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CNN Live Event/Special
Vance And Walz Face Off In Debate; CNN Fact-Checks The Vice- Presidential Debate; CNN Interviews A Focus Group In Michigan. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired October 01, 2024 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is a very, very deceptive guy. We are trained to do what he did. And don't fall for it.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Can I just say -- go ahead, David.
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: No --
AXELROD: No, no, no. Say --
URBAN: Look, I think, from this perspective, right, the Republican side of the world, 10 out of 10 for J.D. Vance, 10 strike. As Abby noted, he landed a lot of good punches, but he did so with iron first in a velvet glove. He was very smooth.
JONES: Very swift.
URBAN: He's likeable, he looked presidential, he had a command to the facts, he wasn't flustered, he was a guy you want to have a beer with. Okay? Tim Walz, Coach Walz, your boy, fumbled bigly on Tiananmen Square. I mean, he was talking about riding the bike in Nebraska in the summers, and he went on and on and on. He should have just said, look, I misspoke, I screwed up, I'm a human.
JONES: I agree with you.
URBAN: Instead, he looked --
AXELROD: Yeah.
URBAN: He lied about that, and people reminded him of his lies about in his time in uniform. So that was bad.
JONES: That's bad (ph).
URBAN: I was -- I was -- then the other thing I was struck by, no question on Ukraine --
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: Yeah. AXELROD: Yeah.
URBAN: One of the biggest issues facing our country in the globe. No question on Ukraine. And then my final thought was, what would Josh Shapiro have done up there tonight?
(LAUGHTER)
My friend, Governor Josh Shapiro, up on that stage with J.D. Vance, it would have been world heavyweight, slugfest, between two really intellectual great candidates, and I just wonder if the Harris people are thinking, maybe we should have picked Josh Shapiro.
AXELROD: I'm going to say 10 out of 10 and velvet fist and so on. By the end of the debate, he was like the guy with like fleet gym shoes on running away from the question. He wouldn't answer the question about the election, couldn't because Donald Trump would not allow him to say that the election was legitimate.
But on the health care issue, because I was there, I just want to tell you, the Affordable Care Act has meant so much to so many people. Donald Trump tried 60 times to kill it.
JONES: Uh-hmm.
AXELROD: Only John McCain saved it. When he couldn't kill it, he cut the budget for marketing of the ACA, he cut subsidies for the ACA. There were many ways in which he tried to strangle the ACA because he couldn't outright kill it. And he said in this campaign that he wanted to eliminate it still.
JONES: Still.
AXELROD: So, to hold him up as a champion, the guy who saved the Affordable Care Act --
JONES: Nuts (ph).
AXELROD: -- was perhaps the most disingenuous thing.
URBAN: But again --
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Hold on. Did you expect -- did you -- Alyssa, did you expect Walz to sort of prosecute a case against J.D. Vance more?
GRIFFIN: Yes, and he did. I think the biggest flub of the night was Tiananmen Square, but I also thought that Walz could have gone on the offensive more. I mean, this issue with Haitian migrants was horrible. The Republican governor, as we mentioned, denounced the lies that were spread. There wasn't a lot of hits landed. It was more just playing defense or sticking to the issues that he was trying to push forward on. And there were things he could have fact-checked him on.
I was kind of stunned by the Obamacare that he let him get as far as he did on suggesting that Trump was the savior of it. I think that, to be honest, Tim Walz was a little in over his head tonight. I think his performance got better by the end of the night.
The best moment and, unfortunately, it's probably with the fewest voters are going to have seen, was the January 6 answer. That felt like the moment that he kind of taken the bay on J.D. Vance being the nice guy and trying to be friendly with them. In that moment, he's like, wait, this is somebody I don't trust, this is somebody who has lied about things, and he kind of found his bearings there. That was a moment that I think actually will play with undecided voters because he called him out pretty directly, but otherwise --
AXELROD: But I said before, I said before, he should avoid the trap of not being who he is. Okay? He came and he was who he is.
COOPER: Yeah.
AXELROD: And my guess is that when voters are asked about this, they are going to say, this was more of a draw than we're depicting it as here.
COOPER: More from here, but I want to Kaitlan Collins in the Spin Room. Kaitlan?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Anderson, thank you. I am here in the Spin Room. It is very crowded in here, as you can tell, understandably. And for those who don't know, the Spin Room is where surrogates come after a debate has finished to spin their respective candidate's performance. We saw a slew of them come in the door, both on the Vance side and the Walz side.
But right now, something notable is happening, which is that Senator Vance himself is inside the Spin Room. This is not a last-minute decision like it was for Donald Trump to come into the Spin Room after that last debate that he had with Vice President Harris. J.D. Vance had already planned to come into the Spin Room regardless of how this debate went.
But I've been talking to a few allies of the former president's and of J.D. Vance's, saying that they believe he had a strong performance in this debate tonight, that they achieved what he actually came here to do. Of course, there's a big question of whether or not it actually moves the electorate. We didn't really see that after the Harris-Trump debate. So, that's a big question here.
I will tell you that we heard some Democrats coming in as well. The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, is in here, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. One answer that Amy Klobuchar was focusing on when she first came in the room was not on what Tim Walz said before in this debate, it was focusing on how that debate ended, that question there at the end about January 6, and how Governor Walz was talking about that in comparison to how Senator Vance was framing that.
[23:04:57]
So, that seems to be the initial reaction so far here in the Spin Room that Democrats are going to focus on that last exchange there where Vance did not acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Meanwhile, the Trump surrogates came in here quite happy. Several senators, also several campaign advisors, praising J.D. Vance's performance.
