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CNN Live Event/Special
Vice Presidential Debate. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired October 01, 2024 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: We are less than a minute away from the vice-presidential debate here in New York City. The Democratic and Republican nominees are getting ready to take their places on stage. I'm Anderson Cooper. This is CNN's special live coverage of debate night in America.
[21:00:12]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And I'm Jake Tapper. I am in the spin room of the debate here at CBS. After weeks of sparring from afar, it's time for Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to go head-to-head. This debate making history as the last currently scheduled major television event in the race for the White House with the potential to influence the neck-and-neck contest between Harris and Trump. CNN's live coverage of the CBS vice presidential debate begins right now.
(VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE)
NORAH O'DONNELL, MODERATOR: Tonight, we're just over a month to go until election day. The first and only meeting between the two man who hope to become vice president on United States. Democratic Governor Tim Walz Of Minnesota and republican Senator J.D Vance of Ohio.
MARGARET BRENNAN, MODERATOR: Now this is likely the final debate of this election cycle, and voting is already underway in 20 states. CBS news polling shows this remains a race either presidential candidate could win. The CBS news vice presidential debate starts now.
(Begin Video Clip)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), REPUBLICAN VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Fight for every single vote and we are going to take this country back.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), DEMOCRATIC VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And we are ready to continue to build the future together.
VANCE: Were going to turn this whole country red with President Donald J. Trumps leadership.
WALZ: You know, it's at the end of this little journey. Kamala Harris says the next president of the United States.
(End Video Clip)
ANNOUNCER: This is a CBS News Special Live from CBS News Headquarters in New York. "America Decides: The Vice-Presidential Debate"
O'DONNELL: Good evening. I'm Norah O'Donnell, and thank you for joining us for tonight's CBS News vice presidential debate.
We want to welcome our viewers on CBS, on other networks here in the U.S. and around the world.
We have a consequential night ahead, and our focus is the issues that matter to you, the voter.
Let's introduce the candidates, Minnesota's Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Ohio's Republican Senator J.D. Vance, tonight meeting for the first time.
BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan.
In order to have a thoughtful and civil debate, these are the rules that both campaigns have agreed to. Questions will be directed at one candidate, who will have two minutes to respond. The other candidate will be allowed two minutes for rebuttal. Then each candidate will get another minute to make further points, with an additional one minute each at the discretion of the moderator.
The primary role of the moderators is to facilitate the debate between the candidates, enforce the rules and provide the candidates with the opportunity to fact-check claims made by each other.
O'DONNELL: CBS News reserves the right to mute the candidates' microphones to maintain decorum. We have not shared the questions or topics with the campaigns. The stage is set.
Governor, Senator, thank you for joining us. Let's get started.
O'DONNELL: CBS News reserves the right to mute the candidates' microphones to maintain decorum. We have not shared the questions or topics with the campaigns. The stage is set.
Governor, Senator, thank you for joining us. Let's get started.
Tonight, our country is facing several unfolding crises. The Middle East is on the brink of war. Americans are suffering from the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene, and now a labor strike, as 25,000 dockworkers from Maine to Texas are picketing.
We're going to begin tonight with the Middle East -- Margaret.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Norah.
Earlier today, Iran launched its largest attack yet on Israel, but that attack failed, thanks to joint U.S. and Israeli defensive action. President Biden has deployed more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel and assets to that region over the past year to try to prevent a regional war.
Iran is weakened, but the U.S. still considers it the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it has drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon.
It is down now to one or two weeks' time.
Governor Walz, if you were the final voice in the Situation Room, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran?
You have two minutes.
WALZ: Well, thank you.
And thank you for those joining in home tonight.
Let's keep in mind where this started. October 7, Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 Israelis and took prisoners. Iran -- or Israel's ability to be able to defend itself Is absolutely fundamental, getting its hostages back fundamental, and ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
But the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there. You saw it experienced today, where along with our Israeli partners and our coalition able to stop the incoming attack.
But what's fundamental here is, that steady leadership is going to matter. It's clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.
[21:05:05]
But it's not just that. It's those that were closest to Donald Trump that understand how dangerous he is when the world is this dangerous. His chief of staff, John Kelly, said that he was the most flawed human being he'd ever met.
And both of his secretaries of defense and his national security advisers said he should be nowhere near the White House. Now, the person closest to them, to Donald Trump, said he's unfit for the highest office. That was Senator Vance.
What we've seen out of Vice President Harris is we've seen steady leadership. We've seen a calmness that is able to be able to draw on the coalitions to bring them together, understanding that our allies matter. When our allies see Donald Trump turn towards Vladimir Putin, turn towards North Korea, when we start to see that type of fickleness around holding the coalitions together, we will stay committed. And as the vice president said today is, we will protect our forces and our allied forces and there will be consequences.
BRENNAN: Governor, your time is up. Senator Vance, the same question. Would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? You have two minutes.
VANCE: So, Morgan, I want to answer the question. First of all, thanks, Governor. Thanks to CBS for hosting the debate and thanks most importantly, the American people who are watching this evening and caring enough about this country to pay attention to this vice presidential debate.
I want to answer the question, but I want to actually give an introduction to myself a little bit because I recognize a lot of Americans don't know who either one of us are.
I was raised in a working-class family. My mother required food assistance for periods of her life. My grandmother required Social Security help to raise me and she raised me in part because my own mother struggled with addiction for a big chunk of my early life.
