn't mention
(16:14):
the cat.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Ladies, they don't feel the way that they did about
Biden and the first debate with Trump.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
Right right.
Speaker 12 (16:20):
But I do think that there is there's a bit
of emotional transferences going on here where Democrats are really
itching for a fight and really want to take the
Trump campaign on. And I think you might have some
Democrats who are going to be disappointed that Walls didn't
go after Vance a lot in the ways that he
has been depicted on social media by a lot of
more left leaning progressive influences on TikTok and other spaces.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Let's go to Kevin, who's in Tampa Bay, Florida. Kevin,
welcome to the middle, Go ahead. What do you think
of the debate?
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Yeah, so Walls could have done better. Jd. Vance fled
a lot, and Walls did not do a good job
of repeating the lies. But the real thing that brought
(17:12):
me to call in was the whole thing about JD.
Vance talking about abortion and okay, make abortion go away
and that's fine, you pay for.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Them, okay, Kevin, thank you, thank you for that call.
Just exactly what you were talking about there, Philip. People
feeling that they didn't get what they wanted out of JD. Vance.
Let's check out what Alice has to say in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
another a swing state.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Alice, what do you think, aside from what was said
by these two guys, My impression was Wallas came across
as an all American, down home, nice guy, honest. And
then Vance when I looked at him, it was like
he was showing these narrow, sleezy eyes at the camera
(18:02):
at times.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So did it did it change your views at all?
Or did you did you sort of you just watched
it with interest. I think we lost Alice there, But yeah,
Charlie Mantessian two views there, somebody not thinking Walls did
did that great? And then and then Alice, they're not
not so happy with what she saw from J. D.
Vance and seeing an all American in Tim Walls.
Speaker 13 (18:26):
Yeah, I tend to think, like Phillip on this in
that you'll you'll hear a louder chorus coming from the left,
people who are frustrated that Walls didn't take the fight
to to Vance, only because Vance, I think really energizes
the left in a way that Walls doesn't really gin
(18:46):
up the right. And and it's important because and I
think you'll hear more of it from from the left
criticism of Walls. And again this isn't really rough criticism.
I mean, it's just people will be disappointed, and I
think because they recognize that Advance is one of the
most articulate spokesman of the MAGA wing, and he is
one of the more effective articulators of this form of
(19:10):
populist conservatism. And so I think there are a lot
of progressives that are really going to have wished that
Walls took the fight to him, that called him out
on more issues. But I think in the end, though,
when you look at what Walsh I'm sorry, was able
to accomplish, he was able to accomplish some significant things,
(19:31):
I think, particularly in terms of burnishing the ticket and
his own image, because where he really seemed to shine
behind tonight, where he seemed to get his legs was
on the human aspects of policy. When he was talking
about abortion, when he was talking about childcare, when he
was talking about guns, he was at his best. And
I think the same was true in the end. He
(19:51):
was strongest in talking about democracy in January sixth, and
so by those yardsticks, I think it will be unfair
to criticize him if Democrats are going to do that,
I think he was effective in those areas.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Tolliver some comments coming in online.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, Robert in Connecticut says, I think the debate was
extremely interesting. My favorite part was definitely when Tim Wallas
got JD. Vans to go off on a tangent about
the process to apply for asylum. So I don't believe
that either candidate clearly won. I've heard this next comment
a lot. Why doesn't anyone explain that the vice president
cannot enact policy. The only things that EP can do
(20:30):
is take over for the president in the case of
incapacitation and a break in the tie in the Senate.
Why is Harris being blamed for things she either has
not or cannot do.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I did find it interesting, Philip, to hear so much
talk about the Harris administration. There was barely a mention
of Joe Biden, who is still the president.
Speaker 12 (20:49):
Well, I think that's because the Trump campaign has learned that, Look,
you put so much stock into criticizing Biden, you have
to make Harris the incombat. She's trying to cast herself
as the change agent. You have to link her and
anchor her to the Biden administration. So you're going to
hear the Harris administration. Well, you're not even going to
(21:10):
hear much of Joe Biden. I know Donald Trump might
be upset about that, considering how much he invested in it,
but they're going to make her the incumbent. And I
think there is a vital and important question to ask
the vice president who has not really broken from President
Biden on any major issue. I know she has a
lower capital gains tax rate that she wants to propose
than Biden does, But the question is, well, what do
(21:32):
you want to do different than the current president? And
if you want to continue to do the things or
do these different things, well, why didn't you suggest them?
Why didn't you fight for them more openly in the administration.
I do still think that the vice president is going
to have to make some sort of commentary or speech
or something from a major break at some point during
their time in office where Joe Biden wanted to go
(21:52):
this way and Kamala Harris wanted to go the other way.
Otherwise you directly inherent all the baggage of the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Let's go to Mohammed, who's in Houston, Texas. Muhammad, what
did you think of the debate?
Speaker 14 (22:05):
I think it was great in terms of showing that
this is how a normal civil debate should be, like
the ones that Donald Trump is part of. It didn't
change my views about the issues that much. But since
I'm a swing voter and this is my second time
(22:25):
I vote in presidential elections, originally from Middle East, so
I'm a swing voter. I ask all America to be
a swing voter because I come from a place and
I know firsthand what party affiliation does to democracy.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
At least it.
Speaker 14 (22:44):
Weakens it, it not kills it. So I'm a swing voter,
and I'm going to be voting both Republican and Democratic
in this election. The top of the ticket, of course,
I might. I am leaning for Democrats, all those people
who run for local offices, state offices, and all that.
(23:07):
I will vote Republicans formed.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I'm going to ask you one follow up there? Does
that mean in the Senate Rate and Tech race in
Texas which is very close, are you voting for Ted
Cruz or Colin Alright?
Speaker 14 (23:21):
Yes, yes, which you know because I am I am
from Middle East. I have to think about foreign policy too,
and it comes to the American presidency. But yeah, for
local elections, I will vote Republicans, okay, and showed us
that Republicans absent Donald Trump, Republicans are real good, decent
(23:45):
people at please they act that way accent Donald Trump,
and I love that. And they are actually tough our
own crime. That's why that's one actually big reason that
I will vote Republicans for all the local elections.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, thank you Muhammad for that. And by the way, Tealver,
I think he pretended not to hear me ask the
question about which one he was going to vote. Yes,
I did, Yes, I am going to vote in that
le's you know, actually, that is an interesting question, Charlie
MATESSI do you think we're going to see a lot
of people And we have seen in the polls in
some of the key swing Senate races that maybe you
(24:22):
know in North Carolina, people are saying they're going to
vote for the Democrat in the Senate race by like
seventeen points, and yet Kamala Harris is losing in the
same poll to Donald Trump by two points. There's a
lot of split ticket voting that may happen this year.
Speaker 10 (24:35):
Yeah, sort of.
Speaker 13 (24:36):
I mean, if you believe the polls. It's a shocking
number of Senate races could be split ticket races. And
which remarkable is if you take a look and I
think there were sixty nine Senate races in twenty sixteen
and twenty twenty, sixty eight of them were won by
the candidate who was the same party as the presidential
candidate who won their state. And so that means there's
(24:59):
almost no think of voting anymore. Yet, if you look
across the battleground states now, the Democratic Senate incumbents are
ahead in almost every race. Democrats are doing really surprisingly well.
And that was true even when Biden was trailing by
you know, big deficits in the polls. And so that
is a really interesting component of what's happening here in
this election that this does seem to be happening, this
(25:21):
split ticket phenomenon, because that's a phenomenon. We haven't seen
it in a long time. We used too as a country,
do that pretty frequently. We don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Even do you think Philip Bailey, with stuff like these
abortion referenda that are on the ballots in places like
Florida and Arizona, do you think you're going to see
people who turn out to vote in favor of abortion rights,
but they'll also vote for Trump vance.
Speaker 12 (25:43):
I think that there's a possibility for that. I think
what's happened here over these past eight years is that
Donald Trump and the injection of populism into the Republican
Party has shuffled a lot of our traditional thinking about politics.
When you look at, for example, his rates with working
class voters. Right, you had union leaders speaking at the
Republican convention. So I think that some of this is
(26:05):
there's a Trump phenomenon. I think we've seen a couple
of glimpses of the post Trump Republican world with Nicky
Haley staying in the race and the support that she
was getting.
Speaker 10 (26:13):
And I think you saw a little bit of that
even with JD.
Speaker 12 (26:15):
Vantonite, who will be the natural successor to the Maga mantle.
Now that Trump has said, at least for now, that
if he loses this election, he would not run again
in twenty twenty eight, right, So I think that we've
seen this over and over again these midterms, where the
Republicans underperform on Trump's not on the ballot at all.
