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CNN Live Event/Special
Vance and Walz Face Off in Civil, Policy-Focused Debate; Trump Reacts to Debate Live on Social Media. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired October 02, 2024 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:46]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. It is about midnight here in New York City. We are breaking down the substance and the surprises and the first and only vice presidential debate of 2024. It began with a traditional handshake between Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.
The debate went on to be mostly civil, especially given the history of attacks in this campaign. Senator Vance and Governor Walz drew very sharp contrasts on policy while repeatedly shifting the focus to the candidates at the top of their tickets, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Take a listen to Walz and Vance as they save their sharpest lines for the presidential nominee of the other party on issue after issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter. It's clear in the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago, a nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris.
WALZ: Senator Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past. Donald Trump called it a hoax.
VANCE: We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump's border policies.
WALZ: How is it fair that you're paying your taxes every year and Donald Trump hasn't paid any federal tax in the last 15 years?
VANCE: Kamala Harris has already done it because she's been the vice president for three and a half years. She had the opportunity to enact all of these great policies and what she's actually done instead is drive the cost of food higher by 25 percent.
WALZ: When Donald Trump said I've got a concept of a plan, it cracked me up as a fourth-grade teacher because my kids would have never given me that.
VANCE: Honestly, Tim, I think you got a tough job here because you've got to play whack-a-mole. You've got to pretend that Donald Trump didn't deliver rising take-home pay, which of course he did. You've got to pretend that Donald Trump didn't deliver lower inflation, which of course he did. And then you simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris' atrocious economic record.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, this hour we're getting more reaction to this debate from our team of political watchers as well as from voters. Right now we have the first results from our instant poll of debate watchers and David Chalian has the number -- David.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, Anderson, I should note at the top, this is not a poll of registered voters or likely voters overall. This is a poll of registered voters who watched the debate. So I just want to make clear that it's about a third Democrat, a third Republican, a third independent in our sample. Overall about five percentage points more Democratic than a poll of registered voters nationwide would be. So keep that in mind as we look at these results of debate watchers.
First and foremost, who won the debate? It was basically an even split. 51 percent of debate watchers say Vance won, 49 percent say Walz won. What about expectations versus reality? So who did you think was going to win the debate? Before the debate, 45 percent said Vance would win, 54 percent said Walz. And you see it ended up 51 percent to 49 percent. So Vance bested expectations, Walz underperformed expectations of this group of debate watchers going into the debate.
And I just want to show you how this scorecard stacks up to recent vice presidential debates. You see here it looks more in the realm of 2016 and 2012, this was not an outsized lopsided victory the way we saw in 2020 or 2008. Roughly even here in how the debate watchers in this poll saw this debate tonight, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. I keep telling it's interesting.
Back here with the team in New York. Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, what do you think? What stood out to you we haven't heard from you tonight?
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. The think that stood out to me the most and that I have been seeing in my Twitter feed and group chats is that J.D. Vance says, hey, you weren't going to fact- check me. You weren't going to call me out that I'm lying to you, the American people. And I thought that was interesting because a lot of what -- J.D. Vance had a good performance tonight.
But a lot of what he said is not actually what the American people really worth think or his actual policies are, and so I think that because he presented himself in such a compelling way, that's why he outperformed the expectations from our snap poll.
[00:05:01]
The American people thought he was going to come out and talk about cats and dogs like his running mate did. But he didn't do that. He presented himself like he has a reasonable position on abortion, and so he favored better I think on the other side of the debate from our folks who watched the -- his performance.
COOPER: Scott, were you surprised by the poll, the sort of seems or even --
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, they're slightly Democratic sample. I mean, it's pretty clear. Vance outclassed Walz tonight. I mean, I was watching this and all I could think of was, man, Walz was so in over his head.
I mean, can you imagine this guy sitting in the White House situation room with that facial expression that's like 50 percent sheer terror and 50 percent extreme bafflement? I mean, it was amazing, the split- screen difference between a competent Vance and a totally in over his head Walz.
The answer on why he lied about his trips to China and the Tiananmen Square thing was probably the worst VP debate meltdown since Stockdale in '92. You know, who am I and why am I here? It was two and a half minutes of absolute terrible.
For Vance, night of redemption, all the political media has told us that Vance was a terrible pick and Walz was going to bring in all these voters, that charade is now over. Walz does not belong at this level of American politics. Vance does. Final verdict, Tim Walz wandered into the wrong bar tonight.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We missed you, Scott.
(LAUGHTER)
JENNINGS: I've been out on the bullpen. I got to get warmed.