I went to college on the GI Bill after I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq. And so, I stand here asking to be your vice president with extraordinary gratitude for this country, for the American dream that made it possible for me to live my dreams.
And most importantly, I know that a lot of you are worried about the chaos in the world and the feeling that the American dream is unattainable. I want to try to convince you tonight, over the next 90 minutes, that if we get better leadership in the White House, if we get Donald Trump back in the White House, the American dream is going to be attainable once again.
Now, to answer this particular question, we have to remember that as much as Governor Walz just accused Donald Trump of being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence.
People were afraid of stepping out of line. Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they're now launching against our allies, and God forbid, potentially, launching against the United States as well.
Donald Trump recognized that for people to the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world.
Now, you asked about a preemptive strike, Margaret, and I want to answer the question. Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they're fighting the bad guys. I think that's the right approach to take with the Israel question.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Senator. Governor Walz, do you care to respond to any of the allegations?
WALZ: Well, look, Donald Trump was in office. We'll sometimes hear a revisionist history, but when Donald Trump was in office, it was Donald Trump who we had a coalition of nations that had boxed Iran's nuclear program in, the inability to advance it. Donald Trump pulled that program and put nothing else in its place. So, Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump's fickle leadership. And when Iran shot down an American aircraft in international airspace, Donald Trump tweeted because that's the standard diplomacy of Donald Trump. And when Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as headaches.
Look, our allies understand that Donald Trump is fickle. He will go to whoever has the most flattery or where it makes sense to him. Steady leadership like you witnessed today, like you witnessed in April, both Iranian attacks were repelled. Our coalition is strong and we need the steady leadership that Kamala Harris is providing.
BRENNAN: Senator Vance, the U.S. did have a diplomatic deal with Iran to temporarily pause parts of its nuclear program and President Trump did exit that deal. He recently said, just five days ago, the U.S. must now make a diplomatic deal with Iran because the consequences are impossible. Did he make a mistake? You have one minute.
VANCE: Well, first of all, Margaret, diplomacy is not a dirty word, but I think that's something that Governor Walz just said is quite extraordinary. You yourself just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. And Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump. Who has been the vice president for the last three and a half years? And the answer is you're running mate, not mine.
[21:10:08]
Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure. Now, we talk about what -- the sequence of events that led us to where we are right now, and you can't ignore October 7, which I appreciate Governor Walz bringing up, but when did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris.
So, Governor Walz can criticize Donald Trump's tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world. Donald Trump has already done it once before. Ask yourself at home, when -- when was the last time, I'm 40 years old. When was the last time that an American President didn't have a major conflict breakout? The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was President.
BRENNAN: Gentlemen, we have a lot to get to. Norah?
O'DONNELL: Margaret, thank you. Let's turn now to Hurricane Helene. The storm could become one of the deadliest on record. More than 160 people are dead and hundreds more are missing. Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger, and more deadly because of the historic rainfall.
Senator Vance, according to CBS News polling, seven in ten Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change. Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change? I'll give you two minutes.
VANCE: Sure. So, first of all, let's start with the Hurricane, because it's an unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy. I just saw today, actually, a photograph of two grandparents on a roof with a six year old child. And it was the last photograph ever taken of them because the roof collapsed and those innocent people lost their lives. And I'm sure Governor Walz joins me in saying our hearts go out to those innocent people, our prayers go out to them, and we want as robust and aggressive as a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible.
And then, of course, afterwards, to help the people in those communities rebuild. I mean, these are communities that I love. Some of them I know very personally in Appalachia, all across the southeast, they need their government to do their job. And I commit that when Donald Trump is President again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster. And Norah, you asked about climate change. I think this is a very important issue.
Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it's important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer, but one of the things that I've noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions. This idea that carbon emissions drives all of the climate change. Well, let's just say that's true, just for the sake of argument.
So, we're not arguing about weird science. Let's just say that's true. Well, if you believe that, what would you want to do? The answer is that you'd want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you'd want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we're the cleanest economy in the entire world. What have Kamala Harris' policies actually led to?
More energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world. And when I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they're doing per unit of economic output. So, if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite.
O'DONNELL: Governor Walz, you have two minutes to respond.
WALZ: Well, we got close to an agreement because all those things are happening. Look, first of all, it is a horrific tragedy with this hurricane. And my heart goes out to the folks that are down there, in contact with the governors. I serve as Co Chair of the Counsel of Governors. As we work together on these emergency managements, governors know no partisanship. They work together.
So, all of the governors and the emergency responders are on the ground. Those happen on the front end. The federal government comes in, makes sure they're there, that we recover. But we're still in that phase where we need to make sure that they're staying there, staying focused. Now, look, coming back to the climate change issue, there's no doubt. This thing roared onto the scene, faster and stronger than anything we've seen. Senator Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past.
Donald Trump called it a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in. What we've seen out of the Harris administration, now the Biden administration, is we've seen this investment. We've seen massive investments, the biggest in global history that we've seen in the Inflation Reduction Act, has created jobs all across the country. 2,000 in Jeffersonville, Ohio, taking the EV technology that we invented and making it here. 200,000 jobs across the country. The largest solar manufacturing plant in North America sets in Minnesota.