He's his own sort of orbit he's his own political
(26:35):
entity that brings in a certain group of people, and
no other Republican can really attract that. But there are still, though,
these right of center voters Jeremy who feel uneasy.
Speaker 10 (26:44):
And do not like Donald Trump's character.
Speaker 12 (26:46):
They feel he does not respect the rule of law.
These are still conservative people, so they're still going to
vote in a conservative way, but they do not like
Donald Trump personally.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It sounds like the caller that we just had from Houston.
Let's go to Matthew, who's in Rock Island, Illinois. Matthew,
welcome to the middle. What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 17 (27:04):
Like everyone else has stated, it's been very civil, but
how really appreciate how there was a lot less hate
towards each other. But in addition, they really focused on
policy really well, especially on the Democratic side. I really
think they did a better job laying the foundation of
their policies and explaining it better. Due to the fact
(27:28):
that it was a very civil debate, we of course
that emphasized where we kind of lean towards, especially Democratic side,
but we try to have a little bit open mind.
But due to the fact that they did a really
good job explaining, especially on the democratic side of their policies,
laying their foundation, what they want to do, what they
(27:49):
see in the future, and being more optimistic. That really
helped us out.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Matthew, Thank you, Charlie Matessian. Do you think this was
a very unusual year because instead of the Commission on
Presidential Debates, it's non part this organization being involved. We
had the candidates, the campaigns negotiating directly with TV networks.
In this case it was CBS that got to do
this debate. Do you think that this is going to
be the model going forward?
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Now?
Speaker 13 (28:13):
If the environment stays is polarized, it's going to have
to be because I think neither side trust the Commission,
despite all of its efforts to sort of state nonpartisan,
especially the Republicans. I mean, this has been bubbling up,
you know, during the trumpy or so eight years. They've
lost all trust in the Commission, and so I think
what we see going forward will be more formats like this,
(28:36):
where there's lots of negotiations with the networks to do it,
to try and get sort of either the moderators they
think work best for them and to have more control
over the process simply because there's no trust at all
in the institutions that over time have governed our debates,
and so as a result of that, I think we
(28:57):
have to have a new model going forward.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Tolliver, we heard that Senator, you know, Jack Kennedy clip.
These debates can often come to be remembered by a
single line.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, And easily one of the most famous lines in
vice presidential debate history came from Ross Parrose nineteen ninety
two running mate Admiral James Stockdale.
Speaker 9 (29:16):
Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please, sir?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Who am I?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Why am I here?
Speaker 6 (29:28):
I'm not a politician. Everybody knows that, so don't expect
me to use the language of the Washington insider. Thirty
seven years in the Navy and only one of them
up there in Washington, and now I'm an academic.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Wow, that's so existential. I don't know who I am?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Why am I here? There was another moment, by the way,
in the nineteen ninety two debate of Tulliver of that
Admiral Stockdale, where he actually had his hearing aid turned
off and somebody said something He's like, I'm sorry, I
had my hearing aid off. You can eat that far relatable. Wow,
those are the days. We'll be right back with more
of your calls on the debate on the Middle. This
(30:05):
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're asking you this
hour for your thoughts on the vice presidential debate between
Governor Tim Walls and Senator j d Vance. You can
call us at eight four four for Middle. That's a
four four four six four three three five three. You
can also reach out to us at Listen to the
Middle dot com. I'm joined by USA Today Chief political
correspondent Philip Bailey and Politico Senior politics reporter Charlie Mettessian Tolliver.
(30:28):
I just got a text from a listener friend in
Chicago who said, are the Are the callers tonight? On sedatives?
They do sound a little soli, but it's later in
the night, just being tired. LL let's get let's get
back to the phones. Uh and go to Chris, who's
in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Chris, Welcome to the Middle, Go ahead.
Speaker 15 (30:46):
I think I was a very interesting format that we're good.
I love the way that the first questions they came
out with where things had just happened in the first
like recently, and they talked about.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That we talked about the situation in the Middle East.
They talked about the hurricane as well.
Speaker 15 (31:06):
Yeah, and you know, nobody was wearing earrings, so you
couldn't say they was about the answers. But that being said,
ged events almost just very almost showed some humanity. And
I mean that where he started to talk about you know,
like actual problems, but then he kind of yeered off
(31:29):
into the election denial.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
And cord just lies and yeah, oh I.
Speaker 15 (31:39):
Wasn't too much of a fan of that one, Okay. Also, yeah,
like the same time, when they called out Walls for
what he said, he was like in Tianamen Square. Sure
the men may have got it wrong by a few months.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And then Vans also, so you're you're forgiving your forgiving
of Walls and this do you think Walls did okay
in this debate, Chris just briefly.
Speaker 8 (32:08):
I appose he did okay.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Thank you very much for that call.
Speaker 10 (32:12):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Charlie Mattessian another another caller there who was upset about
what they saw as as jd Vance not telling the truth.
And of course, in this debate, the moderators were not
supposed to fact check, and actually jd Vance said at
one point, in a moment that I think will probably
go viral, you weren't supposed to fact check us. That
wasn't part of the agreement.
Speaker 13 (32:35):
Yeah, I mean, it was such a big issue after
the the Trump Parish debate, and you know, I think
that looking back, the people of the network, probably and
probably the Vans team regrets that they didn't really fill
out the former the formal language on the on the
rules to the debate, you know, because there was an
understanding that there would be no formal fact checking during
(32:58):
the debate, but it was isn't totally locked down, and
I think you know, there was you see some resentment
flash there from Vance about that. But I think overall,
and you know, as the caller mentioned, and we've heard
a couple of times today, lots of folks, particularly if
you're on the left, you feel that maybe Vance was
not being himself or or hiding part aspects of him.
(33:21):
I think what we ended up seeing from him tonight,
and you saw that in him calling them out on
the fact checking, is we saw a little a bit
of a fuller spectrum JD. Vance, Meaning we've seen a
lot of the caricature of Vance out there, which is
why I think his numbers aren't great. Why you know,
he's not seen as sort of a home run of
a vice presidential pick. But today you saw, you know,
(33:44):
some of his ability to articulate policy. You saw a
little bit more approachability than you typically see out of him.
But you also saw you know, some of the the
parts of him, you know, snapping at the media and
things like that. So it's just for the first time,
I thought, on a national stage over a long period
of time, we got to see the different facets Advance.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Let's go to Daniel, who's in Kansas City, Missouri. Daniel,
welcome to the middle What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 18 (34:10):
Hi, Jeremy, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to
bring up how Jdvance seemed to kind of dodge a
few questions, specifically like how like gun violence in America
when we clearly have the highest rate of childhood gun
death in the world, that it's unspeakable and it's unaccounted
(34:36):
for in the Republican stance, like how they're going to
deal with that. But more importantly, I think it's very
important that Jdvance didn't answer the question of how they
would respond to Donald Trump. Losing this election, will they
or will they not certify electors or will they find
alternate electors? Like he doesn't have an answer that Donald
(35:00):
Trump doesn't either. We've like the parallels between the debates
that we saw a couple of weeks ago with Biden,
I'm sorry, between Trump and Harris, right, and now between
Walt and Vance, Like they're still not answering the question
if they will concede the election in a peaceful way,
(35:22):
and instead they divert to other talking points, and that's
extremely concerning to anyone who wants to like continue democracy
in any like reasonable sort of way.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
That Daniel did you think that the Tim Walls did
a good enough job in pushing back against that.
Speaker 18 (35:39):
You know, I think Tim Walls did a good job
of it in the debate, given you know, the platform
that he had. I think it's it's a tough point
when there's an entire right wing pushing against him in this,
but I think he responded very well in pointing to
(36:01):
the facts and how democracy should be run because he
and Kamala Harris have a history a track record of
upholding the Constitution and doing things the right way, and
what they're fighting against are a wing of this country
that really wants to overthrow that, and that's hard to
(36:24):
push up against when people are saying, no, we should
overthrow the entire institution. That's wrong and it's fun democratic,
and I think I think Tim Walls did a good
job of pushing up against it as this could.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Daniel, I think we've got it there, Daniel, thank you
so much for that. And Philip Bailey. A lot of
people as they as they watch this think, well, why
wasn't that question about accepting the results of the election
the election further up in the debate. Why was it
at the very end when when probably many people who
didn't love the civil policy debate that we had might
have tuned out.