COOPER: I got to say, Scott, you've had some time to think about that.
JENNINGS: About several hours.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There was split screen effect. I agree with you. But it was the split-screen between the J.D. Vance who's out there on the stump and the J.D. Vance who's on the debate stage, and he put on a great performance tonight. I think he was very, very good. He came out there, he wanted to be reasonable. He wanted to be cordial. He wanted, you know, all of the sort of acid lines that he delivers on the road he didn't deliver. And he probably profited from that.
You said, and I agree, if you were here earlier, I said if I were, if I were Walz, I would have delivered that line about Tiananmen Square, that answer in Chinese, and it would have been more understandable than the one he gave. But when you look at a dial group of this debate, the things that did the worst, Scott, were two things, his January 6th answer, worse than anybody, and his abortion and saying he never supported a national abortion ban, because people know that's not true. So that was one place where he couldn't do the split screen effectively because people knew too much.
GRIFFIN: And listen, do I think Josh Shapiro maybe would have been a more formidable opponent up there with J.D. Vance, absolutely. That's just simply a fact. It took Walz a while to get his footing in this debate.
What I think actually both Walz and Vance did incredibly effectively and I think that's why you see this basically split down the middle is they talked about their personal stories, their humble beginnings, and then used that to say we understand your struggles and we're going to have solutions to solve them.
And it just brings us kind of back to where we started here, which is this is a hyper close race by the hair, a hair it's going to be decided. And this is not going to move the needle.
JENNINGS: Don't you think that on these VP debates, though, there's two issues. One, does this person look like they're capable of stepping into the job? Walz totally failed on that. Vance rose to the occasion. The other thing is, people are evaluating Trump and Harris on their choices and up until now, we've been told what a terrible choice Trump made and what an inspired choice Harris made. And now the veil is off, the charade is over.
ALLISON: That's not true.
JENNINGS: And I think it calls into question, I mean, she's got to staff the whole government. This was her first choice?
ALLISON: No. I mean, I hear your talking point about he, you know, you're not attacking him that he's not a good governor. You're saying that --
JENNINGS: Oh, he's a terrible government. I am.
ALLISON: He doesn't look the part. Look, the vice president debate, like people have said, it's a do-no-harm. Tim Walz did not do harm tonight. Also, at the end of, like when we started really talking about domestic policies, abortion, J.D. Vance's answers were empty. They're we have to do better. He didn't tell actually what his policy was. He says that like our party is not doing well on this issue and rather than saying like we need to change our policy, he just went in circles.
And then Tim Walz came back and actually said what the overwhelming majority of people actually want the abortion policy to be is to at least restore Roe.
JENNINGS: Do they?
ALLISON: Yes. Because that is why in J.D. Vance's state, my home state, J.D. Vance's -- the overwhelming population of Ohio voted against J.D. Vance's stance. JENNINGS: He mentioned it. He mentioned that.
ALLISON: Yes. But then he didn't say what his position would be. He said they don't like what I believe, but I'm not going to tell you what I believe.
JENNINGS: Two things on abortion. Walz totally lied about the post- abortion infant bill, totally lied about that. And number two, he totally sidestepped the -- it is true. He totally sidestepped the question about what restrictions do you prefer just like -- I mean, he essentially ratified the position which is no restrictions.
I thought Vance talked about the issue with some compassion and he acknowledged the political reality in Ohio, which you just brought up.
[00:10:04]
ALLISON: And across the country.
JENNINGS: I couldn't believe it. It was a masterful pivot by Vance. I think he won the exchange.
GRIFFIN: On this abortion thing because I do not think that's what the Minnesota law states. I wish that Republicans would stop saying, oh, they're allowing babies to be killed once they're born. Why not talk about the fact which is actually a valid point, babies are now being resuscitated 23 weeks? They've lived in the NICU at that point. That's where you could start the conversation if you want some restrictions on abortion.
I feel like J.D. Vance is actually right to say Republicans are completely in the wrong space around the issue of reproductive rights. But he didn't offer the right solution or even identify what he thought was --
AXELROD: Well, you guys, it showed solicitude for the victims of policies that he supports. Give him credit for solicitude. Look, the policies, maybe not.
JENNINGS: I just had -- this thing in Minnesota, there were eight deaths among infants who survived abortion attempts during Tim Walz's tenure as governor. It happened. They don't want to talk about the fact that it happened. But there were children --
ALLISON: What's the source of --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: First of all, let me ask you a question since you've deeply researched this. What were the condition of these babies when they were born? What was the participation of the family --
JENNINGS: They tried to abort the babies and they survived the abortion then they died.
