Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York contended that Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) was successful in navigating the moderators’ fact-checking of his claims at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, claiming he “turned it around” on the moderators.
The moderators of CBS News’s debate, Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, have been criticized for going against the network’s rules by attempting to fact-check Vance during the debate segment on immigration, prompting the senator to interject and push back with his own fact-check. York lamented that the moderators cut Vance’s microphone “just as it was getting interesting” but revealed that former President Donald Trump’s team was more content with Tuesday’s debate than the last presidential debate at ABC News.
“They viewed this as a total disaster with ABC, but they were very, very happy with Vance because, clearly, we’d heard CBS say, ‘Well, it’s up to the candidates to fact-check each other, but who’s going to fact-check us, the moderators?’” York asked on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “And that’s where Vance turned it around on them.”
York argued that Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-MN) weakest moment was when he tried to avoid answering questions about his past trips to China, eventually stating he “misspoke.” The hardest question Vance had to answer was why he now supports Trump when he used to be critical of him, according to York, who explained that Vance knew how to answer that question because he did so many times in his 2022 run for Senate.
Kennedy, a Fox News podcast host, contended that one of Vance’s strongest moments was when he addressed abortion, calling it “the warmest and most empathetic answer” he could have given. Vance said his party needs to do a better job at “earning the American people’s trust back” on the issue, stressing that he wants the Republican Party to be “pro-family in the fullest sense of the word.”
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During Tuesday night’s debate, Vance and Walz agreed on a number of topics, including congressional funding for immigration policies and decreasing gun violence within the country.
The Ohio senator’s performance at the debate has been largely praised by many within the Republican Party, with GOP strategist Ford O’Connell telling the Washington Examiner it was “one of the best VP debate performances on record.” Trump has also praised his running mate, writing on Truth Social that he “crushed” the debate.