Speaker 12 (37:00):
I think that some of what you're seeing in this debate,
and Charlie spoke to this a moment ago, is that
our media is very fractured. I'm very interested to see,
for example, how people who watch the Bait maybe the
first time tuning in look at Jdvans versus those who
are getting a lot of the information from cable news,
but also on social media, where Jdvance has been ripped
to shreds. To be quite honest, Democrats have done an
(37:22):
excellent job of depicting him in the most negative light,
and that's not the JD Vance who we saw on
this debate stage. Why do I think it came up
later in the debate. I'll be quite honest. I think
that the Harris campaign in particular, unlike the Biden campaign.
One of the key differences. Harris does not emphasize January
sixth in the way Joe Biden does. Joe Biden when
he was in charge of this campaign and he was
(37:43):
the nominee, the Biden campaign talked a lot about downstrapping
this threat to democracy, specifically talking about the actions of
his supporters who broke into the US Capitol on January sixth,
twenty twenty one. Harris is not doing that. She looks
at that probably more as looking to the past. He
emphasizes joy. She emphasizes turn the page and look into
the future. So the reason why I think it doesn't
(38:05):
come up as much is because Democrats are de emphasizing it.
It is not the animation of why they're coming out
to vote in this election, and an a razor within
election like this, which is exceedingly close. I think we're
hearing what the two campaigns want to talk about in
these final five weeks, Trump and Vance want to talk
about immigration and migrants in the border. Kamala Harris and
(38:25):
Governor Wallas want to talk about abortion rights, the future
reproductive rights, access of those rights by women, and the
future of the country and getting back to the civility
we saw today.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let's go to another swing state, Georgia Rachel is in Duluth.
Georgia Rachel, what did you think of the debate?
Speaker 9 (38:43):
Well, I viewed it as someone would view two boxers
in the ring. And Vance was smooth. He had a
lot of fast footwork. He did a great job. But
then Walls delivered the knockout blow in my mind when
he asked or when he brought up the topic of
(39:05):
January to sixth, and I was reminded that I am
not voting so much for Kamala, though I would love
to see a woman president, I am voting against a
very delusional man Trump.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I just want to ask you one thing, Rachel. You
say you're not voting for Kamala as much as you're
voting against Trump. What is it that you would like
to see from Kamala Harris if you were going to
actually vote for her as opposed to just voting against Trump.
Speaker 9 (39:41):
So I am not totally on board with.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Rowe.
Speaker 9 (39:49):
I want, I believe that abortion is here and it's
here to stay. But I think that we do need
guidelines as to when an abortion can be performed. And
I think that we forget that there is someone else
(40:10):
and an unborn child who does not have a voice,
and you don't hear that much anymore. It's gotten real
quiet on that front. But I search my heart, but
I'm still gonna have to vote for Kamala Harris. I
still am because I'm not going to vote for someone
(40:32):
like Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Rachel, thank you so much for calling in. I really
appreciate it. Charlie Mattessi and an interesting voice there from Georgia. Obviously,
you know, not going to vote for Trump, but it's
not happy about the Democratic position on restoring Roe.
Speaker 13 (40:50):
Yeah, and I'm surprised that we haven't heard more about
the abortion discussion tonight from callers because I was really
struck by some of Dvance's comments there. I mean, I
think I was struck by the by his you know,
claiming that he didn't support a national ban when when
clearly he has in the past but what I was
(41:13):
really surprised that was the tenor.
Speaker 10 (41:15):
Was the tone of his discussion.
Speaker 13 (41:17):
It was almost apologetic, and you know, one point saying,
you know, almost throwing himself before the mercy of the public, like, yeah,
you know, I really wish my party had handled it better.
Speaker 10 (41:27):
I wish we talked about it better.
Speaker 13 (41:30):
Which was really striking to me in the way he
was was talking about this and talking with almost like
a level of humility for the way the party has
sort of botched it and creamed back and forth.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So that really.
Speaker 10 (41:45):
Really struck me.
Speaker 13 (41:46):
And at the same time, I was really just surprised
that he would take that approach. But it also underscores
the real trouble they're having with women voters. Like if
you take a look at the gender gap, and this
is true in any poll you look at, the gender
gap is just a chasm. This year, it might be
worse than it's been in the past. President Trump is
alas done very poorly with women voters. It may be
(42:09):
even worse now. And you can see they're really struggling
for a message. And you may remember the president's remarks
a couple of weeks ago about women never have to
worry about abortion again because of me and just sort
of these hamhanded plays for women's votes. That just shows
they're just they're listing there, they're, you know, just twisting
in the wind and trying to find any way to
sort of close that gap. And I think talk differently
(42:33):
on the issue of abortion rights.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Let's go to Amy, who's in Los Angeles, California. Amy,
what did you think?
Speaker 19 (42:40):
Well, I'm a childless cat and dog owner, our lady,
I should say, so, Yeah, I got to say I
got to agree with what you were just talking about
with abortion and the and the last caller you had.
The Democrats consistently miss a very easy lay up, in
my opinion, like when Vance was talking about the nine
months of which we that's a medical issue. That's not
(43:03):
because someone just decided, you know what, on second thought,
I'm just gonna have an abortion. It's it's almost it's
always medical, right and so to And I think Jade,
I think Walls could have just easily got out of
there and almost gotten a corner and trapped by Vance
on that, which kind of been brought some legitimacy. The
(43:23):
lie that Johnald Trump's been repeating over and over again,
despite being fact checked consistently, So I think, you know,
the abortion issue is most of abortions that happened after
like the I think twenty I think twentieth months are
because of medical issues, right. So I just wish the
Democrats were better about that because I think we could
(43:44):
get that late term abortion settled for you know, wasn't
for all because it's like less than one percent of
all abortions, and yet that's the extreme that they go to.
But the one thing I want to mention about where
I thought Walls get a really good job because JD.
Vance's job tonight was to seem likable and which seems
very almost too slick, like you said a lot of things,
(44:04):
but he didn't really say anything. Whereas Walls. I think
one of his best comebacks, and I haven't heard really
anybody talking about, is when Vance was talking about federal
lands for home building, and you know, Walls put it
in like, well, I'm in Minnesota, we don't have that
much federal land, so how are you going to solve that?
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Right?
Speaker 19 (44:21):
I thought that was just it just gave an example
of a lot of the Trump policies are not well
thought out. So there's the policy right on a.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Bar Napkin Amy.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
That is that is a topic that I did not
expect to come up in the debate. But thank you
for your call about that, you know, Philip, I think
a theme here that I'm hearing from a lot of
callers is they they they kind of wish that they
that Walls had done something slightly different than that he did,
but they were kind of on his side maybe to
(44:51):
begin with.
Speaker 12 (44:53):
Yeah, And I think it goes back to what we
were talking about earlier. I think Democrats have for a
number of years, like George mcflying back to the future,
they're going to see him punch the bully, right, they
want to see them knock out Biff Tannant, And when
that doesn't happen, there's a letdown. And I think there
were a number I mean, Walls did not bring up
the cat ladies comment at all. Right, that was a
(45:15):
layup politically, and it has been for some time for
Democrats who've leaned into that issue about Vance having these
sort of outdated beliefs about gender roles and family structure.
Walls didn't touch that. He didn't really lean heavily into
a lot of these issues. And part of that, I
think is also, look, it's not Donald Trump you're going against.
You're going against Jadyvance.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
That's not the top of the ticket.
Speaker 12 (45:35):
The two of them did go at the top of
the ticket, respectively, and I think that, you know, we
have to remember that Vice presidents of debates, you're not
voting for the VP, You're not voting for the running mate.
You're voting for the top of the ticket. So that
could be one of the reasons why Walls do want
to do that if I attack jd Vance.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
A whole lot.
Speaker 12 (45:50):
Yeah, I get a lot of cheers from the base
and the liberal base of my party, But I'm trying
to look in this exceedingly tight race where it's going
to be a handful of a really small number of
voter were deciding this. That's who the two candidates today.
I think we're speaking to not their basis.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, Amazingly, we have run out of time for calls,
and I want to let our callers know if you're
still on the line, and you're welcome to leave us
a message. We do listen to all of them, or
just call in at eight four four four Middle, But
before we let our guests go, I just want to
ask each of you briefly, Charlie Mantesseian, do you think
there will be another debate between Trump and Harris before
the election.
Speaker 10 (46:25):
That's a great question. I would have said no before
the debate.
Speaker 13 (46:29):
Now I'm not so sure because I can envision a
scenario where Trump was watching it and you know, sees
that advance, did you know, held his own at least
and maybe some people think he won the debate and
will be thinking, you know, do I want him to
have the last word? And when you think about the
sort of narcissistic impulses of the former president, you know,
(46:49):
I can almost see him rethinking the position and thinking.