WALZ: But my farmers know climate change is real. They've seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back. But what they're doing is adapting. And this has allowed them to tell me, look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybean, and I harvest wind. We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We're also producing more clean energy.
[21:15:13]
So, the solution for us is to continue to move forward, that climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical, but this is not a false choice. You can do that at the same time you're creating the jobs that we're seeing all across the country. That's exactly what this administration has done.
We are seeing us becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the current. And that's what absolutely makes sense. And then we start thinking about, how do we mitigate these disasters?
O'DONNELL: Thank you.
Senator, I want to give you an opportunity to respond there.
The governor mentioned that President Trump has called climate change a hoax. Do you agree?
VANCE: Well, look, what the president has said is that if the Democrats, in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership, if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America.
And that's not what they're doing. So, clearly, Kamala Harris herself doesn't believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump's energy policies.
Now, something Governor Walz said I think is important to touch upon, because, when we talk about clean energy, I think that's a slogan that often the Democrats will use here. I'm talking, of course, about the Democratic leadership.
And the real issue is that, if you're spending hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of American taxpayer money on solar panels that are made in China, number one, you're going to make the economy dirtier. We should be making more of those solar panels here in the United States of America.
WALZ: They are, in Minnesota.
VANCE: Some of them are, Tim, but a lot of them are being made overseas in China, especially the components that go into those solar panels.
So, if you really want to make the environment cleaner, you have got to invest in more energy production. We haven't built a nuclear facility, I think, one, in the past 40 years.
O'DONNELL: Senator...
VANCE: Natural gas, we got to invest more in it. Kamala Harris has done the opposite. That's raised energy prices and also meant that we're doing that worse by the climate.
O'DONNELL: Senator, your time is up.
Governor, would you like to respond?
WALZ: Well, look, we're producing more natural gas than we ever have. There's no moratorium on that. We're producing more oil.
But the folks know. And my -- like I said, again, these are not liberal folks. These are not folks that are Green New Deal folks. These are farmers that have been drought one year, massive flooding the next year. They understand that it makes sense.
Look, our number one export cannot be topsoil from erosion from these massive storms. We saw it in Minnesota this summer. And thinking about how do we respond to that, we're thinking ahead on this. And what Kamala Harris has been able to do in Minnesota, we're starting to weatherproof some of these things.
The infrastructure law that was passed allows us to think about mitigation in the future. How do we make sure that we're protecting by burying our power lines? How do we make sure that we're protecting lakefronts and things that we're seeing more and more of?
But to call it a hoax and to take the oil company executives to Mar-a- Lago, say, give me money for my campaign and I will let you do whatever you want, we can be smarter about that. And an all-above energy policies exactly what she's doing, creating those jobs right here.
O'DONNELL: Governor, your time is up.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the Earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate -- Margaret.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Norah.
We're going to turn now to immigration. The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border consistently ranks as one of the top issues for American voters. Senator Vance, your campaign is pledging to carry out the largest mass deportation plan in American history, and to use the U.S. military to do so. Could you be more specific about exactly how this will work?
For example, would you deport parents who have entered the U.S. illegally and separate them from any of their children who were born on U.S. soil? You have two minutes.
VANCE: So, first of all, Margaret, before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding.
We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump's border policies, 94 executive orders, suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens, massively increasing the asylum fraud that exists in our system.
That has opened the floodgates. And what it's meant is that a lot of fentanyl is coming into our country. I had a mother who struggled with opioid addiction and has gotten clean. I don't want people who are struggling with addiction to be deprived of their second chance because Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our communities at record levels.
So you have got to stop the bleeding. You have got to reimplement Donald Trump's border policies, build the wall, reimplement deportations.
And that gets me to your point, Margaret, about, what do we actually do? So we have got 20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country. What do we do with them? I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants.
VANCE: About a million of those people have committed some form of crime, in addition to crossing the border illegally. I think you start with deportations on those folks. And then I think you make it harder for illegal aliens to undercut the wages of American workers. A lot of people will go home if they can't work for less than minimum wage in our own country.
[21:20:06]
And, by the way, that will be really good for our workers, who just want to earn a fair wage for doing a good day's work. And the final point, Margaret, is, you ask about family separation.
Right now, in this country, Margaret, we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost. Some of them have been sex trafficked, some of them hopefully are at homes with their families, some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules.
The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris's wide-open southern border. And I'd ask my fellow Americans to remember when she came into office, she said she was going to do this.
Real leadership would be saying, you know what? I screwed up. We're going to go back to Donald Trump's border policies.
I wish that she would do that. It would be good for all of us.
BRENNAN: Governor, do you care to respond to any of those specific allegations, including that the vice president is, quote, letting in fentanyl and using kids as drug mules among other things, regarding children?
WALZ: Yeah, well, the drug mule is not true. But I will say about this about the fentanyl because this is a crisis of this, the opioid crisis.
And the good news on this is is the last 12 months saw the largest decrease in opioid deaths in our nation's history. Thirty percent decrease in Ohio, but there's still more work to do.
But let's go back to this on immigration. Kamala Harris was the attorney general of the largest state and a border state in California. She's the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions.
But, look, we all want to solve it. I -- most of us want to solve this, and that is the United States Congress, that's the Border Patrol agents, that's the Chamber of Commerce, that's most Americans out here.