There is a question, Anderson, tonight, an open one, of whether or not what happened on that debate stage changes Donald Trump's view of the debate and if it encourages him to potentially meet Harris on the debate stage again. Some people have been trying to convince him to do so. So far, it has not been successful, Anderson.
COOPER: Kaitlan, it looks kind of crowded in that Spin Room.
(LAUGHTER)
I'll check back in with her.
COLLINS: It's mostly reporters. And, as I said, I'm not -- I'm not calling it a Spin Room, I'm calling it a Spin Closet because it is quite constrained.
(LAUGHTER)
Typically, they've been pretty open areas. And remember, Donald Trump came into this Spin Room. It was quite large. It's about mainly Secret Service officers, which are the ones standing behind me doing their jobs.
COOPER: Okay.
COLLINS: And, of course a lot of surrogates in here. We're going to get all of their perspectives.
COOPER: All right. We'll check back in with you. Van, you were wanting to say something?
JONES: Well, I do just want to say that there are a lot of people who I know who are independents who actually appreciated that the debate was civil. I'm getting a lot of that. The people are like, listen, the American voters won tonight because you did have a civil debate, it was substantive, and there wasn't a lot of name calling. And so, I do just want to acknowledge that that part was positive.
I also think people have been kind of tough on Walz tonight (ph). I don't think he had a great night. But substantively, since that's what people are happy about, I thought he explained his home policy, home building policy really well. Vance was just blaming immigrants for everything.
We talk about standing of businesses. I think, for a lot of African- American voters and Black male voters, this idea of entrepreneurship is important. He hit that very well. Much better on gun policy. When he talked about abortion, he says pro-woman, pro-freedom. I thought that worked really, really well.
And what I loved on the immigration answer, he made a biblical reference. You know, my favorite part of the Bible, Jesus says you're going to be judged by how you treat the least of these, the addicted, the convicted, the afflicted, the evicted. And he held that up. I thought that was -- to use J.D. Vance's favorite word, a beautiful part of the night.
URBAN: Look, again, I think they both comforted themselves very well. Who can you see is vice president and who can see is president of those two gentlemen up there? I think if you -- if you only knew the J.D. Vance memes, which most of America -- that's what they've kind of gotten their opinion of him, I think J.D. Vance, you know, again, 10 out of 10. He comes out here, looks like, like you said, a well- trained, well-educated, thoughtful individual, not mean-spirited, somebody who would be your neighbor, love your neighborhood, he's got kids --
JONES: You have to change his personality --
URBAN: I don't know how to change his personality. I think that's who he is. I think he just came across genuinely. You may think differently, but I think a lot of Americans --
AXELROD: He only thinks differently because there are times when Vance says things in front of crowds like that dogs and cats are being eaten in Springfield. That is --
URBAN: Exactly.
AXELROD: Okay, so, that's not who showed up tonight. This was an intentional strategy.
URBAN: No, no, he acknowledged that. He acknowledged the fact that he said those things. He said, hey look --
AXELROD: No --
URBAN: He said, we both have said things that we wish we didn't say. He said that when Walz said it. He goes, we both -- we both have those instances.
AXELROD: Saying Washington is crazy was a great lie.
COOPER: Let's go back to Jake. Jake?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: All right. Thank you so much. We're here in the Spin Room, Spin Closet, whatever you want to call it. It is rather cramped in here. And we're here joined by a Minnesotan. Right? Is that how you say Minnesotan?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): That is -- that is pretty much that.
TAPPER: Senator Amy Klobuchar --
KLOBUCHAR: Thanks, Jake.
TAPPER: -- who knows Governor Tim Walz very well. You've known him for quite some time. So, he really -- they were very nice to each other.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Uh-hmm. Minnesota, nice. TAPPER: And they would grant each other, oh, I'm sure you want to solve this problem but it's Donald Trump or I'm sure you want to solve this problem but it's Kamala Harris. It was the right approach, do you think?
KLOBUCHAR: I think that the American people got to see two different visions, very different visions. And the fact that they weren't interrupting each other as much or yelling at each other, okay, we'll give it that.
TAPPER: Very civil.
KLOBUCHAR: But, to me, a few things really jumped out. One, Tim is North Star. He's blunt. He's plain-spoken. And while J.D. Vance kept sitting, my heart goes out to, I kept thinking, but your policies are heartless, because Donald Trump's policies are heartless, no matter how much your heart goes out. Your heart may go out to a woman bleeding out in the parking lot that can't go in and get her healthcare that she needs, but your policies are heartless when you overturned Roe v Wade.
So, I thought that Governor Walz made the case strongly on women's right to make their own decisions about their healthcare. He made a strong case on the Affordable Care Act that J.D. Vance was saying there, talking about pre-existing conditions and protections from losing your healthcare when it was, in fact, the Affordable Care Act that had given the American people that protection and it's Donald Trump trying to overturn it.
[23:10:03]
So, that was a major difference. And the third was --
TAPPER: You don't think you're making the case better than Governor Walz did just now?
KLOBUCHAR: I'm me and Governor Walz is Governor Walz. He's going to be a great vice president. But the third part, minute 90.
TAPPER: Yeah, democracy.