Speaker 10 (46:52):
You know what, that's not so hard.
Speaker 13 (46:54):
I could do that, you know, And particularly if he's
at a deficit in the polls that late in the month,
maybe I could see it.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Now, Phillip, what do you think? Quickly?
Speaker 12 (47:02):
I think the Donald Trump's previous job before president was
he was the host of The Apprentice, and I think
shulmanship throughout his life has been the primary thought of
Donald Trump. I think he will absolutely ask for debate,
probably the week of the election, after watching the minutes.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Well, if they do it, we'll be back with another post.
Debate special on the Middle. I want to thank my
guests for the hour, Senior Politics editor of Politico Charlie
Matessian and USA Today Chief Local correspondent Phillip Bailey, who
now and always did hold the record for the most
appearances on the Middle. Thank you both so much for
twitting us. Thanks, thank you, and we'll be back later
this week asking you what the top issue for you
(47:38):
in this election is. We have the two former governors
of Tennessee, one Democrat and one Republican on our panel
for that toliber Aconologies.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
You can call us at eight four four four Middle,
or you can write to us that listen to the
Middle dot com. But you can also sign up for
our free weekly newsletter.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Nook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmustas and John barth Our.
Intern is Anakadessler. Our technical director this week is Steve
mork Our. Theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks
to the more than four hundred and ten public radio
(48:15):
stations that are making it possible for people across the
country to listen to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and
I will talk to you again later this week.
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson, along with our
house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver. In that debate, I have
to say I was surprised at how much we heard
things like I actually agree with JD about that, I
actually agree with Tim. But then I realized this is
the first time that we have had two Midwesterners in
a debate, the vice presidential debate since nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Honestly, I think we just saw them become best friends.
I think they hung out.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
After sure about that, But anyway, we're going to get
to that. I do want to say as we start here,
we are thinking of everybody recovering from Hurricane Helene in
North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and Tennessee and South Carolina.
I've been listening to some of the public radio stations
in those places. They're doing an incredible job keeping listeners
up to date on what's going on, especially at a
time when people don't have a cell service. So thanks
(00:51):
to all those stations for doing that. So to the
debate between Tim Walls and JD. Vance, we want to
get your reaction. Did what you see and hear solidify
your choice in this election or has it changed your
views about the candidates? Toliver? How can people reach.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Us thinking Call us at eight four four four Middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five three,
or you can write to us at Listen to the
Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And before we get to your calls. Last week, we
asked you do you expect Social Security to be there
for you when you need it? And do you want
to see it reformed in any way? Here's what we
heard from some of you who left us a voicemail
after the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
My name is Candace.
Speaker 5 (01:27):
I'm calling from Colorado's Spring. I don't believe that Social
Security will be around when I am ready to retire,
and so that's disappointing to me, of course, and I
think absolutely the tap needs to be lifted and folks
with access to more resources need to pay their fair share.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
My name is Josh.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
I live in eaves Landing.
Speaker 8 (01:50):
People are living longer.
Speaker 9 (01:52):
I think it only makes sense to have my generation
and the generations behind us work longer before we can
take so long security.
Speaker 10 (02:00):
HU.
Speaker 11 (02:01):
Hi, I'm Stephanie Southard from Oxford, Ohio. I'm not under twenty.
I just turned sixty social Security moneies are only collected
on earned income i e.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Wages.
Speaker 11 (02:12):
What about all the wealth of scheduled D income and
Schedule E income? Certainly, if the amount at which we
stop collecting Social Security on has not kept pace with inflation,
why not?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that full episode on our podcast in partnership with
iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app or wherever you listen
to podcasts. So now to our topic for this hour,
your reaction to the first debate between vice presidential running
mates Tim Walls and JD Vance Tolliver. The number again, please.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, it's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four
four four six four three three five three or right
to us at listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And let's meet our panel. Politico Senior Politics editor Charlie
Mettessian is with us. Charlie, Welcome to the Middle. Hi, Jeremy,
it's great to have you here. And USA Today Chief
corresponding Philip Bailly is also with us from Louisville, Kentucky. Phillip,
great to have you.
Speaker 10 (03:03):
Back, Jeremy.
Speaker 12 (03:05):
As always, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, before we get to the calls, let me hear
from each of you what stood out to you in
this debate. I'll start with you, Philip.
Speaker 12 (03:13):
Well, look, if you know, a large part of this
campaign Jeremy has been marked by this unprecedented clash. We've
had two assassination attempts, former president who has gone through
many legal trials, conversations about toning down the rhetoric. Well,
ladies and gentlemen, you got the debate of old You
have a very civil minded I mean, we all.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Thought we were going to get a bloody.
Speaker 12 (03:37):
Bruising boxing match, and we got a Midwestern romance going
on here. I mean, this was a This was old
school civility. I think for a lot of people who
may have been used to polities for the past eight years,
it feels like we all just got into the DeLorean
and went back in time to the nineteen seventies and
maybe eighties. The two men certainly had disagreements, sharp disagreements
(03:58):
on immigration, abortion, January sixth, and democracy itself. But at
the end of the day, if you notice, the two
of them will always very complimentary of each other. You know,
Senator Vance often called Governor Walls by his first name.
I think of the gun debate in the school conversation,
they definitely came off and bonded as dad's being very
empathetic to one another, often saying I agree with you,
(04:20):
I see your point, you know, Governor Walls, I see
your point, Senator Advance. So this is this is such
an odd thing that happened today because it's been defined
by how nasty our politics is. No, this was the
old school point politics that everyone says they love and
want so much.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Charlie Matesti in your thoughts on the debate.
Speaker 13 (04:39):
I think at the broadest level, they both met their mandate,
which is, you know, when you're a vice presidential nominee,
you go into a debate like this, you're only supposed
to have one of them, and your mandate is do
no harm, you know, don't screw it up for your ticket.
And I think at the end of the day, both
of them probably met the bar on that, you know,
regardless of who you think may have won or lost.
Speaker 10 (04:57):
I mean, I think they both met that bar.
Speaker 13 (04:58):
But I have to say, if talking about what struck
I agree with Philip it is the civility it was.
It was really shocking to me, and it just reminded
me that we have been conditioned in recent election to
to expect this Donnybrook to go to for you know,
the sharp elbowed, smash mouth in your face, canned lines,
just going at each other the entire time. And I
(05:20):
was a little bit stunned, in part because I was
in part because I was, I think conditioned by the
other debates, but also because yesterday there was a press
call that Republicans had in advance. They had, you know,
the way they do these for the media sometimes before
a big event like this, and they had a bunch
of Republican surrogates talking about j D I'm sorry about
(05:41):
Tim Walls and just trashing him, trashing his military record,
talking about stolen valor. In fact, Vance himself was sending
out email fundraising emails calling Walls a radical socialist, liberal,
Marxist an extremists. And then with all that set up,
we get Minnesota and or Midwestern nice.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
That really caught me off guard.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Let's get to the phones, because I'm really curious to
hear what ordinary Americans thought about this. Terrell is in Birmingham, Alabama. Terrell,
go ahead, what did you think of the debate?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I really enjoyed the debate. I thought It was very
civil in comparison to whenever Donald Trump is debating, because
he acts like a child. These two men act like men.
But I really noticed, and I didn't like. I'm a
former marine, and you know, January sixth, in my opinion,
(06:35):
that was treason on behalf of ex President Trump. A
lot of people don't want to mention that, but that's
exactly what it was. But they asked ing jd who
did Biden win the election? And he wouldn't answer that question,
and that to me, he should have answered, because you know,
(06:58):
this is America, the greatest country in the world. You
don't have to make it great again. It's already great.
But him running for vice president, he should have just
answered the question.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I thought, Terrelle, thank you very much for that, and
thank you for your service as well. Philip Bailey. One
thing that he's talking about there is at the very
end of the debate. January sixth didn't come up to
the very end of the debate. But Tim Walls was
answering a question. He turned to J. D. Vance and said,
do you believe that Donald Trump lost the twenty twenty election?
And Jadvance wouldn't answer the question. That is going to
(07:31):
be a moment probably that spins around on the internet
for the next twenty four hours.
Speaker 12 (07:36):
Well, look, Senator Vance has an audience of one in
this debate, and it's Donald Trump. He knew, as probably
others did, that if he answered that question forthrightly and
said that no, Donald Trump lost the twenty twenty election,
as everyone else with a half a brain in this
country knows that he lost in twenty twenty, that he
would probably be thrown off the ticket, or at least
a new cycle of conversation by him being thrown off
(07:58):
the ticket. Other than that, I think JD. Vance, though,
did what he was supposed to do in this but
he was the one underwater when you look at the
polls compared to Governor Wallas and also Donald Trump and
Vice President Harris So I think he came off not
as a fire breather, not as Maga Junior. He came
off as very reasonable, very polite. Again, I think I
(08:20):
don't think we can really say who won the debate.