AXELROD: And you think that families casually tossed them aside? JENNINGS: No, I think --
AXELROD: Tell me what their conditions, Scott?
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Could they have survived and was it a case of families not wanting children to suffer who were -- when they were told that they are doomed?
ALLISON: Yes.
AXELROD: Is that --
ALLISON: And that is the reality of the case.
AXELROD: So that seems important to me.
ALLISON: But you know what, here's what I will say. Keep talking about that because when you all talk about abortion like this, it is when women and that gender gap continues to divide, not in your favor, because women, it is disrespectful to pretend like women are making choices about abortion that is the intent to just let a baby die at nine months.
Let me finish it here. And it is dishonest for J.D. Vance to go up there and try and push that narrative. And that is what I am saying when I said he presented well, but his policies and what he was saying was not truthful. It just wasn't. And that is why the overwhelming American people, since Roe has been overturned, you guys are not winning. You are not winning. And if you run on this issue, you will not win in November.
JENNINGS: They're not running on this issue. They're running on --
ALLISON: They're lying on this issue.
JENNINGS: They're running on its up to the states. And they're running on Donald Trump's moderate position of some reasonable restrictions. Rape, incest, and life of the mother.
ALLISON: They're lying.
AXELROD: Can I say something?
JENNINGS: IVF support. Moderate.
ALLISON: They're lying.
AXELROD: You are -- one of your frequent go-to points is Kamala Harris said this in 2019. That's her position. Donald Trump said women should be punished if they had an abortion. Why shouldn't we hold him to that? You talk about his moderate position. His moderate position has been adopted over the course of this campaign for purposes of this campaign, after he put the justices on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe, who've created a crisis for women who live in 20 states in this country.
JENNINGS: His position is moderate and it is in line with what I think most Americans --
AXELROD: Do you believe him when he said -- when he said that women should --
JENNINGS: And I think Harris and Walz have proven they cannot discuss even a single restriction that they want.
AXELROD: Do you believe when he said women should be punished? Do you believe that?
JENNINGS: I don't believe and no Republican wants to --
AXELROD: Do you believe -- no, but he said.
ALLISON: But he said it.
AXELROD: Do you believe him when he said it?
ALLISON: And at that time it was roundly criticized by other Republicans.
AXELROD: Did you believe him when he said it?
JENNINGS: I can tell you what Republicans believe, which is --
AXELROD: I'm just asking you what Trump believes.
JENNINGS: I'm telling you what he's running on right now.
AXELROD: I know what he's running on right now.
ALLISON: No, but he's running on is interesting because he's running on to win.
AXELROD: I know what he's running on right now.
ALLISON: He's not running on it because it's what he actually believes.
JENNINGS: Look, I get it. I would -- if couldn't articulate a single restriction, I would have attacked Trump, too.
ALLISON: This is what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believes is that it's none of your business what women do with their body and so stay out of our doctors' offices and stay out of our bed.
JENNINGS: Well, I guess I'll have to speak up for the babies. They're not here to speak for themselves. Lord, have mercy.
COOPER: Let's check back in with Jake in D.C. -- Jake.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, Lord, have mercy. We are going to talk a little bit more about the poll, the snap poll, 51 percent to 49 percent, 51 percent Vance won, 49 percent Walz won. That's two points difference with a margin of error, five points. So basically a statistical tie.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm still stuck on you quoting Uncle Jesse from "Full House."
TAPPER: No. I was quoting -- I was quoting Scott Jennings, not "Full House."
BASH: OK.
TAPPER: But just ahead, more debate reaction. We are getting some additional results from our CNN instant poll. Plus we're going to check in once again with our panel of undecided voters in Michigan. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:19:17]
TAPPER: We're getting lots of reaction to the vice presidential debate after Tim Walz and J.D. Vance squared off for the first and only time of the 2024 campaign. Right now we want to get some more results from our instant poll of debate watchers.
CNN political director David Chalian is back with us.
David, give us the latest numbers.
CHALIAN: Well, one of the things that we've talked about going into the debate is, were they going to try to enhance their favorable numbers or are they just going to try to bring up the negatives of their opponents, right? That was one of the things we're watching for. Take a look here. We asked people whether they have a favorable view of the candidates or not. Before the debate Walz was at a plus 14. So if you take his favorable minus his unfavorable, he was at a positive 14. After the debate, he's at plus 37.