KLOBUCHAR: Democracy. And I actually thought J.D. Vance would say, well, of course, you know, blah, blah, blah. He didn't. He doubled down on the Donald Trump. He -- Donald Trump would not admit that Joe Biden won that election, and J.D. Vance didn't either. And the problem is, as the person chairing the inauguration, no matter who wins, chairing January 6th, I am well aware of what's going to happen here.
We need people of both parties once the election results are clear to embrace that. And no one, especially independents and moderate Republicans, want to put an autocrat in place that isn't even respecting the wishes of the democracy.
TAPPER: Well, the good news for you is that the vice president will be Kamala Harris. So, I'm sure whatever -- whoever the winner is, she'll -- she'll honor the results. But here's a question for you. Look, in debate club in college, right, you grade things very specifically. That's not how vice presidential or presidential debates are. Vice presidential and presidential debates have a lot more to do with the feeling about the candidate, whether or not you trust the candidate, whether you like the candidate, whether you agree with them on the issues that you -- that you're paying attention for, etcetera.
If one were just going by traditional debate scoring, and again, that's not what this is, J.D. Vance would have won the night. He just was more polished, he was more clean, he pivoted more effectively, et cetera. Again, that is -- that -- that's my opinion, just knowing something about debate teams. But that is not what this is. Do you think that J.D. Vance is better prepared for this sort of thing because he's out there doing interviews so much more than Governor Walz?
KLOBUCHAR: I think that Tim Walz that you have seen from the very beginning of this presidential campaign, when he bursts on the national stage, is the Tim Walz that you're going to get. It's someone that you can trust. It's someone that's plain-spoken. He doesn't use a lot of fancy words. He's not messing around playing games up there in the debate stage and pretending I'm all with you with my heart, and then supports policies that have nothing to do with what you just said. He is what he is. And I think that's what's going to come across to the American people. That's what came across today.
So, I'm not surprised that a bunch of independents and maybe people that aren't that involved in politics, they watch it, they think, I like the guy. He may not have used the exact right words here, didn't say the right thing here, but I like him and I believe in him. And that's how Tim Walz has actually been throughout his time, when he was a teacher running for Congress, you know, congressman in a rural district running for governor, and now governor running for the vice presidency.
TAPPER: Well, we're going to hear from a focus group of undecided voters --
KLOBUCHAR: Okay.
TAPPER: -- in a second. We'll hear what they have to say. Dana?
BASH: Well, what I was thinking, as you were talking, is that in some ways, Tim Walz wasn't debating to be the best Tim Walz, meaning like his whole goal was about trying to promote Kamala Harris. And there were so many times where J.D. Vance did what Trump and Vance had been doing on the campaign trail and paid ads and so forth, which is trying to define Kamala Harris, get at her on issue after issue, and he didn't push back.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, no. I thought -- I believe that he saw his job as making the case for how they could make things better for the people in America.
BASH: And not defending her? KLOBUCHAR: No, he did defend her a number of times. I was looking at the numbers of who did what, and he actually went after Trump more than Vance went after Harris. So, it was just how they were interacting. I can't really, you know, judge the moments, but I can say that his job out there was to be himself, to have his North Star, and to show that they're -- they have a very different vision for America.
BASH: You can probably judge this moment. Check that out.
KLOBUCHAR: Okay.
BASH: The Walzs are looking at some New York pizza there.
KLOBUCHAR: There they are.
TAPPER: Oh, they're going to go get a slice.
KLOBUCHAR: They will invite me to join them.
BASH: They're going to get a slice.
TAPPER: They're going to go there to get a slice.
BASH: They know not to eat it with a fork and a knife, right?
(LAUGHTER)
KLOBUCHAR: They will not do that.
BASH: So, we're watching this.
TAPPER: We have pizza in Minnesota, right?
KLOBUCHAR: Yeah, we have a lot of pizza. But you heard a lot about Minnesota today, so I'm trying to, you know, turn to another --
TAPPER: If you were playing a drinking game and you --
BASH: Exactly.
TAPPER: Every time he said Minnesota --
KLOBUCHAR: People --
BASH: They go.
KLOBUCHAR: That's good. That's why he's a governor. That's why he had a lot of great examples of things he got done.
BASH: I want you -- you mentioned abortion, and I want you to listen to what Senator Vance said specifically about a friend. He told a story about a friend who needed an abortion. Listen to what he said. I want to get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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, I -- one of them is actually very dear to me.
[23:15:01]
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. We got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people's 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: What would you have said if you were sitting on that debate stage with him and he told that story?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, okay, so, I believe that women should have the right to make their own decisions. And certainly, if they are a victim of some kind of crime, the thought that they have to carry the baby if that's not what they want to do, is just wrong. And one of the things that bothered me is he said, we need to reach out to people. Their policy is really clear, and people just don't agree with them.
And either the people are going to vote them down or their policies are going to be in place, and that means either a national abortion plan or this crazy situation that we have where a third of the women are living in states that don't even have the right to have an abortion. Six weeks --
TAPPER: Why didn't Governor Walz say that?
BASH: Exactly. Once again, you're making the case in a way that Governor Walz did not.
KLOBUCHAR: He said he made those points in different ways. But I think the point is that this idea of J.D. Vance trying to be so empathetic to these women when, in fact, we know women have died, and Tim Walz did use those exact --
TAPPER: He did.
KLOBUCHAR: They have died. They have bled out in parking lot. They have fear. Doctors have fear of being criminally prosecuted. He made that point as well.
TAPPER: He made that case, too, sure.