I think both of them pretty much came out even
as as we said earlier, that they did no harm
to their top of their ticket. But I think that Vance,
more than anyone, needed to come out of here showing
that he was a likable person. And I think both
of them won the likability argument, and I think Vance
needed that more so than anyone else on that one issue. Yeah,
he's talking to Donald Trump in that conversation, in that
(08:42):
portion of the debate.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And however, many millions of people were watching that debate
is the last one with sixty seven million I think
live on TV. Let's go to Ken, who's in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Ken,
Welcome to the middle. What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Hi? Yeah, I'm just going to repeat what I told
the lady that answered I was presently prize. I don't
mean it was perfect. However, I don't take this as
a representative sampling of who vanceits what.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Do you it was an act.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I'm sorry, you know I would have known to do
the same thing. The one thing I mentioned. It's a
powerful question that the Republicans come up with. If you
have all these solutions, why are you waiting? Why haven't
you done anything in the past three or four years.
And the lady I talked to when I'm called, I
(09:29):
think she answered it. I missed it. I think she said, well,
what do you think? What do you think he didn't
have the power?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Ken, thank you for that, you know, Charlie BETESSI. And
one of the things that Ken brings up there is
that it wasn't just Vance saying that. You know, Kamala
Harris has been in office for a few years. She
could have done some of the things she's talking about.
The same argument could be made about Donald Trump, who
was in office for many years and now he's promising
new things. Yeah.
Speaker 13 (09:55):
And I think though what you saw is a big
different stylistic between the two. You know, I think Advance
was much more comfortable for a lot of the evening,
especially in the beginning. Uh took took Walls a little
time to warm up, and so he may have missed
some of the opportunities that that more polished debaters might
have had to to really poke holes in the Vance
(10:15):
argument on some of these areas that that we're talking
about here. You know, that was something that democrats in Advance,
you know, sort of warned and you know, talked a
little bit about, you know, the manic energy that that
Walls brings to debates and things like that, and you know,
the strengths he has are not really as a debater,
they're you know, in sort of approachability and and you know,
(10:37):
being able to break complex ideas down, uh into things
that that average people can understand. I think it's the
the you know, the whole suburban dad, big dad energy
persona that he brings, and so that's not always really
well suited to a debate stage where you really need
to to you know, uh thrust in parry and and
at times I think some Democrats will will will probably
(10:59):
say privately that they wished maybe he would have poked
more holes in in Dvance's arguments, but I think again
that wasn't really.
Speaker 10 (11:09):
His mission so much.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Well, tell of our vice presidential debates have given us
some very memorable moments over the years.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, look no further than this famous put down from
Democratic Senator Lloyd Benston when he faced off against Republican
Senator Dan Quayle in a nineteen eighty eight VP debate.
Speaker 14 (11:25):
I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack
Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.
Speaker 10 (11:32):
I will be prepared to deal with the people in the.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Bush administration that unfortunate then would ever occur.
Speaker 11 (11:40):
Senator Benson, Senator.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 15 (11:49):
Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine.
Speaker 10 (11:52):
Senator, You're no Jack Kennedy.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
Burn I know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Really it is worth noting, though, Tolliver, that in fact,
dan Quail did, I guess win because he became the
vice president. Benson did not. So there is that anyway.
We'll be right back with more of your reaction to
the debate coming up on the Middle. This is the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in the Middle
is a national call in show. We are focused on
elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, philosophically, or maybe
(12:23):
you just want to meet in the middle. This hour,
we're asking for your reaction to the vice presidential debate
between Tim Walls and JD Vance Tolliver. What is our number?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I'm here with USA Today Chief political correspondent Philip Bailey
and Politico Senior Politics editor Charlie Metessian. And before we
go back to the phones, Charlie We've talked about the
fact that both of these candidates are from Midwestern states.
Was there pressure therefore on both of them to appeal
in a debate like this to the geographic middle where
a lot of these swing states are.
Speaker 13 (13:02):
I think there was probably more pressure on Vance than Walls.
Walls's roll out love has been a lot more smooth.
I think, you know, he's been kind of a star
on social media. Democrats have really embraced him in every way,
whereas I think Vance's rollout was a little bit more unsteady.
You see the video circulating of the awkward donut shop encounters,
(13:25):
and it's reflected in the favorability ratings, and you know,
those are the polling ratings that are just sort of
measuring your likability with the public. And Vance is underwater,
meaning you know, he is more His ratings are higher
on the unfavorable side than the favorable side, whereas Walls
is the opposite. And so I think for Vance, part
of it was and he tried to hit at this
(13:46):
when he talked about many of you don't know me
or my story. So his mission, I think tonight was
to introduce people to him, but also to show him
in a different kind of light than I think they've
seen him on the trail, because from what they've seen,
they haven't necessarily loved him, with the childless cat ladies
comment and some other comments he's made that have seen
(14:07):
maybe unnecessarily brusque or rude. And I think this was
his first big opportunity before a pretty big audience, to
sort of change the perception surrounding him.
Speaker 10 (14:17):
And this matters.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
The favorability really matters for somebody like Vance when he's
on a ticket with Donald Trump, who has always almost
probably from the moment he was first elected president, been
under water in terms of favorability ratings, and so that
is something that gets reflected, particularly among certain demographic groups
who just can't stand them together. And so I think
(14:39):
it was very important that Vance show a different side.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Let's go to Carlos, who's in Los Angeles. Carlos, what
did you think of the debate?
Speaker 16 (14:48):
Yes, well, thank you for thinking my call. I think
that what we saw today was a massive deception by Vance.
He's a totally different person, came as a totally different person,
different message, almost enticing women that we are your saviors,
we are here for you, we are pro family in
(15:11):
all the sense of the word, when in fact they
are the opposite. We are hearing the thing message from
Trump where he's saying, I will be your protector.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
So that's what I see.
Speaker 17 (15:23):
I see right through them.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
They broke the window.
Speaker 16 (15:27):
They hide in your hand, And I ask you now,
who broke the window.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Oh my goodness, I'm here to say to you.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Carlos, thank you for that call. Philip Ale your thoughts
on what Carlo has had to say there.
Speaker 12 (15:39):
Well, look, I think you're already seeing it now. I
think early reactions. I think you're going to have some
Democrats are gonna be pretty upset because they've been revved
up on anti Trump a cocktail.
Speaker 18 (15:49):
For so long.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
They want this fight right.
Speaker 12 (15:52):
The one thing that they were very energized when the
Harris Trump debate was how Harris sort of came out
and challenged Donald Trump and was continuing to sort of
poke and prod him. Even when the microphones were muted,
you could still still hear the Vice President speaking while
Trump was speaking. And I'm already seeing reactions from a
lot of Democrats saying that I think this was just
a missed opportunity. It humanized vance, right, you didn't mention
(16:14):
the cat.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Ladies, they don't feel the way that they did about
Biden and the first debate with Trump.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
Right right.
Speaker 12 (16:20):
But I do think that there is there's a bit
of emotional transferences going on here where Democrats are really
itching for a fight and really want to take the
Trump campaign on. And I think you might have some
Democrats who are going to be disappointed that Walls didn't
go after Vance a lot in the ways that he
has been depicted on social media by a lot of
more left leaning progressive influences on TikTok and other spaces.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Let's go to Kevin, who's in Tampa Bay, Florida. Kevin,
welcome to the middle, Go ahead. What do you think
of the debate?
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Yeah, so Walls could have done better. Jd. Vance fled
a lot, and Walls did not do a good job
of repeating the lies. But the real thing that brought
(17:12):
me to call in was the whole thing about JD.
Vance talking about abortion and okay, make abortion go away
and that's fine, you pay for.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Them, okay, Kevin, thank you, thank you for that call.
Just exactly what you were talking about there, Philip. People
feeling that they didn't get what they wanted out of JD. Vance.
Let's check out what Alice has to say in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
another a swing state.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Alice, what do you think, aside from what was said
by these two guys, My impression was Wallas came across
as an all American, down home, nice guy, honest. And
then Vance when I looked at him, it was like
he was showing these narrow, sleezy eyes at the camera
(18:02):
at times.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So did it did it change your views at all?
Or did you did you sort of you just watched
it with interest. I think we lost Alice there, But yeah,
Charlie Mantessian two views there, somebody not thinking Walls did
did that great? And then and then Alice, they're not
not so happy with what she saw from J. D.
