There’s a long history of vice presidential debates producing memorable moments that end up having little effect on who voters end up choosing to be president.
In 1992, then-Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen humiliated his Indiana colleague, Dan Quayle, during their sole matchup when Quayle was asked about his relative lack of experience in government.
The Hoosier State senator, who had only been the upper chamber for a term and a half when George HW Bush chose him as his running-mate, replied that he had the same amount of experience as then-Massachusetts Senator John F Kennedy when he ran against Vice President Richard Nixon during the 1960 election.
Bentsen’s response instantly became the stuff of political legend. The Texan, who served in the House of Representatives from 1948 to 1955 and was first elected to the upper chamber in 1971, turned to his younger colleague and delivered a brutal takedown.
“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,” he said.
Bentsen’s smackdown of Dan Quayle was such a memorable evisceration of the Hoosier that even after Bush and Quayle defeated him and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, Vice President Quayle’s public image never really recovered.
It’s not clear whether Tuesday’s tete-a-tete between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance will be remembered for any zingers of that caliber.
For 90 minutes, Donald Trump’s running-mate and Kamala Harris’s running-mate sparred on a variety of topics on which each displayed varying levels of comfort and produced some moments that didn’t necessarily reflect well on either of them.
Walz, a fast talker who appeared a bit flustered at times compared with the Ivy League educated Vance, made a memorable gaffe when he and the Buckeye State senator were answering questions on how to best address the plague of gun violence that has seen the country endure countless school shootings in recent years.
The Minnesota governor was attempting to describe how he changed his position on an assault weapons ban after meeting with parents whose children had died in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre when he said he’d “made friends with school shooters,” rather than reiterate a point he’d made earlier about becoming close with the shooting victims’ family members.
And Vance had a cringe-worthy moment early on when he became so insistent on calling Haitian refugees who’ve been granted temporary protected status “illegal immigrants” — something they are not — that moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell were forced to fact check him.
After that, he became so irate and talked over the moderators so aggressively with his complaints that they were forced to mute his microphone to regain control of the debate.
In text messages with The Independent and in public statements, Trump campaign sources reacted with glee to their vice presidential pick’s performance and Walz’s shaky moments. They predictably claimed that Vance had “dominated” the debate within seconds of the moderators bidding viewers good night.
But the Trump campaign’s characteristic braggadocio failed into take into account a moment that took place just seconds before the moderators called for the second — and final — commercial break of the evening.
It was as Vance attempted to answer the final question of the evening that he laid bare the entire reason that he was standing on a debate stage with Walz at all.
After O’Donnell, the veteran anchor of the network’s nightly newscast, asked Vance about his assertion that he would have not voted to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and pressed him on whether he’d vote to certify a Harris victory this year, Vance attempted to dodge the query by stating that he was “focused on the future.”
He then launched into a bizarre rant in which he reiterated largely baseless claims about the “threat of censorship” posed by Democrats and how Harris — not Trump — is the true “threat to democracy” before closing with a claim that Russia’s interference in the 2020 election — something that was investigated and confirmed by the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee — amounted to “$550,000 worth of Facebook ads” and nothing more.
Walz responded with a question, asking Vance directly if Trump had indeed lost the 2020 election. And when Vance again said he was “focused on the future,” Walz pointed out that his GOP opponent had delivered a “damning non-answer.”
But the Minnesotan wasn’t done. After Vance droned on some more about the “censorship” threat he attributed to Democrats, he delivered a winning shot that one Democratic operative amounted to “game, set and match.”
Whether Trump lost the election, Walz said was “not a debate,” because he had lost the election.
“This is not a debate. It’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world. Because look, when Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on the stage,” he said.
“What I’m concerned about is, where is the firewall with Donald Trump — where is the firewall if he knows he could do anything, including taking an election and his vice president’s not going to stand up?”
He finished his answer by telling voters that they have a “real clear choice” between the two vice presidential candidates — one who would “honor democracy” and another who would “honor Donald Trump.”
Walz’s final answer to the final question of the debate was the last thing viewers saw before each candidate delivered their canned closing statements.
And Vance’s refusal to answer Walz’s question made Walz’s follow-up that much more brutal. He gave the Minnesota governor an opening to point out that the only reason that the Ohioan was present on the debate stage in the first place is because the last person to share a ticket with Donald Trump — former vice president Mike Pence — isn’t running again because Trump disavowed him after sending an angry mob of his supporters to the Capitol to lynch him.
Vance’s entire reason for being on the GOP ticket is because Trump needed a new running-mate — and because his previous one has refused to endorse him and has continuously called him unfit to serve as president. And he gave Walz the exact opening he needed to hammer that point home to voters.
One Harris campaign operative called the Ohio senator’s blunder “just unreal” in a text message. They added later: “I cannot believe he fucked that up so badly.”
Another Harris campaign source told The Independent that a campaign focus group of undecided voters appeared to feel the same way.
Those voters watched the debate equipped with dials to register their agreement or disagreement with what was being said on stage.
The source, who watched the dial focus group results in real-time, said that exchange was “a real moment” that provided “the biggest gap all night among the focus group (highest for one candidate, and lowest for the other).”
“Walz scored highly standing up for the Constitution, and Vance tanked defending Trump,” they said.