KLOBUCHAR: Patchwork of laws, them going across state lines to try to get their healthcare. Kids that are victims of incest, he made that point, too. Maybe just made in a different way and it wasn't your typical debate back and forth way. It's just not him. He was just making the points in his dad in plaid way, and I think the people are listening. They saw it, and I saw some numbers on this. When they heard the debate on abortion, they agreed with Tim Walz. And he just says it in a different way. But did that make me mad when J.D. Vance said that? I was furious --
TAPPER: Hmm.
KLOBUCHAR: -- because I thought, don't act like you're so empathetic to these people when you're not putting in place policies, let them make their own decisions about their lives.
BASH: Can I just quickly go back to that -- you said minute 90 --
KLOBUCHAR: Uh-hmm.
BASH: -- which is when they were talking about democracy. You know, whether or not the senator would support the idea of accepting the results, no matter what.
KLOBUCHAR: Uh-hmm.
BASH: And whether Donald Trump should. What J.D. Vance said in his first answer was, well, it was a peaceful transition of power on January 20th.
(LAUGHTER)
I know but -- and so, I understand that Governor Walz was prepared for the democracy answer, but not turning to him and saying, I'm sorry, what about January 6th?
KLOBUCHAR: Okay. Again, he said it in a different way. I think we all remember, he talked about all the police officers that had been beaten up, that were injured. He talked about what an assault was on our democracy. I may be visceral about it because I was there at 3:30 in the morning.
BASH: Sure.
KLOBUCHAR: Jake and I followed that path we took. Later, we went back over it with Mike Pence. I was there with Mike Pence.
BASH: Yeah.
KLOBUCHAR: I was there with Roy Blunt. The three of us were the ones at 3:30 in the morning with those young women holding those mahogany boxes with the rest of America's electoral ballots that walk past that broken glass and spray-painted pillars. So, it's something I will never forget. We said democracy will prevail. And what J.D. Vance said in this debate tonight was no, it won't, in minute 90. He was like, well, it was fine, it eventually was fine. It was only fine because people stood up and it wasn't Donald Trump. He's the one that encouraged the insurrectionists to come to stage that assault on the Capitol.
TAPPER: The senior senator from the land of 10,000 lakes, Senator Amy Klobuchar, thank you so much.
KLOBUCHAR: Thanks.
TAPPER: Anderson?
COOPER: Jake, thanks very much. I actually want to play some of that exchange about January 6th. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?
VANCE: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?
WALZ: That is damning -- that is damning non-answer.
VANCE: It's a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship. Obviously, Donald Trump and I think that there were problems in 2020. We've talked about it. I'm happy to talk about it further.
WALZ: I'm pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate. Where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall if he knows he could do anything, including taking an election, and his vice president is not going to stand to it? 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[23:20:02]
COOPER: That was -- again, that happened -- really among the last of the questions. Do you think that was one of his most powerful moments?
AXELROD: Oh, there is no question about it, and it was made more powerful when he turned to Vance and said, did he -- did -- did he lose the election? And Vance wouldn't answer --
COOPER: Yeah.
AXELROD: -- the question. I thought that was damning. So, that was, you know -- I mean, look, I agree with you, there were -- the Tiananmen Square answer would have been best delivered in Chinese for --
(LAUGHTER)
-- as understandable as it wasn't.
(LAUGHTER)
The first answer on the Middle East was he was nervous and it showed. But on this, on healthcare, on abortion rights, you know -- I mean, we can -- all of us, old debaters, can pick apart --
(LAUGHTER)
-- his, you know, his technique. But I think he got the message across, and people heard it. So, you know, I think that this -- I think Vance was by far more polished performer but, in some ways, maybe being too polished is a problem as well.
I think Walz came across as very genuine. And on that issue, I think there are a lot of people who feel strongly and clearly, clearly, clearly, J.D. Vance did not want to answer the question. So --
GRIFFIN: If there is --
URBAN: I think he pushed -- it impressed him on it. I mean, he asked one more time. He didn't keep pressing him on it. I think, you know, J.D. Vance gave a great debate and answer, right, and said, hey, listen, you know, I'm talking about the future here, what about the Biden-Harris administration's censoring a Facebook, you know, the search engine.
No, no, he said, I don't work for a long time. But Vance could have said, you know, but your boss, you know, your future boss, was one of the people who was doing the censoring, right? So, I agree with Axe in that it was -- it was the least strong moment for J.D. Vance the entire night. And so, it was one place he did stumble where I think you should give an answer. America deserves an answer. Do you believe if they did it or not?
AXELROD: Moderator should have pressed him on it, too.
URBAN: No.
GRIFFIN: But I'm trying to think, if there is a moment from tonight that turns into an ad that is effective, I think it is that January 6 moment. And I think if we take -- we know that -- listen, democracy is not one of -- usually one of the top five issues. It is the border, it's the economy, it's inflation. But we do know from the 2022 midterms that people are sick and tired of people lying about elections and engaging in this election denialism. It is just not popular with the public. They see it as dishonest. That's something that I actually think is a moment that's very effective.
JONES: Another thing is, Amber Thurman's name is trending. There's something going on, I think, with women in this debate, the answers on abortion, the lie about the abortion ban. J.D. Vance has been in favor of abortion ban. J.D. Vance pants on fire. So, there are things that are happening out there. I think people are glad of the civil debate. But for the -- for the movable voters, people who you're trying to figure out where the suburban women going to go, I think -- the gun answer that I think (INAUDIBLE) gave, and the answer on abortion, I think helped --
URBAN: If you're looking for a Republican with horns on tonight, if you turn in and see J.D. Vance with horns on, that was not the guy you saw tonight. JONES: He changed personality tonight.