Vance and seeing an all American in Tim Walls.
Speaker 13 (18:26):
Yeah, I tend to think, like Phillip on this in
that you'll you'll hear a louder chorus coming from the left,
people who are frustrated that Walls didn't take the fight
to to Vance, only because Vance, I think really energizes
the left in a way that Walls doesn't really gin
(18:46):
up the right. And and it's important because and I
think you'll hear more of it from from the left
criticism of Walls. And again this isn't really rough criticism.
I mean, it's just people will be disappointed, and I
think because they recognize that Advance is one of the
most articulate spokesman of the MAGA wing, and he is
one of the more effective articulators of this form of
(19:10):
populist conservatism. And so I think there are a lot
of progressives that are really going to have wished that
Walls took the fight to him, that called him out
on more issues. But I think in the end, though,
when you look at what Walsh I'm sorry, was able
to accomplish, he was able to accomplish some significant things,
(19:31):
I think, particularly in terms of burnishing the ticket and
his own image, because where he really seemed to shine
behind tonight, where he seemed to get his legs was
on the human aspects of policy. When he was talking
about abortion, when he was talking about childcare, when he
was talking about guns, he was at his best. And
I think the same was true in the end. He
(19:51):
was strongest in talking about democracy in January sixth, and
so by those yardsticks, I think it will be unfair
to criticize him if Democrats are going to do that,
I think he was effective in those areas.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Tolliver some comments coming in online.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, Robert in Connecticut says, I think the debate was
extremely interesting. My favorite part was definitely when Tim Wallas
got JD. Vans to go off on a tangent about
the process to apply for asylum. So I don't believe
that either candidate clearly won. I've heard this next comment
a lot. Why doesn't anyone explain that the vice president
cannot enact policy. The only things that EP can do
(20:30):
is take over for the president in the case of
incapacitation and a break in the tie in the Senate.
Why is Harris being blamed for things she either has
not or cannot do.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I did find it interesting, Philip, to hear so much
talk about the Harris administration. There was barely a mention
of Joe Biden, who is still the president.
Speaker 12 (20:49):
Well, I think that's because the Trump campaign has learned that, Look,
you put so much stock into criticizing Biden, you have
to make Harris the incombat. She's trying to cast herself
as the change agent. You have to link her and
anchor her to the Biden administration. So you're going to
hear the Harris administration. Well, you're not even going to
(21:10):
hear much of Joe Biden. I know Donald Trump might
be upset about that, considering how much he invested in it,
but they're going to make her the incumbent. And I
think there is a vital and important question to ask
the vice president who has not really broken from President
Biden on any major issue. I know she has a
lower capital gains tax rate that she wants to propose
than Biden does, But the question is, well, what do
(21:32):
you want to do different than the current president? And
if you want to continue to do the things or
do these different things, well, why didn't you suggest them?
Why didn't you fight for them more openly in the administration.
I do still think that the vice president is going
to have to make some sort of commentary or speech
or something from a major break at some point during
their time in office where Joe Biden wanted to go
(21:52):
this way and Kamala Harris wanted to go the other way.
Otherwise you directly inherent all the baggage of the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Let's go to Mohammed, who's in Houston, Texas. Muhammad, what
did you think of the debate?
Speaker 14 (22:05):
I think it was great in terms of showing that
this is how a normal civil debate should be, like
the ones that Donald Trump is part of. It didn't
change my views about the issues that much. But since
I'm a swing voter and this is my second time
(22:25):
I vote in presidential elections, originally from Middle East, so
I'm a swing voter. I ask all America to be
a swing voter because I come from a place and
I know firsthand what party affiliation does to democracy.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
At least it.
Speaker 14 (22:44):
Weakens it, it not kills it. So I'm a swing voter,
and I'm going to be voting both Republican and Democratic
in this election. The top of the ticket, of course,
I might. I am leaning for Democrats, all those people
who run for local offices, state offices, and all that.
(23:07):
I will vote Republicans formed.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I'm going to ask you one follow up there? Does
that mean in the Senate Rate and Tech race in
Texas which is very close, are you voting for Ted
Cruz or Colin Alright?
Speaker 14 (23:21):
Yes, yes, which you know because I am I am
from Middle East. I have to think about foreign policy too,
and it comes to the American presidency. But yeah, for
local elections, I will vote Republicans, okay, and showed us
that Republicans absent Donald Trump, Republicans are real good, decent
(23:45):
people at please they act that way accent Donald Trump,
and I love that. And they are actually tough our
own crime. That's why that's one actually big reason that
I will vote Republicans for all the local elections.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, thank you Muhammad for that. And by the way, Tealver,
I think he pretended not to hear me ask the
question about which one he was going to vote. Yes,
I did, Yes, I am going to vote in that
le's you know, actually, that is an interesting question, Charlie
MATESSI do you think we're going to see a lot
of people And we have seen in the polls in
some of the key swing Senate races that maybe you
(24:22):
know in North Carolina, people are saying they're going to
vote for the Democrat in the Senate race by like
seventeen points, and yet Kamala Harris is losing in the
same poll to Donald Trump by two points. There's a
lot of split ticket voting that may happen this year.
Speaker 10 (24:35):
Yeah, sort of.
Speaker 13 (24:36):
I mean, if you believe the polls. It's a shocking
number of Senate races could be split ticket races. And
which remarkable is if you take a look and I
think there were sixty nine Senate races in twenty sixteen
and twenty twenty, sixty eight of them were won by
the candidate who was the same party as the presidential
candidate who won their state. And so that means there's
(24:59):
almost no think of voting anymore. Yet, if you look
across the battleground states now, the Democratic Senate incumbents are
ahead in almost every race. Democrats are doing really surprisingly well.
And that was true even when Biden was trailing by
you know, big deficits in the polls. And so that
is a really interesting component of what's happening here in
this election that this does seem to be happening, this
(25:21):
split ticket phenomenon, because that's a phenomenon. We haven't seen
it in a long time. We used too as a country,
do that pretty frequently. We don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Even do you think Philip Bailey, with stuff like these
abortion referenda that are on the ballots in places like
Florida and Arizona, do you think you're going to see
people who turn out to vote in favor of abortion rights,
but they'll also vote for Trump vance.
Speaker 12 (25:43):
I think that there's a possibility for that. I think
what's happened here over these past eight years is that
Donald Trump and the injection of populism into the Republican
Party has shuffled a lot of our traditional thinking about politics.
When you look at, for example, his rates with working
class voters. Right, you had union leaders speaking at the
Republican convention. So I think that some of this is
(26:05):
there's a Trump phenomenon. I think we've seen a couple
of glimpses of the post Trump Republican world with Nicky
Haley staying in the race and the support that she
was getting.
Speaker 10 (26:13):
And I think you saw a little bit of that
even with JD.
Speaker 12 (26:15):
Vantonite, who will be the natural successor to the Maga mantle.
Now that Trump has said, at least for now, that
if he loses this election, he would not run again
in twenty twenty eight, right, So I think that we've
seen this over and over again these midterms, where the
Republicans underperform on Trump's not on the ballot at all.
He's his own sort of orbit he's his own political
(26:35):
entity that brings in a certain group of people, and
no other Republican can really attract that. But there are still, though,
these right of center voters Jeremy who feel uneasy.
Speaker 10 (26:44):
And do not like Donald Trump's character.
Speaker 12 (26:46):
They feel he does not respect the rule of law.
These are still conservative people, so they're still going to
vote in a conservative way, but they do not like
Donald Trump personally.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
It sounds like the caller that we just had from Houston.
Let's go to Matthew, who's in Rock Island, Illinois. Matthew,
welcome to the middle. What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 17 (27:04):
Like everyone else has stated, it's been very civil, but
how really appreciate how there was a lot less hate
towards each other. But in addition, they really focused on
policy really well, especially on the Democratic side. I really
think they did a better job laying the foundation of
their policies and explaining it better. Due to the fact
(27:28):
that it was a very civil debate, we of course
that emphasized where we kind of lean towards, especially Democratic side,
but we try to have a little bit open mind.
But due to the fact that they did a really
good job explaining, especially on the democratic side of their policies,
laying their foundation, what they want to do, what they
(27:49):
see in the future, and being more optimistic. That really
helped us out.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Matthew, Thank you, Charlie Matessian. Do you think this was
a very unusual year because instead of the Commission on
Presidential Debates, it's non part this organization being involved. We
had the candidates, the campaigns negotiating directly with TV networks.
In this case it was CBS that got to do
this debate. Do you think that this is going to
be the model going forward?