That's why we had the fairest and the toughest bill on immigration that this nation's seen. It was crafted by a conservative senator from Oklahoma, James Lankford. I know him. He's super conservative but he's a man of principle, wants to get it done.
Democrats and Republicans worked on this piece of legislation. The Border Patrol said this is what we need in here, these are the experts. And the Chamber of Commerce and "The Wall Street Journal" said pass this thing. Kamala Harris helped get there.
Fifteen hundred new border agents, detection for drugs, DOJ money to speed up these -- the adjudications on this, just what America wants.
But as soon as it (ph) was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this, Donald Trump said no, told them to vote against it because it gives him a campaign issue. It gives him -- what would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things?
And they need to be done by the legislature. You can't just do this through the executive branch.
So, look, we have the options to do this.
Donald Trump had four years. He had four years to do this and he promised you, America, how easy it would be. I'll build you a big beautiful wall and Mexico will pay for it.
Less than 2 percent of that wall got built and Mexico didn't pay a dime. But here we are again, nine years after he came down that escalator, dehumanizing people and telling them what he was going to do.
As far as a deportation plan, at one point, Senator Vance said it was so unworkable to be laughable.
So that's where we're at. Pass the bill. She'll sign it.
BRENNAN: Governor, your time is up.
Senator, the question was, will you separate parents from their children even if their kids are U.S. citizens? You have one minute.
VANCE: Margaret, my point is that we already have massive child separations, thanks to Kamala Harris's open border.
I didn't accuse Kamala Harris of inviting drug mules. I said that she enabled the Mexican drug cartels to operate freely in this country, and we know that they use children as drug mules and it is a disgrace and it has to stop.
Look, I think what Tim said just doesn't pass the smell test. For three years, Kamala Harris went out bragging that she was going to undo Donald Trump's border policy. She did exactly that.
We had a record number of illegal crossings. We had a record number of fentanyl coming into our country. And now, now that she's running for president, or a few months before, she says that somehow she got religion and cared a lot about a piece of legislation.
The only thing that she did when she became the vice president -- when she became the appointed border czar was to undo 94 Donald Trump executive actions that open the border.
This problem is leading to massive problems in the United States of America. Parents who can't afford health care. Schools that are overwhelmed.
It's got to stop and it will when Donald Trump is president again.
BRENNAN: Senator, your time is up.
Governor, what about our CBS News polling which does show that a majority of Americans, more than 50 percent, support mass deportations?
WALZ: Look, we fix this issue with a bill that is necessary, but the issue on this is this is what happens when you don't want to solve it. You demonize it. And we saw this.
And Senator Vance -- and it surprises me on this -- talking about and saying, I will create stories to bring attention to this. That vilified a large number of people who were here legally in the community of Springfield. The Republican governor said it's not true, don't do it.
There's consequences for this. There's consequence -- we could come together. Senator Lankford did it. We could come together and solve this if we didn't let Donald Trump continue to make it an issue.
[21:25:06]
And the consequences in Springfield were, the governor had to send state law enforcement to escort kindergarteners to school.
I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this, but by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point. And when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings.
VANCE: Tim --
BRENNAN: Governor -- Governor, your time is up. Senator, I'll give you one minute, but let me just ask you the question first. The governor has made the point, and I think as a sitting lawmaker, you know that Congress controls the purse strings and any funding.
So you have said repeatedly that Donald Trump would, through executive action, solve this. Do you disagree that Congress controls the purse strings and would need to support many of the changes that you would actually want to implement?
You have one minute.
VANCE: Look, Margaret, first of all, the gross majority of what we need to do with the southern border is just empowering law enforcement to do their job. I've been to the southern border more than our borders are. Kamala Harris has been, and it's actually heartbreaking because the border patrol agents, they just want to be empowered to do their job.
Of course, additional resources would help, but most of this is about the president and the vice president empowering our law enforcement to say, if you try to come across the border illegally, you've got to stay in Mexico. You've got to go back through proper channels.
Now, Governor Walz brought up the community of Springfield, and he's very worried about the things that I've said in Springfield.
Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you've got schools that are overwhelmed. You've got hospitals that are overwhelmed. You have got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.
The people that I'm most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris' open border. It is a disgrace, Tim. And I actually think, I agree with you, I think you want to solve this problem, but I don't think that Kamala Harris does.
BRENNAN: Senator, your time is up. Governor, you have one minute to respond.
WALZ: Yeah, well, it is law enforcement that asked for the bill. They helped craft it. They're the ones that supported it. It was -- that's because they know we need to do this.
Look, this issue of continuing to bring this up, of not dealing with it, of blaming migrants for everything. On housing, we could talk a little bit about Wall Street speculators buying up housing and making them less affordable, but it becomes a blame.
Look, this bill also gives the money necessary to adjudicate. I agree it should not take seven years for an asylum claim to be done. This bill gets it done in 90 days. Then you start to make a difference in this, and you start to adhere to what we know, American principles.
I don't talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 25:40 talks about, to the least amongst us, you do unto me. I think that's true of most Americans. They simply want order to it. This bill does it, it's funded, it's supported by the people who do it, and it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Governor. And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status.
Norah?
VANCE: Margaret, but --
BRENNAN: Senator, we have so much to get to. Thank you.
VANCE: Margaret, I think it's important because --
O'DONNELL: We're going to turn out of the economy. Thank you.
