CLEVELAND, Ohio — Senator JD Vance ended the first and final Vice Presidential debate with Governor Tim Walz by falsely claiming former President Donald Trump had transferred power peacefully. Vance also refused to acknowledge President Biden won the election and wouldn’t say he wouldn’t challenge a Trump-Vance election loss even if all governors certified it.
Before that, I thought the biggest debate loser were the two CBS News moderators, Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell, cutting off discussion of Vance’s defamation of Springfield, Ohio’s legal Haitian immigrants eating cats, dogs and geese, along with the two female anchors failure to ask Vance about sounding like he’s been campaigning to “Make Misogyny Great Again.”
Gov. Walz also missed immediately calling out Vance for saying the Haitian immigrants in Springfield were illegal. Moderator Margaret Brennan did briefly correct Vance on that, but when Vance balked and then began to falsely misrepresent how the Haitians gained legal status, Brennan cut him off and O’Donnell joined her, both saying they had other issues they had to get to. Stunning tone deafness.
Stunning because the moderators had just said immigration was one of the biggest issues for voters and many of those other issues Brennan and O’Donnell said they had to get to haven’t made headlines like Vance’s Springfield slander has. That slander by the Senator from Ohio has led directly to bomb threats against Springfield schools, businesses and events. Vance and Trump’s defamation has now been denounced strongly by Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine.
For those reasons, the Springfield story should have been one of the top questions O’Donnell and Brennan had asked Vance about, if not the first. It was sad to see O’Donnell and Brennan fit the stereotype of Major League network anchors being paid $millions be so out-of -ouch and tone deaf. They both have been better than that.
Making Brennan and O’Donnell’s skipping over Springfield worse is that they later had prolonged questioning of Walz misspeaking about having been in Hong Kong during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown by China. Walz had been in Hong Kong that summer, but not in June.
So Walz gets grilled for misspeaking in 1989, but Vance spewing lies in 2024 about Springfield and Haitian immigrants before and during the debate just gets short shrift. Wow!
Walz was remiss himself not joining Vance insisting the moderators continue the Springfield discussion.
Between Vance’s spewing on Springfield in the beginning and election denialism in the end, he actually came off uncharacteristically reasonable and was sympathetic on some situations. With polls showing Vance’s approval rating in the negative, and Walz’s positive, Vance tried out a new tone.
Though Vance blatantly lied claiming he never favored a complete abortion ban, Vance did say he heard the message Ohio voters sent when they passed the abortion rights amendment to the state’s constitution.
Off that, Vance argued he and Republicans have to earn people’s trust back on the abortion issue. One way for Vance to earn back the trust is to stop spewing his Springfield slander and keep off the red “Make Misogyny Great Again’ cap.