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Now?
Speaker 13 (28:13):
If the environment stays is polarized, it's going to have
to be because I think neither side trust the Commission,
despite all of its efforts to sort of state nonpartisan,
especially the Republicans. I mean, this has been bubbling up,
you know, during the trumpy or so eight years. They've
lost all trust in the Commission, and so I think
what we see going forward will be more formats like this,
(28:36):
where there's lots of negotiations with the networks to do it,
to try and get sort of either the moderators they
think work best for them and to have more control
over the process simply because there's no trust at all
in the institutions that over time have governed our debates,
and so as a result of that, I think we
(28:57):
have to have a new model going forward.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Tolliver, we heard that Senator, you know, Jack Kennedy clip.
These debates can often come to be remembered by a
single line.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, And easily one of the most famous lines in
vice presidential debate history came from Ross Parrose nineteen ninety
two running mate Admiral James Stockdale.
Speaker 9 (29:16):
Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please, sir?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Who am I?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Why am I here?
Speaker 6 (29:28):
I'm not a politician. Everybody knows that, so don't expect
me to use the language of the Washington insider. Thirty
seven years in the Navy and only one of them
up there in Washington, and now I'm an academic.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Wow, that's so existential. I don't know who I am?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Why am I here? There was another moment, by the way,
in the nineteen ninety two debate of Tulliver of that
Admiral Stockdale, where he actually had his hearing aid turned
off and somebody said something He's like, I'm sorry, I
had my hearing aid off. You can eat that far relatable. Wow,
those are the days. We'll be right back with more
of your calls on the debate on the Middle. This
(30:05):
is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're asking you this
hour for your thoughts on the vice presidential debate between
Governor Tim Walls and Senator j d Vance. You can
call us at eight four four for Middle. That's a
four four four six four three three five three. You
can also reach out to us at Listen to the
Middle dot com. I'm joined by USA Today Chief political
correspondent Philip Bailey and Politico Senior politics reporter Charlie Mettessian Tolliver.
(30:28):
I just got a text from a listener friend in
Chicago who said, are the Are the callers tonight? On sedatives?
They do sound a little soli, but it's later in
the night, just being tired. LL let's get let's get
back to the phones. Uh and go to Chris, who's
in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Chris, Welcome to the Middle, Go ahead.
Speaker 15 (30:46):
I think I was a very interesting format that we're good.
I love the way that the first questions they came
out with where things had just happened in the first
like recently, and they talked about.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That we talked about the situation in the Middle East.
They talked about the hurricane as well.
Speaker 15 (31:06):
Yeah, and you know, nobody was wearing earrings, so you
couldn't say they was about the answers. But that being said,
ged events almost just very almost showed some humanity. And
I mean that where he started to talk about you know,
like actual problems, but then he kind of yeered off
(31:29):
into the election denial.
Speaker 8 (31:32):
And cord just lies and yeah, oh I.
Speaker 15 (31:39):
Wasn't too much of a fan of that one, Okay. Also, yeah,
like the same time, when they called out Walls for
what he said, he was like in Tianamen Square. Sure
the men may have got it wrong by a few months.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And then Vans also, so you're you're forgiving your forgiving
of Walls and this do you think Walls did okay
in this debate, Chris just briefly.
Speaker 8 (32:08):
I appose he did okay.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Thank you very much for that call.
Speaker 10 (32:12):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Charlie Mattessian another another caller there who was upset about
what they saw as as jd Vance not telling the truth.
And of course, in this debate, the moderators were not
supposed to fact check, and actually jd Vance said at
one point, in a moment that I think will probably
go viral, you weren't supposed to fact check us. That
wasn't part of the agreement.
Speaker 13 (32:35):
Yeah, I mean, it was such a big issue after
the the Trump Parish debate, and you know, I think
that looking back, the people of the network, probably and
probably the Vans team regrets that they didn't really fill
out the former the formal language on the on the
rules to the debate, you know, because there was an
understanding that there would be no formal fact checking during
(32:58):
the debate, but it was isn't totally locked down, and
I think you know, there was you see some resentment
flash there from Vance about that. But I think overall,
and you know, as the caller mentioned, and we've heard
a couple of times today, lots of folks, particularly if
you're on the left, you feel that maybe Vance was
not being himself or or hiding part aspects of him.
(33:21):
I think what we ended up seeing from him tonight,
and you saw that in him calling them out on
the fact checking, is we saw a little a bit
of a fuller spectrum JD. Vance, Meaning we've seen a
lot of the caricature of Vance out there, which is
why I think his numbers aren't great. Why you know,
he's not seen as sort of a home run of
a vice presidential pick. But today you saw, you know,
(33:44):
some of his ability to articulate policy. You saw a
little bit more approachability than you typically see out of him.
But you also saw you know, some of the the
parts of him, you know, snapping at the media and
things like that. So it's just for the first time,
I thought, on a national stage over a long period
of time, we got to see the different facets Advance.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Let's go to Daniel, who's in Kansas City, Missouri. Daniel,
welcome to the middle What did you think of the debate?
Speaker 18 (34:10):
Hi, Jeremy, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to
bring up how Jdvance seemed to kind of dodge a
few questions, specifically like how like gun violence in America
when we clearly have the highest rate of childhood gun
death in the world, that it's unspeakable and it's unaccounted
(34:36):
for in the Republican stance, like how they're going to
deal with that. But more importantly, I think it's very
important that Jdvance didn't answer the question of how they
would respond to Donald Trump. Losing this election, will they
or will they not certify electors or will they find
alternate electors? Like he doesn't have an answer that Donald
(35:00):
Trump doesn't either. We've like the parallels between the debates
that we saw a couple of weeks ago with Biden,
I'm sorry, between Trump and Harris, right, and now between
Walt and Vance, Like they're still not answering the question
if they will concede the election in a peaceful way,
(35:22):
and instead they divert to other talking points, and that's
extremely concerning to anyone who wants to like continue democracy
in any like reasonable sort of way.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
That Daniel did you think that the Tim Walls did
a good enough job in pushing back against that.
Speaker 18 (35:39):
You know, I think Tim Walls did a good job
of it in the debate, given you know, the platform
that he had. I think it's it's a tough point
when there's an entire right wing pushing against him in this,
but I think he responded very well in pointing to
(36:01):
the facts and how democracy should be run because he
and Kamala Harris have a history a track record of
upholding the Constitution and doing things the right way, and
what they're fighting against are a wing of this country
that really wants to overthrow that, and that's hard to
(36:24):
push up against when people are saying, no, we should
overthrow the entire institution. That's wrong and it's fun democratic,
and I think I think Tim Walls did a good
job of pushing up against it as this could.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Daniel, I think we've got it there, Daniel, thank you
so much for that. And Philip Bailey. A lot of
people as they as they watch this think, well, why
wasn't that question about accepting the results of the election
the election further up in the debate. Why was it
at the very end when when probably many people who
didn't love the civil policy debate that we had might
have tuned out.
Speaker 12 (37:00):
I think that some of what you're seeing in this debate,
and Charlie spoke to this a moment ago, is that
our media is very fractured. I'm very interested to see,
for example, how people who watch the Bait maybe the
first time tuning in look at Jdvans versus those who
are getting a lot of the information from cable news,
but also on social media, where Jdvance has been ripped
to shreds. To be quite honest, Democrats have done an
(37:22):
excellent job of depicting him in the most negative light,
and that's not the JD Vance who we saw on
this debate stage. Why do I think it came up
later in the debate. I'll be quite honest. I think
that the Harris campaign in particular, unlike the Biden campaign.
One of the key differences. Harris does not emphasize January
sixth in the way Joe Biden does. Joe Biden when
he was in charge of this campaign and he was
(37:43):
the nominee, the Biden campaign talked a lot about downstrapping
this threat to democracy, specifically talking about the actions of
his supporters who broke into the US Capitol on January sixth,
twenty twenty one. Harris is not doing that. She looks
at that probably more as looking to the past. He
emphasizes joy. She emphasizes turn the page and look into
the future. So the reason why I think it doesn't
(38:05):
come up as much is because Democrats are de emphasizing it.
It is not the animation of why they're coming out
to vote in this election, and an a razor within
election like this, which is exceedingly close. I think we're
hearing what the two campaigns want to talk about in
these final five weeks, Trump and Vance want to talk
about immigration and migrants in the border. Kamala Harris and
(38:25):
Governor Wallas want to talk about abortion rights, the future
reproductive rights, access of those rights by women, and the
future of the country and getting back to the civility
we saw today.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let's go to another swing state, Georgia Rachel is in Duluth.