COOPER: Let's go to Daniel Dale, a fact-checker. Daniel, what stood out to you?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I think what most struck me, Anderson, was significant revisionist history from Senator Vance on the subject of Obamacare in January 6th. But I was also struck by the fact that we had a false claim from each candidate on the subject of reproductive rights. So, first, let's listen to something that Governor Walz said about the conservative heritage foundation think tanks initiative known as Project 2025.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: 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, to infertility treatments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This claim, which Governor Walz has made before, is false. Project 2025's 900- page policy document is online. You can read it. I've read it. Nothing in it proposes to make anyone register their pregnancy with the government. What Project 2025 does propose is that the federal government takes steps to make sure it is getting from every state detailed after the fact anonymous data on abortion and miscarriage. The federal government already gets this data from almost every state on a voluntary basis.
Project 2025 wants to make it mandatory for all states, but there's no pregnancy registration involved in this data collection today. Project 2025 doesn't propose to change that. And, in fact, Tim Walz's own state of Minnesota already posts details after the fact, anonymous abortion and miscarriage data online on the state health department website. There is no pregnancy registration in Minnesota, of course.
And I should also note that while the governor referred to their Project 2025, it is not an initiative of the Trump-Vance campaign itself though it is, of course, also true that Trump and Vance have extensive and close ties to it.
[23:25:01]
Now, I want to look at a claim that Senator Vance made on his past position on abortion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS ANCHOR AND MANAGING EDITOR: 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. (END VIDEO CLIP)
DALE: This is false. Before Senator Vance joined the Trump campaign and fell behind Trump's professed desire for a state-by-state approach to abortion, Vance did support a national abortion ban. In 2022, when he ran for the U.S. Senate, he said it in an interview, and this is a direct quote, "I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." No caveats there. He added that he was -- quote -- "sympathetic to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across state lines to obtain abortions."
And he also said in his website during that Senate campaign that he was -- "100% pro-life" -- end quote -- and that he favored eliminating abortion. These categorical words were on his website until Trump chose him as his running mate. They certainly included no caveats about opposing a federal legislation.
And then in the Senate, as recently as late last year, he explicitly pushed a national ban as early as 15 weeks gestation, as a debate moderator said to him. He can try to spin that as just a standard, but it's not like a goal or a target. That was federal legislation or the idea of it, at least, that would have banned abortion at 15 weeks. And again, he was even more categorical, Anderson, before he was elected.
COOPER: Daniel Dale, thank you very much. We're about to get the first reaction from voters to the Walz-Vance debate. Our focus group, Undecided Voters of Michigan, is going to weigh in. Plus, we're awaiting results from our instant poll of debate watchers. That's all ahead. Stay with us.
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[23:30:00]
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TAPPER: Welcome back to debate night in America. We are coming to you live from New York where Senator J.D. Vance and Governor Tim Walz just wrapped up their vice- presidential debate. A stark contrast from what we saw last month when Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off. A rather contentious exchange. Both men tonight mostly focused their criticism on the top of the ticket rather than each other. They seemed agreeable and likable. They seemed to be trying to be agreeable and likable.
How did those strategies play with the undecided voters that they are trying to get Let's check in with our focus group in battleground Michigan where our Phil Mattingly is standing by. Phil, what did your seven undecided voters think?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, they definitely agreed there was a stark contrast in terms of tone. I'll get into that in a minute. But with our seven voters here, undecided voters, at least that's what they tell us in the past, they voted for Democrats and Republicans. They were watching intently, taking copious notes throughout the course of the debate. And actually, we'll start with overall impressions, guys, because all seven of you came in undecided. One of you said, they've made up their mind. Ryan (ph), who are you going to vote for and what kind of solidified that opinion?
UNKNOWN: Well, I'm going to be voting for Kamala Harris. You know, one of the stark sorts of aspects of that debate that really stuck with me was when they were talking about January 6th and how Mike Pence certified the election, and they were wondering if J.D. Vance would certify the election should Trump lose.
And, you know, J.D. Vance didn't really give us a definitive answer, and I'm disappointed in that fact. I don't think that I can trust someone you know, with my vote if they're not going to respect it.
MATTINGLY: So, six of you still remained undecided about 35 days until the election. We are going to dig in on some issues in a moment and your reactions to those issues. But, first, let's talk about what Jake Tapper was just talking about, in terms of the tone. Everybody seems to agree this was not a debate like we've seen much of over the course of the last eight years. Elisa (ph), I think you said, warm and fuzzy, was what came to mind for you. What did you see tonight?
UNKNOWN: I haven't seen a debate like this in a very long time. I'm sorry. I haven't seen a debate like this in a very long time. They supported each other. They were kind. And it was warm and fuzzy. I mean, you could watch it and not be offended by the words they were using towards each other.
MATTINGLY: And I think, to that point, one of the striking things, when we were looking at the data in terms of your guys' responses, is your favorability for both candidates, regardless of how you viewed them coming into the night. Went up. Significantly. Tell us why.
UNKNOWN: So, mainly, I think just the way that they did a debate. Like it -- just mainly that they did an actual debate in front of me. There was not much fear. There was not much hesitancy. They showed their characters to each other in a way. And as was mentioned, they kind of supported each other as they're going within the bait and not attacking each other personally, but more of the policies and then what they stand for.