[00:20:00]
And look at Vance. He did a ton of progress on his favorable ratings. We know he's been one of the most unpopular vice presidential picks out of the gate. But look at the good he did himself here. He went from a minus 22 favorable rating before the debate with this group of debate watchers to a minus three. We also asked for each one, is this person qualified to serve as president if necessary?
So Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, before the debate 62 percent said yes. After the debate, 65 percent said yes. So a slight improvement on that sort of commander-in-chief score. Same question about Vance, is he qualified to serve as president if necessary, look at the good he did here. Only 50 percent of debate watchers said yes before the debate, that went up to 58 percent after debate. Not as high as the Walz numbers.
But again, this group of debate watchers is about five percentage points more Democratic overall, than overall registered voter population would be.
TAPPER: Well, so it's interesting, so it's just basically, it keeps with what we kind of thought they were doing after the debate was over, which was they're trying to be likable. They're trying to be folks, either trying to be agreeable. They're not trying to really attack each other all that much. And it looks like they both succeeded. Vance had a lot more work that needed to be done, but they both succeeded.
CHALIAN: They both succeeded. And I would just add to that, it seemed like they were making a play for the middle at this debate and not just trying to drive out and throw out red meat for their bases and that probably contributed to this as well.
TAPPER: Probably make sense.
We also want to hear directly from some of the voters who had not yet made up their minds before watching tonight's debate. CNN's Phil Mattingly, who was sent to Michigan, battleground Michigan, joining us again right now alongside his panel of undecided voters.
Phil, you've had a little more time to speak with these lovely seven individuals. What else are they telling you?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, we're on the campus of Grande Valley State University, critical battleground state of Michigan. We started this night with seven undecided voters. That number is now six, one of our individuals here has decided he's going to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. But one of the things you guys haven't been able to see is we've really been talking about what we saw over the course of the last several hours and one of the issues that has had a pretty inspired debate amongst this group is about health care, something that came up during the debate.
We heard from Governor Tim Walz. This is what he said about the Affordable Care Act. But first, keep in mind, what you're seeing at the bottom of the screen is lines that will tell you how people are responding. This sound in particular had a significant positive response. The pink lines are for the female voters, the blue lines are for the male voters. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: He ran on the first thing he was going to do on day one was to repeal Obamacare. On day one, he tried to sign an executive order to repeal the ACA. He signed onto a lawsuit to repeal the ACA, but lost at the Supreme Court and he would have repealed the ACA had it not been for the courage of John McCain to save that bill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: So, again, you can see it, watch it live in real time on the bottom of your screen where you saw the pop.
I want to go to you because we introduced the world to your wife who was expecting last segment. Congratulations as well. You also just became an American citizen a few months ago. So this would be the first election you're voting in. But you've talked a lot about health care given the moment you're in in your life. What do you see?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So there are two main things that I really value about my family and our baby daughter that is being born soon. One is health and two is time. With health like I want to be assured that my wife and daughter are going to be healthy and safe. Time, I would love to spend time with my daughter maybe through a medical leave. But for those two, it would be really unfortunate if I can't afford it in the first place.
So any kind of assistant to that, into my family and to allow me to enjoy the health of my family as well as to spend time with my family would definitely help me decide with my vote.
MATTINGLY: I hope the family knows it's a girl. Congratulations. That's awesome. They didn't that's some breaking news.
I do want to step back with this group. Again, we noted we had seven undecided voters coming in. We have six now. For the six of you who have not decided, 35 days left, Alex, I want to start with you. What's the main issue that you're going to be looking for to make that decision?
ALEX, UNDECIDED VOTER: Absolutely. Thank you. So the biggest thing that I'm still looking at is foreign policy and international relations. Watching the debate today, it was touched on for maybe six minutes total, only on the breaking news that was happening in Iran today or in Israel today with Iran attacking them. I think that there are still so many issues at hand with international politics and seeing how our president or possible president and our vice president possibility would react to those situations is extremely crucial.
[00:25:14]
Looking at Ukraine and Russia, and looking at China and Taiwan, not just focusing on the attacks today, but kind of looking at an international relations as a whole is still probably one of the heaviest part of my decision.
MATTINGLY: Hope, what's the one issue you're keying on these last 35 days?
HOPE, UNDECIDED VOTER: So coming into this debate, I was definitely focused on how trustworthy are the candidates. I think that's still my main issue and I thought this was a great civil debate. And like how trustworthy I think the candidates are grew for both of them in my opinion, but the one thing that stuck out to me was Vance's refusal to say whether or not Trump lost the 2020 election. And then also how he kind of said that carbon may not cause climate change. And kind of just his refusal to agree with those things that most people very clearly see makes me think he's not as trustworthy. But I did like a lot of his other policies.