VANCE: Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren't going to fact check. And since you're fact checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on. So there's an application called the CBP One app, where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.
That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Senator.
VANCE: That is the facilitation of a legal immigration, Margaret, by our own leadership.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process. We have so much to get to, Senator.
WALZ: Those laws have been on the books since 1990.
BRENNAN: Thank you, gentlemen. We want to have --
VANCE: The CBP One app has not been on the books since 1990. It's something that Kamala Harris created, Margaret. BRENNAN: Gentlemen, the audience can't hear you because your mics are cut. We have so much we want to get to. Thank you for explaining the legal process.
Norah.
O'DONNELL: Thank you, Margaret. The economy is a top concern for voters. Each of your campaigns has released an economic plan. So let's talk about the specifics.
Governor Walz, Vice President Harris unveiled a plan that includes billions in tax credits for manufacturing, housing and a renewed child tax credit. The Wharton School says your proposals will increase the nation's deficit by $1.2 trillion. How would you pay for that without ballooning the deficit?
Governor, I'll give you two minutes.
WALZ: Yeah, thank you. And Kamala Harris and I do believe in the middle class because that's where we come from. We both grew up in that. We understand.
So those of you out there listening tonight, you're hearing a lot of stuff back and forth. And it's good. It's healthy. That's what this is supposed to happen.
You should be listening. How's this going to impact me? The bold forward plan that Kamala Harris put out there is one is talking about this housing issue. The one thing is there's three million new houses proposed under this plan with down payment assistance on the front end to get you in a house.
[21:30:15]
A house is much more than just an asset to be traded somewhere. It's foundational to where you're at.
And then making sure that the things you buy every day, whether they be prescription drugs or other things, that there's fairness in that. Look, the $35 insulin is a good thing, but it costs $5 to make insulin. They were charging $800 before this law went into effect.
As far as the housing goes, I've seen it in Minnesota, 12 percent more houses in Minneapolis. Prices went down on rent 4 percent. It's working.
And then making sure tax cuts go to the middle class, $6,000 child tax credit. We have one in Minnesota, reduces childhood poverty by a third. We save money in the long run, and we do the right thing for families.
And then getting businesses off the ground. The law, as it stands right now, is $5,000 tax credit for small business, increasing that to 50,000.
Now, this is a philosophical difference between us. Donald Trump made a promise, and I'll give you this, he kept it. He took folks to Mar-a- Lago, said "You're rich as hell. I'm going to give you a tax cut." He gave the tax cuts that predominantly went to the top class. What happened there was an $8 trillion increase in the national debt, the largest ever.
Now he's proposing a 20 percent consumption, or sales tax on everything we bring in. Everyone agrees, including businesses, it would be destabilizing it. It would increase inflation and potentially lead to a recession.
Look, this is simple for you. Where are we going? Kamala Harris has said, to do the things she wants to do, we'll just ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share. When you do that, our system works best; more people are participating in it; and folks have the things that they need.
O'DONNELL: Senator, I want to give you a moment to respond on that. But, similarly, the Wharton School has done an analysis of the Trump plan and says it would increase the nation's deficit by $5.8 trillion. My question is the same for you. How do you pay for all that without ballooning the deficit?
I'll give you two minutes.
VANCE: Well, first of all, you're going to hear a lot from Tim Walz this evening, and you just heard it in the answer, a lot of what Kamala Harris proposes to do. And some of it, I'll be honest with you, it even sounds pretty good.
Here's what you won't hear, is that 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; drive the cost of housing higher, by about 60 percent; open the American southern border and make middle-class life unaffordable for a large number of Americans.
If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle-class problems, then she ought to do them now, not when asking for a promotion, but in the job the American people gave her three and a half years ago. And the fact that she isn't tells you a lot about how much you can trust her actual plans.
Now, Donald Trump's economic plan is not just a plan, but it's also a record. A lot of those same economists attack Donald Trump's plans, and they have Ph.D.'s, but they don't have common sense and they don't have wisdom. Because Donald Trump's economic policies delivered the highest take-home pay in a generation in this country, 1.5 percent inflation, and to boot, peace and security all over the world.
So when people say that Donald Trump's economic plan doesn't make sense, I say look at the record. He delivered rising take-home pay for American workers.
Now, Tim admirably admits that they want to undo the Trump tax cuts. But if you look at what was so different about Donald Trump's tax cuts, even from previous Republican tax cut plans, is that a lot of those resources went to giving more take-home pay to middle-class and working-class Americans. It was passed in 2017, and you saw an American economic boom unlike we've seen in a generation in this country.
That is a record that I'm proud to run on, and we're going to get back to that common-sense wisdom so that you can afford to live the American dream again. I know a lot of you are struggling. I know a lot of you are worried about paying the bills. It's going to stop when Donald Trump brings back common sense to this country.
O'DONNELL: Governor, do you want to respond to that? What has Kamala Harris done for the middle class?
WALZ: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Kamala Harris's day one was Donald Trump's failure on COVID that led to the collapse of our economy. We were already, before COVID, in a -- in a manufacturing recession. But 10 million people out of work, the largest percentage since the Great Depression, 9 million jobs closed on that. That was day one, whether it was the Infrastructure Act or other things we moved.