MATTINGLY: So, let's talk about some of those policies. One of the things that we Heard was a discussion about expertise and taxes in particular. This was from Governor Walz. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: 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, 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, the last year's president? That's what's wrong with the system. There's a way around it. And he has bragged about that. We're just asking for fairness in it, and that's all you want.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: So, we've talked about how each of these undecided voters had dials throughout the course of the 90-minute debate. What you saw on the bottom of your screen there, those lines, pink lines for the female undecided voters, blue lines for the male undecided voters, you saw the movement based on that response.
I want to grab the mic from you really quick. Richard (ph), what did you see in terms of in that moment what you were thinking?
UNKNOWN: Which particular issue?
[23:34:56]
MATTINGLY: On the Tim Walz -- the Governor Walz sound on expertise, taxes, kind of how he was presenting that case.
UNKNOWN: Well, it is very important that we have expertise when making these decisions in policy, right? And so, him bringing the specifics to say that we need the expertise making these decisions, I believe that was very important. That in turn maybe, you know, turn my favorability towards him.
MATTINGLY: Yeah, we're having a positive reaction. There's another moment, I think, for Senator Vance that got a very positive response, and that was on the issue of abortion. Take a listen.
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VANCE: 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 to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. I think there's so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: Now, Karen (ph), this has, obviously, been a huge debate in this election throughout the course of the last several months. You're expecting. Congratulations, by the way.
UNKNOWN: Thank you.
MATTINGLY: That's pretty awesome. What did you hear in that comment from Senator Vance?
UNKNOWN: Personally, I believe that on the Republican side, it sounded very progressive, more so than I expected tonight. Just saying that they should have a choice was a complete, different response than I was expecting again. So, hearing that coming from the vice president, well, potential, was encouraging.
MATTINGLY: All right. So, that's where we are right now. We'll have a little bit more later on. Jake, back to you.
TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks so much. Let's go over to Kaitlan Collins right now. Kaitlan?
COLLINS: Thanks, Jake. I'm here in the Spin Room with Donald Trump, Jr. You picked -- urged your dad to pick J.D. Vance as his running mate famously a few months ago. How do you think he did tonight?
DONALD TRUMP, JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: I thought it was a master class. It was just an incredible performance. Just real command of the facts. Didn't let sort of the fake fact check, you know, try to steamroll him. He came back with actual facts. I think he literally won every issue across the board. I think he was actually very comfortable on so many of the issues that Republicans tend to fail. He was probably more comfortable in those issues than most Republicans are, even on our strong point. So, I think it was an incredible debate.
COLLINS: Do you think he was more comfortable in those issues than your dad was in the last debate?
TRUMP, JR.: Well, you know, I don't think -- it wasn't necessarily a three-on-one debate. It started that way. I think J.D. Vance shut that down. There were rules, and we said they should be enforced. Those rules were not enforced with my father. I think what happened in his debate was absolutely disgusting. And I think the American people witnessed that. I think they saw the bias that's out there in the media. I think they see that we are literally up against a trillion dollars of mainstream media. You're up against trillion dollars of big tech functioning as the marketing department for the other side.
But the reality is, Kaitlan, the world is watching what's going on right now. They see it when they go to the grocery stores on a daily basis. They watch Iran not through proxies, but directly attacking Israel right now. We could be on the brink of World War III. You notice that those things didn't happen under Donald Trump. You may not like everything that he says, you may not always like his demeanor, but the dictators of the world understood strength. They understood the resolve that we saw after he got shot in the face, coming back to fight, and they didn't trifle with it.
We've been leading with incompetence and weakness for four years. The world has watched, and they've capitalized on that. Our enemies, Iran, wants Kamala Harris to be president. They've said that. They've leaked documents to her, stolen from our campaign, that they hacked.
Russia has said they want Kamala Harris to be president because a weak America is good for Russia, a weak America is good for Iran, and a weak America is great for China, all of whom are chomping at the bit for a Harris-Walz administration and the continuation of the Biden policies that have failed America for the last three and a half years.
COLLINS: Well, I should note, when you talk about Iran, I mean, Iran did hit American troops when your dad was in office. I covered that. And today, he was asked about that. He likened the traumatic brain injuries to headaches. But on the debate itself, it was very civil. I mean, they acknowledge --
TRUMP, JR.: Yeah, I agree.
COLLINS: when they -- when they agreed. They gave each other the benefit of the doubt -- of the doubt. Should we see more of that on the debate stage when your dad is up there?
TRUMP, JR.: You know what? I'd love to see that across the board. Sometimes, the political climate isn't that much. We've all heard about Trump derangements. We've seen it. They've lied about my family. You know, I was an agent of Russia, but Hunter Biden's laptop was totally Russian disinformation. Turns out the opposite was true.
The media did that. They created so much of that environment. The media has radicalized the people that are trying to kill my father. I've had to deal with that twice now in the last two months. I've had to have that conversation with my five young children twice in the last two months about someone trying to shoot their grandfather.
You know, that didn't just magically happen. That's not him. That's a media-created fake Russia scenario. They ran with it for years. Even when it was disproven, they still ran with it. You know, that environment wasn't just created by Donald Trump.
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COLLINS: Okay, but can I say, you can't blame -- no one wants -- everyone wants your dad to be safe. No one wants the threats against his life to happen. But you can't blame the media for those threats. There has been no evidence. That's what drove those --
TRUMP, JR.: When someone calls and allows people to have a platform to call someone literally Hitler every day for nine years, it creates it.
COLLINS: Okay.
TRUMP, JR.: Whether you want to believe it or not, that's a fact.