MATTINGLY: All right. Well, this was a great group democracy, also the deciding factor for Ryan, who did make up his mind. Just probably hang out for a couple of more hours, just talk things through.
Jake, back to you.
TAPPER: Thanks, Phil. Appreciate it.
So that's interesting. A second member of this, again, unscientific but still seven person focus group of undecided voters in battleground Michigan. A second person really not liking J.D. Vance's answer in which he refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election in which he gaslit and pretended that Donald Trump handed over power peacefully and that really bothered them.
Democrats, we should note, these people are not sitting there reading Twitter. They're in this focus group with Phil, they're in kind of like --
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP: We keep them in a silent chambers.
TAPPER: Yes, exactly.
PHILLIP: Yes. Outside --
TAPPER: And, you know, they don't know what's going on. They don't know how the political world, they're not getting texts from members of Congress like Dana does.
PHILLIP: Well, I will tell you this when we were talking about this earlier, I did get a message from a Harris campaign person who said that they're already cutting that January 6th answer for an ad. So they -- it has resonated, it resonated in the formation that they were receiving from, you know, they're surveying undecided voters, too, to try to see how this is landing. That was by far I think Tim Walz's best moment and the worst moment for J.D. Vance.
But I think it also speaks to another aspect of this, which is that J.D. Vance was trying to rehabilitate his own image and did so to a great degree. But that really hurt him. That January 6th answer really hurt him.
TAPPER: So we should note they both did themselves favors when it came to making a good impression.
BASH: Yes.
TAPPER: On viewers. Walt's favorability rating among this group of poll, people polled, the snap poll from 14 percent net approval to 37 percent net approval. And J.D. Vance went from negative 22 percent to negative 3 percent. Again, he had more of a haul, but still that is progress.
It's interesting also, Abby, what you say, because so much of what the Trump and the RNC and Harris and the DNC, what they are doing right now and all their surrogates in the media and such are trying to win the post-debate, forgot the debate, trying to win the post-debate, finding the clips, finding the bad moments for the other guy, the good moments for theirs, and mostly the bad moments for the other guy, and putting it out there on social media, on TikTok, in Facebook ads and all sorts of places that we won't even see it. And that is a battle that is going on right now.
BASH: Yes, no. It's for the people who didn't sit and watch the entire debate.
TAPPER: Which is most of the American people.
BASH: It's a lot of people, right, I mean, we know painfully so that a lot of people these days, especially younger people, get their information from the quit clips that they see online. But I will go back to this instant poll that the David Chalian just gave us. Again, all the caveats. It's unregistered voters, it's not likely voters, people who watched the debate, that --
TAPPER: Who were five percentage points more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.
BASH: Yes.
TAPPER: Yes.
BASH: And even with that caveat, especially the fact that both candidates, both of these vice presidential wannabes did so much better with the likeability factor. And that's not nothing in today's politics. It really isn't and I know that, you know, what we're doing is saying, well, Walz didn't answer this or Vance sort of glossed over that but in a time when people are disgusted by politics, yes, it wasn't exactly, you know, totally factual because of the fact that they didn't correct each other all the time. But the fact that they were cordial and by the end, Vance was calling him Tim and Walz was calling him --
TAPPER: Yes, they've never met before.
BASH: Yes. Walz was calling him Vance. And they shook hands and the wives came up.
PHILLIP: And maybe it was -- it was cordial and maybe it was effectively do no harm for both candidates, to a degree.
[00:30:12]
But I do think that J.D. Vance had to make up some ground, and clearly, in our poll, which showed that he did. He's still a little bit underwater, but that was mainly what he had to do tonight. And it looks like he did it.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead, we're going to give you more of our CNN instant poll of the vice-presidential debate. Did this face-off do anything to change voters' minds about who they would support at the top of the ticket? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ANDERSON COOPER, ANN ANCHOR: And welcome back. You're watching CNN's special coverage as we get more reactions to tonight's vice- presidential debate here in New York between Governor Tim Walz and Senator J.D. Vance.
[00:35:07]
During the debate, Donald Trump was busy sharing his thoughts on Truth Social, as he's wont to do. Let's get more on that from Kristen Holmes. So, I have not looked myself. Kristen, what did he post on the -- what was going on?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, one of the things that was actually probably the most notable was the fact that he finally said that he would veto a national abortion ban if he was re-elected into office.