Now, you -- you made a question about experts, said this. I made a note of this. "Economists don't -- they can't be trusted. Science can't be trusted. National security folks can't be trusted."
Look, if you're going to be president, you don't have all the answers. Donald Trump believes he does. My pro tip of the day is this. If you need heart surgery, listen to the people at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, not Donald Trump.
And the same thing goes with this. And I ask you out there, teachers, nurses, truck drivers or whatever, 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, and the last year as president?
[21:35:04]
That's what's wrong with the system. There's a way around it, and he's bragged about that. We're just asking for fairness in it, and that's all you want.
O'DONNELL: You have a minute.
VANCE: Yes, Governor, you say trust the experts. But those same experts for 40 years said that if we shipped our manufacturing base off to China we'd get cheaper goods. They lied about that. They said if we shipped our industrial base off to other countries, to Mexico and elsewhere, it would make the middle class stronger. They were wrong about that.
They were wrong about the idea that if we made America less self- reliant, less productive in our own nation that, it would somehow make us better off. And they were wrong about it. And for the first time in a generation Donald Trump had the wisdom and the courage to say to that bipartisan consensus, we're not doing it anymore. We're bringing American manufacturing back, we're unleashing American energy, we're going to make more of our own stuff.
And this isn't just an economic issue. I've got three beautiful little kids at home, 7, 4, and 2. And I love them very much, and I hope they're in bed right now. But look, so many of the drugs, the pharmaceuticals that we put in the bodies of our children are manufactured by nations that hate us. This has to stop. And we're not going to stop it by listening to experts. We're going to stop it by listening to commonsense wisdom, which is what Donald Trump governed on.
O'DONNELL: Senator, your time is up.
Governor Walz, can you address that? I mean, voters say they trust Donald Trump on the economy. Why?
WALZ: Well, if you're listening tonight and you want billionaires to get tax cuts, you heard what the numbers were. Look, I'm a union guy on this. I'm not a guy who wanted to ship things overseas. But I understand that, look, we produce soybeans and corn. We need to have fair trading partners. That's something that we believe in. I think the thing that most concerns me on this is Donald Trump was the guy who created the largest trade deficit in American history with China.
So the rhetoric is good. Much of what the senator said right there, I'm in agreement with him on this. I watched it happened, too. I watched it to my communities. And we talk about that. But we had people undercutting the right to collectively bargain. We had right to work states made it more difficult. We had companies that were willing to ship it over. And we saw people profit. Folks that -- folks that are venture capitalist in some cases, putting money into companies that were overseas.
We're in agreement that we bring those home. The issue is Donald Trump is talking about it. Kamala Harris has a record. 250,000 more manufacturing jobs just in out of the IRA.
VANCE: May I respond to that?
O'DONNELL: Yes.
VANCE: So I appreciate that. So if you notice what Governor Walz just did is he said first of all Donald Trump has to listen to the experts. And then when he acknowledged that the experts screwed up, he said, well, Donald Trump didn't do nearly as good of a job as this --
WALZ: No, that's a gross generalization.
VANCE: -- that he did. So what Tim Walz is doing -- and honestly, Tim, I think you've 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've simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris's atrocious economic record which has made gas, groceries and housing unaffordable for American citizens. I was raised by a woman who would sometimes go into medical debt so that she could put food on the table in our household. I know what it's like to not be able to afford the things that you need to afford. We can do so much better.
To all of you watching, we can get back to an America that's affordable again. We've just got to get back to common sense economic principles.
WALZ: I hope we have a conversation on health care then.
O'DONNELL: Senator, Governor, thank you.
WALZ: Please.
O'DONNELL: Margaret?
BRENNAN: We have a lot to get to ahead, gentlemen, on many topics. But right now I want to talk about personal qualifications.
The vice president is often the last voice the president hears before making consequential decisions. We want to ask you about your leadership qualities.
Governor Walz, you said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. But Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are reporting that you actually didn't travel to Asia until August of that year. Can you explain that discrepancy? You have two minutes.
WALZ: Yes. Well, and to the folks out there who didn't get at the top of this. Look, I grew up in small rural Nebraska, a town of 400. A town that you rode your bike with your buddies until the street lights come on. And I'm proud of that service.
I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms. And then I used the G.I. Bill to become a teacher, passionate about it. A young teacher. My first year out I got the opportunity in the summer of '89 to travel to China. 35 years ago to be able to do that. I came back home and then started a program to take young people there.
We would take basketball teams. We would take baseball teams. We would take dancers. And we would go back and forth to China. The issue for that was, was to try and learn. Now, look, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. They -- look, I will be the first to tell you, I have poured my heart into my community. I've tried to do the best I can. But I've not been perfect.
And I'm a knucklehead at times. But it's always been about that. Those same people elected me to Congress for 12 years. And in Congress I was one of the most bipartisan people working on things like farm bills that we got done. Working on veterans' benefits. And then the people of Minnesota were able to elect me to governor twice.
[21:40:15] So, look, my commitment has been from the beginning, to make sure that I'm there for the people, to make sure that I get this right. I will say more than anything, many times I will talk a lot, I will get caught up in the rhetoric.
But being there, the impact it made, the difference it made in my life. I learned a lot about China. I hear the critiques of this.