COLLINS: But, as you know, J.D. Vance once likened your dad to Hitler as well. He questioned if he was America's Hitler. But I want to talk about the debate. Do you want your dad to do another debate after seeing tonight?
TRUMP, JR.: You know what? I don't think he can have a chance at getting a fair debate. I don't think there are moderators out there that would do that. I think there are probably Fox moderators that are so worried about even -- you're trying to appease the left that they'd actually maybe --
COLLINS: Well, your dad said CNN gave him a fair debate.
TRUMP, JR.: He offered to do the Fox debate. Just so we're clear, my father weeks ago said, I'll do a Fox debate, too. Kamala Harris turned that down because she can only go in, like she can only do an interview with a sidekick like Tim Walz on her side. She can only do it when she knows she's going to have that upper hand. So, I don't think in this environment, you can do it.
The reality is this: What's unique about this election is you had four years under Trump. You had four years under Harris-Biden. We know the policies are going to be the same because she cut and pasted them onto her webpage and didn't even change the source code. So, you can have more over the last four years or we can go back to a time of peace and prosperity. It's a very simple choice.
COLLINS: But on your argument --
TRUMP, JR.: People can go into a grocery store today, are you better off now than you were four years ago? And the answer is no.
COLLINS: On your argument about your dad doing another debate, obviously, he has said right now that he thinks another debate would be too late. But is he letting J.D. Vance, his running mate, it would be his vice president, have the last word in that case? Are you okay with that?
TRUMP, JR.: I'm fine with it. I mean, I think -- you know, they get along great. I think, again, J.D.'s debate performance tonight totally speaks for itself. The reality is I got commented on Twitter. I'm watching. Tim Walz is listening to J.D. I think he's voting for us. I mean, he was nodding along in agreement on all of the things that J.D. was saying because he actually spoke with facts, he called out all of the nonsense, and I think it was an absolute master class performance.
COLLINS: And Vance said he agreed with Governor Walz on some things as well. Donald Trump, Jr., thank you for your time tonight.
TRUMP, JR.: Thanks a lot.
COLLINS: Jake, back to you.
TAPPER: Well, that was a lot. Coming up, the first results from CNN's instant poll of debate watchers. Who came out on top, do they think? Much more of our special coverage right after a quick break.
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TAPPER: And welcome back to our special coverage of the vice- presidential debate between Governor Tim Walz and Senator J.D. Vance, which just wrapped up a short time ago here in New York, New York. The city is so nice, they named it twice. We're getting reaction right now from both campaigns after the mostly civil showdown. Let's go to CNN's Kristen Holmes. She covers the Trump-Vance campaign. Kristen, what kind of reaction are you picking up after the debate?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, this is very different from the kind of reaction we heard after Donald Trump's debate against Kamala Harris. A lot of celebration. Now, the former president himself watched the debate and the coverage on the way down to Texas. He's going down there for a fundraiser tomorrow. He was privately praising Vance. He was publicly slamming Tim Walz. And I've talked to a number of his advisors who were celebrating. They believe that Vance came out on top.
And again, as I said, this is very different from what we saw in the aftermath of the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate in which his aides were largely silent. They were trying to placate Donald Trump, and many of them were concerned that his performance was going to affect him in November.
Now, overall, when you talk to allies and advisors from the former president, they don't really believe that this Vance debate is going to move the needle at all when it comes to November, but they're pretty pleased that they don't feel like they're going to have to spend the next week playing cleanup around J.D. Vance's performance. Jake?
TAPPER: Kristen, interesting little side note. At 10:02 p.m. Eastern time, Donald Trump, this is in the middle of the debate, tweeted about the death of baseball great Pete Rhodes. I'm not really sure why, and I'm not really sure what that indicates about the debate. Any thoughts?
HOLMES: Look, I think that there was a lot of attention on J.D. Vance, and I think that Donald Trump always likes to seize the media narrative. Who knows if that had anything to do with it? But he was, by the end of it, praising J.D. Vance. But, yes, it was a notable moment in which he completely went off script, particularly given the fact that this was not something that happened during the debate but sometime earlier. So, there was really no reason for it.
But, obviously, again, Donald Trump likes to be in control of the media narrative. There was a lot of praise going on, at least from Republicans, when it came to J.D. Vance's performance at that time.
TAPPER: Yeah, interesting. All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much. Let's go over to MJ Lee. MJ, how is the Harris-Walz camp viewing this debate?
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, heading into tonight, the Harris campaign was consistently lowering expectations, predicting that, at least, stylistically, J.D. Vance could do quite well. But after the debate, I think Harris aides are not denying that he did appear polished and practiced. But they do insist that on substance, Governor Walz outperformed the senator on a number of issues.
You know, they were particularly pleased that there was so much focus throughout the evening on Donald Trump and his record, his past statements, his proposals on a number of different things, particularly on issues like immigration, reproductive rights, and the 2020 election results. And remember, heading into this evening, one of the most important goals for Tim Walz was really to paint a stark picture, a difference between the Harris-Walz vision and what Donald Trump and Vance are proposing. The campaign does believe that was on clear display.
And you'll see that the governor, moments ago, was speaking to reporters and he said -- quote -- "I think it was a good debate." And specifically, he said, we got to see a contrast, and I think the ending sums it up. That, Jake, is clearly a reference to when Vance wouldn't answer the question of whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. As one campaign aide put it to me, they saw this as the moment of the night. Jake?