Georgia Rachel, what did you think of the debate?
Speaker 9 (38:43):
Well, I viewed it as someone would view two boxers
in the ring. And Vance was smooth. He had a
lot of fast footwork. He did a great job. But
then Walls delivered the knockout blow in my mind when
he asked or when he brought up the topic of
(39:05):
January to sixth, and I was reminded that I am
not voting so much for Kamala, though I would love
to see a woman president, I am voting against a
very delusional man Trump.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I just want to ask you one thing, Rachel. You
say you're not voting for Kamala as much as you're
voting against Trump. What is it that you would like
to see from Kamala Harris if you were going to
actually vote for her as opposed to just voting against Trump.
Speaker 9 (39:41):
So I am not totally on board with.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Rowe.
Speaker 9 (39:49):
I want, I believe that abortion is here and it's
here to stay. But I think that we do need
guidelines as to when an abortion can be performed. And
I think that we forget that there is someone else
(40:10):
and an unborn child who does not have a voice,
and you don't hear that much anymore. It's gotten real
quiet on that front. But I search my heart, but
I'm still gonna have to vote for Kamala Harris. I
still am because I'm not going to vote for someone
(40:32):
like Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Rachel, thank you so much for calling in. I really
appreciate it. Charlie Mattessi and an interesting voice there from Georgia. Obviously,
you know, not going to vote for Trump, but it's
not happy about the Democratic position on restoring Roe.
Speaker 13 (40:50):
Yeah, and I'm surprised that we haven't heard more about
the abortion discussion tonight from callers because I was really
struck by some of Dvance's comments there. I mean, I
think I was struck by the by his you know,
claiming that he didn't support a national ban when when
clearly he has in the past but what I was
(41:13):
really surprised that was the tenor.
Speaker 10 (41:15):
Was the tone of his discussion.
Speaker 13 (41:17):
It was almost apologetic, and you know, one point saying,
you know, almost throwing himself before the mercy of the public, like, yeah,
you know, I really wish my party had handled it better.
Speaker 10 (41:27):
I wish we talked about it better.
Speaker 13 (41:30):
Which was really striking to me in the way he
was was talking about this and talking with almost like
a level of humility for the way the party has
sort of botched it and creamed back and forth.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
So that really.
Speaker 10 (41:45):
Really struck me.
Speaker 13 (41:46):
And at the same time, I was really just surprised
that he would take that approach. But it also underscores
the real trouble they're having with women voters. Like if
you take a look at the gender gap, and this
is true in any poll you look at, the gender
gap is just a chasm. This year, it might be
worse than it's been in the past. President Trump is
alas done very poorly with women voters. It may be
(42:09):
even worse now. And you can see they're really struggling
for a message. And you may remember the president's remarks
a couple of weeks ago about women never have to
worry about abortion again because of me and just sort
of these hamhanded plays for women's votes. That just shows
they're just they're listing there, they're, you know, just twisting
in the wind and trying to find any way to
sort of close that gap. And I think talk differently
(42:33):
on the issue of abortion rights.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Let's go to Amy, who's in Los Angeles, California. Amy,
what did you think?
Speaker 19 (42:40):
Well, I'm a childless cat and dog owner, our lady,
I should say, so, Yeah, I got to say I
got to agree with what you were just talking about
with abortion and the and the last caller you had.
The Democrats consistently miss a very easy lay up, in
my opinion, like when Vance was talking about the nine
months of which we that's a medical issue. That's not
(43:03):
because someone just decided, you know what, on second thought,
I'm just gonna have an abortion. It's it's almost it's
always medical, right and so to And I think Jade,
I think Walls could have just easily got out of
there and almost gotten a corner and trapped by Vance
on that, which kind of been brought some legitimacy. The
(43:23):
lie that Johnald Trump's been repeating over and over again,
despite being fact checked consistently, So I think, you know,
the abortion issue is most of abortions that happened after
like the I think twenty I think twentieth months are
because of medical issues, right. So I just wish the
Democrats were better about that because I think we could
(43:44):
get that late term abortion settled for you know, wasn't
for all because it's like less than one percent of
all abortions, and yet that's the extreme that they go to.
But the one thing I want to mention about where
I thought Walls get a really good job because JD.
Vance's job tonight was to seem likable and which seems
very almost too slick, like you said a lot of things,
(44:04):
but he didn't really say anything. Whereas Walls. I think
one of his best comebacks, and I haven't heard really
anybody talking about, is when Vance was talking about federal
lands for home building, and you know, Walls put it
in like, well, I'm in Minnesota, we don't have that
much federal land, so how are you going to solve that?
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Right?
Speaker 19 (44:21):
I thought that was just it just gave an example
of a lot of the Trump policies are not well
thought out. So there's the policy right on a.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Bar Napkin Amy.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
That is that is a topic that I did not
expect to come up in the debate. But thank you
for your call about that, you know, Philip, I think
a theme here that I'm hearing from a lot of
callers is they they they kind of wish that they
that Walls had done something slightly different than that he did,
but they were kind of on his side maybe to
(44:51):
begin with.
Speaker 12 (44:53):
Yeah, And I think it goes back to what we
were talking about earlier. I think Democrats have for a
number of years, like George mcflying back to the future,
they're going to see him punch the bully, right, they
want to see them knock out Biff Tannant, And when
that doesn't happen, there's a letdown. And I think there
were a number I mean, Walls did not bring up
the cat ladies comment at all. Right, that was a
(45:15):
layup politically, and it has been for some time for
Democrats who've leaned into that issue about Vance having these
sort of outdated beliefs about gender roles and family structure.
Walls didn't touch that. He didn't really lean heavily into
a lot of these issues. And part of that, I
think is also, look, it's not Donald Trump you're going against.
You're going against Jadyvance.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
That's not the top of the ticket.
Speaker 12 (45:35):
The two of them did go at the top of
the ticket, respectively, and I think that, you know, we
have to remember that Vice presidents of debates, you're not
voting for the VP, You're not voting for the running mate.
You're voting for the top of the ticket. So that
could be one of the reasons why Walls do want
to do that if I attack jd Vance.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
A whole lot.
Speaker 12 (45:50):
Yeah, I get a lot of cheers from the base
and the liberal base of my party, But I'm trying
to look in this exceedingly tight race where it's going
to be a handful of a really small number of
voter were deciding this. That's who the two candidates today.
I think we're speaking to not their basis.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Okay, Amazingly, we have run out of time for calls,
and I want to let our callers know if you're
still on the line, and you're welcome to leave us
a message. We do listen to all of them, or
just call in at eight four four four Middle, But
before we let our guests go, I just want to
ask each of you briefly, Charlie Mantesseian, do you think
there will be another debate between Trump and Harris before
the election.
Speaker 10 (46:25):
That's a great question. I would have said no before
the debate.
Speaker 13 (46:29):
Now I'm not so sure because I can envision a
scenario where Trump was watching it and you know, sees
that advance, did you know, held his own at least
and maybe some people think he won the debate and
will be thinking, you know, do I want him to
have the last word? And when you think about the
sort of narcissistic impulses of the former president, you know,
(46:49):
I can almost see him rethinking the position and thinking.
Speaker 10 (46:52):
You know what, that's not so hard.
Speaker 13 (46:54):
I could do that, you know, And particularly if he's
at a deficit in the polls that late in the month,
maybe I could see it.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
Now, Phillip, what do you think? Quickly?
Speaker 12 (47:02):
I think the Donald Trump's previous job before president was
he was the host of The Apprentice, and I think
shulmanship throughout his life has been the primary thought of
Donald Trump. I think he will absolutely ask for debate,
probably the week of the election, after watching the minutes.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Well, if they do it, we'll be back with another post.
Debate special on the Middle. I want to thank my
guests for the hour, Senior Politics editor of Politico Charlie
Matessian and USA Today Chief Local correspondent Phillip Bailey, who
now and always did hold the record for the most
appearances on the Middle. Thank you both so much for
twitting us. Thanks, thank you, and we'll be back later
this week asking you what the top issue for you
(47:38):
in this election is. We have the two former governors
of Tennessee, one Democrat and one Republican on our panel
for that toliber Aconologies.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
You can call us at eight four four four Middle,
or you can write to us that listen to the
Middle dot com. But you can also sign up for
our free weekly newsletter.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
The Middle is brought to you by Long Nook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmustas and John barth Our.
Intern is Anakadessler. Our technical director this week is Steve
mork Our. Theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Thanks
to the more than four hundred and ten public radio
(48:15):
stations that are making it possible for people across the
country to listen to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and
I will talk to you again later this week.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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