I would make the case that Donald Trump should have come on one of those trips with us. I guarantee you he wouldn't be praising Xi Jinping about COVID, and I guarantee you he wouldn't start a trade war that he ends up losing. So, this is about trying to understand the world. It's about trying to do the best you can for your community, and then it's putting yourself out there and letting your folks understand what it is.
My commitment, whether it be through teaching, which I was good at, or whether it was being a good soldier or was being a good member of Congress, those are the things that I think are the values that people care about.
BRENNAN: Governor, just to follow up on that. The question was, can you explain the discrepancy?
WALZ: No, just -- all I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So, I will just -- that's what I've said. So, I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Governor. Senator Vance, in 2016, you called your running mate Donald Trump unfit for the nation's highest office and you said he could be America's Hitler. I know you've said you've been asked many times and you've said you regret those comments and explained you then voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
But The Washington Post reported new messages last week in which you also disparaged Trump's economic record while he was president. Writing to someone in 2020, quote, "Trump thoroughly failed to deliver his economic populism."
You're now his running mate. And you've shifted many of your policy stances to align with his. If you become vice president, why should Americans trust that you will give Donald Trump the advice he needs to hear and not just the advice he wants to hear? You have two minutes.
VANCE: Well, first of all, Margaret, because I've always been open and sometimes, of course, I've disagreed with the president, but I've also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump.
I was wrong, first of all, because I believe some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people, rising wages, rising take home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans, a secure southern border. A lot of things, frankly, that I didn't think he'd be able to deliver on. And yes, when you screw up, when you misspeak, when you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people about it. It's one of the reasons, Margaret, why I've done so many interviews is because I think it's important to actually explain to the American people where I come down on the issues and what changed.
Now, you pointed out to messages from 2020. Margaret, I've been extremely consistent that I think there were a lot of things that we could have done better in the Trump administration the first round. If Congress was doing its job. I strongly believe, and I've been a United States senator, that Congress is not just a high-class debating society, it's not just a forum for senators and congressmen to whine about problems. It's a forum to govern.
So, there were a lot of things on the border, on tariffs, for example, where I think that we could have done so much more if the Republican Congress and the Democrats in Congress had been a little bit more better about how they govern the country. They were so obsessed with impeaching Donald Trump, they couldn't actually govern.
And I want to talk about this tariff issue in particular, Margaret, because, you know, Tim just accused this of being a national sales tax. Look, the one thing -- and you're not -- you know, probably surprised to hear me praising Joe Biden, but the one thing that Joe Biden did is he continued some of the Trump tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs. And it's the one issue -- the most pro worker, part of the Biden administration, it's the one issue where Kamala Harris has run away from Joe Biden's record.
Think about this, if you're trying to employ slave laborers in China at $3 a day, you're going to do that and undercut the wages of American workers unless our country stands up for itself and says, you're not accessing our markets unless you're paying middle class Americans a fair wage.
BRENNAN: Senator, your time is up. Nora.
O'DONNELL: Thank you. Now, to the issue of reproductive rights. Governor Walz, after Roe vs. Wade was overturned, you signed a bill into law that made Minnesota one of the least restrictive states in the nation when it comes to abortion. Former President Trump said in the last debate that you believe abortion, quote, "in the ninth month, is absolutely fine." Yes or no? Is that what you support? I'll give you two minutes.
WALZ: That's not what the bill says. But look, this issue is what's on everyone's mind. Donald Trump put this all into motion. He brags about how great it was that he put the judges in and overturned Roe vs. Wade. 52 years of personal autonomy. And then he tells us, oh, we send it to the states. It's a beautiful thing.
[21:45:15]
Amanda Zaworski (ph) would disagree with you on it's a beautiful thing. A young bride in Texas waiting for their child at 18 weeks. She has a complication, a tear in the membrane.
She needs to go in. The medical care at that point needs to be decided by the doctor. And that would have been an abortion. But in Texas, that would have put them in legal jeopardy. She went home, got sepsis, nearly dies, and now she may have difficulty having children.
Or in Kentucky, Hadley Duvall, a twelve year old child raped and impregnated by her stepfather. Those are horrific. Now, when got asked about that, Senator Vance said, two wrongs don't make a right. There is no right in this. So, in Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe vs. Wade. We made sure that we put women in charge of their healthcare. But look, this is not where, if you don't know Amanda or a Hadley, you soon will.
Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It's going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access to infertility treatments. For so many of you out there listening, me included, infertility treatments are why I have a child. That's nobody else's business. But those things are being proposed.
And the catch all on this is, well, the states will decide what's right for Texas might not be right for Washington. That's not how this works. This is basic human right. We have seen maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas, outpacing many other countries in the world. This is about healthcare. In Minnesota, we are ranked first in health care for a reason. We trust women. We trust doctors.
O'DONNELL: Senator do you want to respond to the Governor's claim? Will you create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency?
VANCE: No, Norah, certainly we won't. And I want to talk about this issue because I know a lot of Americans care about it, and I know a lot of Americans don't agree with everything that I've ever said on this topic. And you know, I grew up in a working class family in a neighborhood where I knew a lot of young women who had unplanned pregnancies and decided to terminate those pregnancies because they feel like they didn't have any other options.
And you know, one of them is actually very dear to me. And I know she's watching tonight, and I love you. And she told me something a couple years ago that she felt like if she hadn't had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.
And I think that what I take from that, as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party, we've got to do so much better of a job at earning the American peoples' trust back on this issue where they frankly just don't trust us. And I think that's one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do.