TAPPER: Well, I'm sure they hope that it's going to be the moment of the night. MJ Lee, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
[23:50:00]
Let's talk more about the moment of the night, if the Democrats get their druthers, which Senator Klobuchar referred to as the moment in minute 90, when Governor Walz had a great answer about the democracy. We have some reaction from one of the voters in the focus group in battleground Michigan about that moment. Let's take a look.
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UNKNOWN: Well, I want to be voting for Kamala Harris. You know, one of the stark sorts of aspects of that debate that really stuck with me was when they were talking about January 6th and how Mike Pence certified the election, and they were wondering if J.D. Vance would certify the election should Trump lose. And, you know, J.D. Vance didn't really give us a definitive answer, and I'm disappointed in that fact. I don't think that I can trust someone, you know, with my vote if they're not going to respect it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, these are undecided voters and who knows what's going to motivate them for that one person, and we shouldn't overstate the importance of one voter and one focus group. That was it, minute 90. Even if theoretically, J.D. Vance won the 89 previous minutes, that one minute meant a lot.
BASH: Yeah, which could speak to the fact that even though a lot of voters don't put democracy or issues around that at the top of the list, they certainly say economy and everything else is far behind. It's certainly on the minds of voters.
I will say that, listening to that as that was happening live on CNN, I was getting a text from a Republican congressman saying -- first of all, I'm not sure that this guy was totally undecided before. But, you know, we don't know that. He said he was.
TAPPER: I think I heard from him, too.
(LAUGHTER) BASH: Really?
TAPPER: I think I know who you're talking about. I know. Keep going.
BASH: But that -- you know, saying that Republicans are trying to keep their eye on the ball, which is the economy, the economy, the economy --
TAPPER: Yeah.
BASH: -- and that perhaps, from their perspective, Governor Walz didn't prosecute the case on the economy as well.
TAPPER: Oh, I heard from a different congressman. Different, different congressman.
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm trying to out her source on the national television.
TAPPER: No, no, no. Well, some people text us both because we're co- hosts on Sunday, you know.
PHILLIP: That moment, I think, was embarrassing, first of all, for J.D. Vance. That went a long way after 90 minutes of Vance really trying to seem a lot more likeable, seem a lot more straightforward, a lot more relatable. In that moment, he seemed like a politician, like a politician who wanted to do one thing, which is to please Donald Trump.
And that's why Democrats liked it so much. I was walking around the room while you all were talking to Senator Klobuchar, talking to a lot of Democrats. That was their top moment. They're doing dial testing, too, just like we are with our focus group. That was their top moment. One of the other ones was on immigration, talking about Donald Trump torpedoing that border bill. And, of course, on abortion.
So, they're looking at the landscape of what Tim Walz was able to do, their high-water marks, and I think those were it. And particularly, this January 6th moment really helped them undo a little bit of some of what J.D. Vance had been trying to do for the previous hour and a half, which is to rehab his own image. I mean, J.D. Vance, as we talked about earlier, is not a very popular running mate for Donald Trump, and he had to fix that tonight.
BASH: There was one other moment in the CNN focus group that I thought was absolutely stunning and telling, which is the woman that Phil talked to, who was pregnant, which is not relevant to this answer, but I thought she's -- that's how you'll remember who I'm talking about, said that she was surprised to hear J.D. Vance speak so compassionately on the issue of abortion, and that made her think differently about him. And that's the point that Senator Klobuchar was making here, is that yes, that is how he spoke, that is not what the policies are.
TAPPER: She was quite -- she was quite angry.
BASH: And that went just -- it just went out there and it went out there unanswered and --
PHILLIP: Unremarked.
BASH: -- unremarked about and unrefuted --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
BASH: -- which led to an undecided voter going, oh, maybe that's not -- maybe the positions aren't what I thought they were on abortion.
TAPPER: She seemed to think that maybe there was some wiggle room in terms of how much J.D. Vance opposes abortion.
BASH: Unless we put it, there's not.
TAPPER: J.D. Vance supports -- has supported -- Donald Trump has a different position, but J.D. Vance in the past has supported a national abortion ban.
BASH: But even though Donald Trump has a different position, Donald Trump is very much -- I mean, if you look at what he's saying right now, the states will decide. Well, a lot of states are deciding that there is absolutely no room for any abortion, even if somebody is in trouble medically.
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TAPPER: So, if Democrats have their way, J.D. Vance's answer on January 6th, his refusal to acknowledge that Joe Biden won in 2020, his refusal to believe in the peaceful transfer of power, and his refusal to be honest about what happened on January 6th, that will be the moment of the debate. That was probably Vance's worst moment in the debate, I would say.
Here is Governor Walz's -- perhaps one -- perhaps his worst moment in the debate. He was being asked about some embellishments, AKA lies, that he has told about where he was during the incident in Tiananmen Square. I think he said he was in Hong Kong when that incident happened. He said that he has been to China 30 times. It's probably more like 15. We know this about Governor Walz now. He has a history of embellishing. He was asked about it by -- we're not going to toss to the town. Okay. Anyway, and he kind of fumbled around about it. What did you think?
BASH: Well, first of all, that was our KFile reporting, I believe, that first reported this. What I think isn't as relevant as what I was hearing from Democrats, who were kind of doing whatever you do to cringe over a text, they were not thrilled about that answer.
PHILLIP: It was very cringy. I mean, he should have known that it was coming.
TAPPER: All right, stay with us as we are about to get the first results from our instant poll of debate watchers. Their views on who won, who lost, that's next.
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