Now, this is what he posted during this debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. He said, "EVERYONE KNOWS I WOULD NOT SUPPORT A FEDERAL ABORTION BAN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES AND WOULD, IN FACT, VETO IT, BECAUSE IT IS UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE BASED ON THE WILL OF THEIR OWN VOTERS."
Now the real point here, Anderson, is that not everybody knew that, because during the last debate, between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, he was asked repeatedly. He was pressed on the issue. Would you veto this ban if it came across your desk? And he refused to answer that.
In fact, J.D. Vance had said in an interview that Donald Trump would veto a national abortion ban if he was re-elected, and when asked about that in the debate, he said he hadn't talked -- Trump said he hadn't talked to Vance about it.
Not only that, he said I don't think he was speaking for me. Later, Vance said that he learned a lesson about speaking out ahead of Donald Trump.
But this really comes at a time, again, when Donald Trump has tried to walk this fine line when it comes to abortion. He knows it's not a political winner. He doesn't want to engage on the topic.
But he also wants to take full credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. One of the reasons, we suspected, told by some of Trump's closest allies, that he wouldn't fully embrace this idea of a veto was because he wanted to appeal to the right.
Clearly, here he has moved a step further. They're saying he would, in fact, veto a national abortion ban if it came across his desk -- Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Kristen, thanks very much.
Right now, let's take another look at some of the results from our brand-new instant poll of debate watchers. Dave Chalian is digging in for -- to the numbers. David, when you were talking about this with Jake a short time ago,
you showed some really interesting numbers that, basically, this debate improved the favorables for both candidates. Both candidates' kind of approval went up.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, they definitely did some good work. Both of them did on that.
Take a look at some more findings from our instant poll, Anderson. We asked, who's more in touch with people like you? Forty-eight percent of debate watchers say Walz; 35 percent say J.D. Vance.
Who shares your vision for America? Another Walz win here: 48 percent say Walz; 39 percent say Vance.
This is really intriguing to me. Who did a better job of defending their running mate? You know, sort of bolstering the top of the ticket. Well, here, Vance scores best: 37 percent say he did a better job of that; 33 percent said Walz; and 27 percent said both of them did a good job at that; only 3 percent said neither of them did.
Did the debate affect your presidential choice? Right? We talk about does the V.P. debate matter? Well, here's your answer. Only 1 percent said that it changed their mind: 1 percent of Harris supporters, 1 percent of Trump supporters say it changed your mind.
So, the answer there is overwhelmingly minds were not changed by this debate, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, David Chalian. Back with the team here in New York.
It is interesting to see these -- these numbers, because for all of the concerns about, well, J.D. Vance, you know, was -- or Walz -- for Democrats that Walz was, you know, not up to the job of debating, I mean, their favorabilities both went up.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think they both sort of played to their strength, right? J.D. Vance is a professional public personality. Like, he -- he's excellent on TV shows and comfortable in an -- in an arena like this.
Walz is a very genuine, authentic guy. And he speaks in a language and an idiom that people hear.
I was looking at some numbers from a focus group. And it reflects exactly what this -- this was a dial group -- exactly what was said here. And Walz made more progress than Vance. Neither presidential candidate gained much from their performance.
So, you know, professional political commentators can say what they will. But people judge through a different lens, and they see in Walz kind of authenticity and genuineness and identification with them.
COOPER: Do you think this changes, Alyssa, given what you know about the former president, the calculus about whether there'll be another debate, presidential debate? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I still think there's a chance that Donald Trump wants to do another president debate, even though J.D. Vance performed well. I think he likes to have the final word. I think he loves a camera, and he sees the benefits of getting in front of one.
So, if this is still neck-and-neck, I could absolutely see him deciding to do one.
This -- I think what this underscores is that the public is so thirsty for a little bit of civility and decency on our politics. And J.D. Vance has never made that kind of a capstone of who he is in American life. But tonight, he showed a different side of him.
[00:40:04]
Why he can't behave this way more often is beyond me, but I think people were just happy to see handshakes, introducing spouses, acknowledging each other, showing empathy, things that we really did not see in the presidential debate.
And by the way, if we have another presidential debate, I don't think we're going to see them --
AXELROD: You're not going to see it again.
GRIFFIN: enjoy it while it lasted, folks.
COOPER: Do you think that this -- I mean, does this change. This doesn't change -- I mean, Scott, you know, you don't think this changes the game at all?
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think it changes the outcome of the election.
I don't think -- but I do think it can give you some opportunity. It's like, so Tim Walz, go out and start communicating with people, having more direct conversations.