I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies. I want it to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there's so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options.
Now, of course, Donald Trump has been very clear that on the abortion policy specifically, that we have a big country and it's diverse. And California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona. And the proper way to handle this, as messy as democracy sometimes is, is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy. And I think that's what makes the most sense in a very big, a very diverse, and let's be honest, sometimes a very, very messy and divided country.
O'DONNELL: Governor, would you like to respond and also answer the question about restrictions?
WALZ: Yes. Well, the question got asked, and Donald Trump made the accusation that wasn't true about Minnesota. Well, let me tell you about this idea that there's diverse states. There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care.
Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth. The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right to control your own body is determined on geography? There's a very real chance had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. That's why the restoration of Roe vs. Wade.
When you listen to Vice President Harris talk about this subject, and you hear me talk about it, you hear us talking exactly the same. Donald Trump is trying to figure out how to get the political right of this. I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said about what's happening. His running mate, though, does not. And that's the problem.
O'DONNELL: Governor, your time is up. Senator, let me ask you about that. He mentioned it was, I think, referring to a national ban. In the past, you have supported a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. In fact, you said, if someone can't support legislation like that -- quote -- "You are making the United States the most barbaric, pro- abortion regime anywhere in the entire world."
[21:50:21]
My question is, why have you changed your position?
VANCE: Well, Norah, first of all, I never supported a national ban.
I did during -- when I was running for Senate in 2022 talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial-birth abortion ban in this -- in place in this country at the federal level. I don't think anybody's trying to get rid of that, or at least I hope not, though I know that Democrats have taken a very radical pro-abortion stance.
But, Norah, you know one of the things that's it changed is, in the state of Ohio, we had a referendum in 2023, and the people of Ohio voted overwhelmingly, by the way, against my position.
And I think that what I learned from that, Norah, is that we have got to do a better job at winning back people's trust. So many young women would love to have families. So many young women also see an unplanned pregnancy as something that's going to destroy their livelihood, destroy their education, destroy their relationships.
And we have got to earn people's trust back. And that's why Donald Trump and I are committed to pursuing pro-family policies, making childcare more accessible, making fertility treatments more accessible, because we have got to do a better job at that. And that's what real leadership is.
O'DONNELL: Governor, your response?
WALZ: Well, I'm going to respond on the pro-abortion piece of that.
No, we're not. We're pro-women. We're pro freedom to make your own choice. We know what the implications are to not be that, women having miscarriages, women not getting the care, physicians feeling like they may be prosecuted for providing that care.
And as far as making sure that we're educating our children and giving them options, Minnesota's a state with one of the lowest teen pregnancy rates. We understand that too. We know that the options need to be available. And we make that true.
We also make it -- we're a top three state for the best place to raise children. But these two things -- to try and say that we're pro- children, but we don't like this, or you guys are pro-abortion, that's not the case at all. We are pro freedoms for women to make their choices.
And we're going and Kamala Harris is making the case to make options for children more affordable, a $6,000 child tax credit. But we're not going to base that on the backs of making someone like Amber Thurman drive 600 miles to try and get health care.
O'DONNELL: Senator?
VANCE: May I respond to that?
First of all, Governor, I agree with you. Amber Thurman should still be alive, and there are a lot of people who should still be alive. And I certainly wish that she was.
And maybe -- you're free to disagree with me on this and explain this to me, but as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into -- into -- into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.
That is, I think...
WALZ: That's not true. That's not how the law is.
VANCE: Whether you're pro-choice or pro-abortion, that is fundamentally barbaric.
And that's why I use that word, Norah, is because some of what we have seen -- do you want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will? Because Kamala Harris has supported suing Catholic nuns to violate their freedom of conscience.
We can be a big and diverse country, where we respect people's freedom of conscience and make the country more pro-baby and pro-family, but please.
O'DONNELL: Yes, Governor, please respond.
WALZ: Look, this is one where there's always something there. This is a very simple proposition.
These are women's decisions to make about their health care decisions and the physicians who know best when they need to do this. Trying to distort the way a law is written to try and make a point, that's not it at all.
VANCE: What was I wrong about, Governor?
WALZ: This would...
VANCE: I -- please tell me, what was I wrong about?
WALZ: That is not the way the law is written.
Look, I have given...
VANCE: But how?
WALZ: I have given this advice on a lot of things, that getting involved, getting against -- that's been misread. And it was fact- checked at the last debate.
But the point on this is, there's a continuation of these guys to try and tell women or to get involved. I use this line on this, just mind your own business on this. Things worked best when Roe v. Wade was in place. When we do a restoration of Roe, that works best. That doesn't preclude us from increasing funding for children. It doesn't increase us from making sure that once that child is born,
like in Minnesota, they get meals, they get early childhood education, they get health care. So that -- hiding behind, we're going to do all these other things, when you're not proposing them in your budget -- Kamala Harris is proposing them. She's proposing all those things to make life easier for families.
VANCE: I asked a specific question, Governor. You gave me a slogan as a response.
WALZ: It's not the case. It's not true. That's not what the law says.
So, they fact-checked it with President Trump.
O'DONNELL: Gentlemen, there's a lot to discuss. We have to move on.
And we're going to be right back with much more of the CBS News vice presidential debate in just a moment.
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