Who won? Here are last night's key VP debate moments

NEW YORK - Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz faced off on stage Tuesday night and engaged in a policy-heavy discussion while throwing jabs at their opposing running mates. 

In what may be the last debate of the 2024 race, Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Ohio’s Republican senator met just five weeks before Election Day, and followed a debate in August between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Walz and Vance outlined the policy and character differences between Harris and Trump, while trying to introduce themselves to the country in what was largely a civil exchange.

The debate also played out as the deadly Hurricane Helene ravaged the U.S. Southeast, a strike shut down ports along the East Coast and Gulf Coast, and Iran fired missiles at Israel. 

Here are some of the night’s key moments:

Walz, Vance focus attacks on opposing running mates

Both Vance, 40, and Walz, 60, focused most of their attacks not necessarily on each other, but rather on Trump and Harris. Both sought to convey a more genial appearance while criticizing their opposing running mates, a reflection of how most voters don’t cast a ballot based on the vice president alone.

Walz attacked Trump for failing to meet his pledge to build a physical barrier across the entire U.S.-Mexico border at the country’s southern neighbor’s expense.

"Less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime," Walz said.

During a back-and-forth about immigration, Vance said to his opponent, "I think that you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does."

The mic cut moment

In one of the evening's more contentious moments, CBS News briefly cut off the microphones of the candidates during an exchange when Vance objected to an attempt by moderator Margaret Brennan to correct something he said about immigration.

After Vance had talked about illegal immigrants overwhelming some American cities like Springfield, Ohio, Brennan interjected that the Haitians that had moved to that city were there legally.

"Since you're fact-checking me, it's important to say what is actually going on," Vance said.

After briefly letting Vance speak, Brennan interrupted him and said it was time to move on to other issues. They spoke over each other, until CBS News muted the microphones of both Vance and Walz.

"Gentlemen, the audience can't hear you because your mics are cut," Brennan said.

Prior to the debate, CBS News had said it would be up to the two candidates — and not the moderators Brennan and Norah O'Donnell — to fact-check each other, and that the journalists would encourage them to do so. Vance said that it appeared CBS News was breaking the rules it had set down.

The moment was a reminder of the difficulty that news outlets organizing debates this political season are facing in trying to point out in real time statements that are misleading or untrue.

Walz has stumbles, ‘misspoke’ about Tiananmen Square

During the debate, Walz had several verbal stumbles and admitted to "misspeaking" often. 

In the opening moments of the debate, he confused Iran and Israel when discussing the Middle East. At one point Walz said he had "become friends with school shooters." 

He also stumbled through an explanation of inaccurate remarks about whether he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. 

After a seven-week demonstration in Beijing led by pro-democracy students, China’s military fired heavily on the group on June 4, 1989, and left at least 500 people dead. CNN previously posted a 2019 radio interview in which Walz stated he was in Hong Kong on the day of the massacre, when publicly available evidence suggests he was not. 

At Tuesday night’s debate, Walz was asked about misleading people and he ultimately when pressed said he "misspoke." But Walz said that he will "talk a lot," and can "get caught up in rhetoric." He added that "I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect. And I’m a knucklehead at times." 

But the governor noticeably put Vance on the defensive over abortion and, near the end of the debate, with a pointed question about whether Trump won the 2020 election.

Vance on 2020 election, Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

At the end of the debate, Vance would not answer Walz’s direct question of whether Trump indeed lost the 2020 election.

Vance sought to turn the issue to claims that the "much bigger threat to democracy" was Democrats trying to censor people on social media. But Walz continued on.

"This one is troubling to me," said Walz, noting that he’d just been praising some of Vance’s answers. He rattled off the ways Trump tried to overturn his 2020 loss and noted that the candidate still insists he won that contest. 

Then Walz asked Vance if Trump actually lost the election, to which Vance responded by asking if Harris censored people.

"That is a damning non-answer," said Walz, noting that Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, wasn’t on the debate stage because he stood up to Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, and presided over Congress’ certification of the former president’s loss.

"America," Walz concluded, "I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump."

Walz, Vance spar on immigration stalemate

Both Walz and Vance agreed that the number of migrants in the U.S. illegally is a problem. But each laid the blame on the opposing presidential nominee.

Vance echoed Trump by repeatedly calling Harris the "border czar" and suggested that she, as vice president, single-handedly rolled back the immigration restrictions Trump had imposed as president. The result, according to Vance, is an unchecked flow of fentanyl, strain on state and local resources and increased housing prices around the country.

Harris was never asked to be the "border czar" and she was never specifically given responsibility for security on the border. She was, however, tasked by Biden in March 2021 with tackling the "root causes" of migration from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and pushing leaders there and in Mexico to enforce immigration laws. Harris was not empowered to set U.S. immigration policy — only the president can sign executive orders and Harris was not empowered as Biden’s proxy in negotiations with Congress on immigration law.

Meanwhile, Walz echoed Democrats’ arguments that Trump single-handedly killed a bipartisan Senate deal to tighten border security and boost the processing system for immigrants and asylum seekers. 

Republicans backed off the deal, Walz noted, only after Trump said it wasn’t good enough.

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