I even think he should do a few more interviews with different publications, more local than -- don't look at me like that.
COOPER: Isn't the point of doing that to get better for the debate? Not to, like --
ALLISON: No, no, because -- because I don't think these debates are determinative of voters' behavior, particularly vice-presidential debate.
I think that voters will listen -- read their local newspaper. So, if Tim Walz goes and has a conversation, goes to ice-cream shop or a pizza shop or wherever, and has a conversation with a local newspaper, he can get his message out there.
What I will say, though, is that I do wish he would have pushed back a little bit more on J.D. Vance the way Kamala Harris showed up and pushed back and knocked out Donald Trump.
COOPER: It was interesting to me, even during the Harris debate, she clearly had thought of, or their team had thought about the cutaway shots of her watching, because these debates are just split-screen debate.
It didn't seem like there was any thought given to this one. For J.D. Vance, it seemed like there was thought given to it, because he had the same kind of expression of sort of a slight smile, sort of listening, not really, you know, gesticulating or reacting.
Walz was just sort of turned fully looking. It was not --
ALLISON: He did look at the moderators every time he wanted to say something. And like, when -- when I was watching it on television, it was kind of like a pick me, kind of teacher moment, I felt like from him, which was a little weird. But --
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, he didn't, like, do the jazz hands or whatever, which he does it a lot at the rallies, so that was a step in the right direction from a theatrical perspective. Walz, I mean.
I don't understand something. Why is it that -- I mean, he's like a serial exaggerator or fabricator of his own personal narrative.
He's been asked about it twice, once by Dana Bash, once in this debate. And in both cases, he sort of defaulted to some, like in Dana's case, it was I don't have good grammar. Tonight, I think he said, you know, well, I'm just a knucklehead.
Why can't you just sort of own up to it? I don't understand. I know you said you -- people think he's authentic and, you know, this is just who he is.
But he has clearly gone way over the line on his own personal narrative, something that only he would know the facts of. And he's done it repeatedly.
And when asked about it, effectively, he's just like, well, I'm--
AXELROD: There's -- there's no doubt that there are places where, you know, for example, on the gun thing. We -- I don't know whether you were here when we talked about this earlier, whether we were on the air.
But he was -- there was video at one event in which he misspoke. Didn't put it in literature, didn't put it in an ad. There's no -- so far as we know, another example of it. He misspoke. You can call that as part of serial exaggeration.
I agree with you, though. Be straightforward, own up to it. But if you're going to be concerned about serial exaggeration and misstatements, and biographical rewriting, and so on. It's really hard to sit here as an advocate for Donald Trump.
JENNINGS: You're right. Somebody in the press should absolutely spend a lot of time focusing on Donald Trump and all the things he said.
Look, of course. Of course you're right. But Walz, why is he held to a different standard?
Why -- why is it OK for him to just kind of slough it off when it's not really OK for either --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: They asked about whether he --
JENNINGS: I know, but you're giving him -- I mean, you've got -- no one seems to care. You care deeply about every time Donald Trump does something like this. And I'm the first one to admit that he does it.
But you don't seem to care as much when Walz or Harris does it.
AXELROD: I'll tell you what I cared about tonight. I cared about the way J.D. Vance presented Donald Trump's role, relative to January 6.
That was more than a slight exaggeration. That was a complete rewriting of history on something that was a heck of a lot more serious than some of the things that -- that Walz has said.
COOPER: Well, still ahead, which vice-presidential candidate veered farther from the truth tonight? We'll get a debate fact check, next.
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[00:48:55]
TAPPER: Here in Manhattan, Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz just wrapped up their vice-presidential debate, effectively getting the last word in this race for the White House before an audience this large, unless of course, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris agree to debate again before election day.
Fingers crossed. We've made the invitation. Harris has accepted.
Tonight's debate was civil. The question of how factual it was, is another matter. Let's find out from our fact checker, Daniel Dale, what he thinks -- Daniel.
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Jake, it certainly wasn't a perfect debate from Governor Walz from a fact-checker's perspective, but I think there was more inaccuracy from Senator Vance.
And I think Vance had the two biggest whoppers of the night, both of them actually in what he left out, rather than what he said.
Listen to his claims about Trump's post-election behavior in 2020 and early 2021.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He said that on January the sixth, the protesters ought to protest peacefully.
And on January the 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the president; Donald Trump left the White House. He peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This is a pretty wild rewriting of history. Trump peacefully gave over power on January the 20th?
[00:50:04]
Sure, Trump did not, like, lock himself in the Oval Office, but he left office after trying extremely hard to not give over power. We all know this. He tried to manipulate everyone from the American public to state elections officials to state legislators, to the Justice Department, to his very own vice president. He helped trigger a deadly riot.
And then Vance said Trump called for a peaceful protest on January 6? Yes, Trump did that once in that January 6 speech, after calling supporters to Washington with a promise it would be wild; spending weeks, weeks, whipping them into a frenzy with lies about the election, Vice President Pence's non-existent power to overturn the result.
And then, in that same January 6 speech, using combative language far more often than that calming language, saying things like, if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore; when you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules; you'll never take back our country with weakness, on and on.
Now, let's turn to another egregious distortion of history from Senator Vance, this one on Obamacare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: When Obamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and healthcare costs, Donald Trump could have destroyed the program. Instead, he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: Casting Donald Trump as the savior of Obamacare, I think, is bananas.
Donald Trump tried very hard to repeal Obamacare. The only reason it was not repealed in 2017 was because he barely couldn't find enough Republican votes in Congress.
And then he tried to undermine Obamacare in various ways. He cut the open enrollment period in half. He slashed funding for advertising and for people who help other Americans sign up. He ended a key set of subsidies for insurers. His administration refused to defend some critical provisions of the
law in court, instead, arguing that they should, indeed, be invalidated. I could go on.
So yes, Trump did keep operating the Obama exchanges. He didn't completely give up on it. But casting him as the savior of Obamacare, I think, Jake, is pretty dishonest.
TAPPER: All right, Daniel. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
Those were some fairly stark -- I mean, there -- in politics, we get used to people fibbing, embellishing, but those were some pretty direct, black is white, day is night, gaslighting examples. The idea that Donald Trump supported a peaceful transfer of power. The idea that Donald Trump tried to save Obamacare.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, it's -- it's too clever by half. It's just straight up not true.
But that is actually what J.D. Vance is there to do. I mean, he's there to be the person who can do sort of Trumpism in a way that sounds nice to more people and is more polished.
And in many ways, I mean, talking to many Republicans over the last several months, there are a lot of Republicans who make the case for Trump's candidacy way better than Trump himself does.
Trump rarely executes these arguments in ways that are coherent. And Vance has been really the only person out there doing it for him.
And tonight, he did it. Look, I think that they kind of both ended up net positive at the end of this. But there were some key moments there that I think Walz sort of let slide and allowed Vance to improve his reputation with voters a little bit.
TAPPER: Just so our viewers -- I just want to make sure that people understand. Triumph, you can come over here. Triumph, do want to come? We're live on CNN.
This is Triumph, the insult dog.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Just so you know, it's almost 1 a.m.
TAPPER: This is Triumph, the insult comic, Robert Smigel's brainchild, and was floating around behind. And I just wanted to make sure people understood.
ROBERT SMIGEL, VOICE OF TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG: So, people aren't -- it's Meemaw. J.D.'s Meemaw.
TAPPER: So, I don't know that you're miked. He is miked.
SMIGEL: I'm miked.
TAPPER: All right.
SMIGEL: I'm miked. And you're stuck with me.
TAPPER: We're not going to make fun of J.D. Vance's grandmother, but we do appreciate the comedy -- comedy artistry of Robert Smigel and Triumph. Thank you.
SMIGEL: The Hulkster. How about the Hulkster?
TAPPER: And the Hulk --
SMIGEL: I'm here to spin for the -- for J.D. Vance.
TAPPER: So -- so good to see you. Thank you.
SMIGEL: OK.
TAPPER: Back to the topic -- back to the topic at hand.
J.D. Vance is doing what Donald Trump wants him to do, what the campaign wants him to do. And when you heard Donald Trump Jr. earlier in the night, say that was a master class, that's -- that is exactly what -- why they wanted J.D. Vance in that job, in that role.
BASH: Right. But the J.D. Vance on the debate stage tonight is not the J.D. Vance we have seen on the campaign trail, at rallies, doing the interviews that he's been doing. It's just not.
I mean, he has been very much trying to defend and explains Donald Trump's positions. Tonight, he glossed over the controversial positions that Donald Trump has.
That -- that when it when it comes to abortion, No. 1, when it comes to Obamacare, the issues that Donald Trump disagrees with Kamala Harris on that are very popular with a lot of swing voters. Vance pretended like it wasn't a difference at all.
[00:55:10]
TAPPER: CNN's Kaitlan Collins is going to pick up our debate coverage, along with an update on the crisis in the Middle East after this break. Thanks for watching.
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