DAD IN HEADLIGHTS: 'Knucklehead' Tim Walz Bumbles Through Primetime Debate with a Smooth J.D. Vance

Governor’s ‘folksy’ charm wears thin in bewildered, gaffe-filled performance

Gov. Tim Walz (D., Minn.) made several dubious claims during the vice presidential debate against Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) on Tuesday, but insisting he “enjoyed” the evening was easily the most far-fetched.

Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris picked Walz as her running mate in August, journalists and other Harris supporters have fawned over his “folksy” charm and “cuddly” demeanor. Some questioned why the Harris campaign has been so reluctant to make “someone billed as Mr. Likable” available for interviews with national outlets. Walz’s bumbling performance on Tuesday answered that question once and for all.

Walz appeared nervous throughout and spoke too fast, tripping over his words. His facial expressions conveyed a mixture of confusion and sheer terror, especially when asked to explain why he repeatedly lied—as recently as 2019—about being in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989 when he was actually home in Nebraska until August of that year. Walz proceeded to give one of the most baffling answers ever recorded in the history of American politics.

“Look, I grew up in small rural Nebraska, town of 400, town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service,” Walz said in response to the question about his China falsehoods. “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 have 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.”

Walz rambled on like that for several minutes before Margaret Brennan, the CBS News moderator, pressed him to answer the question and “explain the discrepancy.” Lacking a coherent response, Walz continued: “No, just, all I said on this was is I got there [to China] that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just—that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong in China during the democracy protests, went in, and from that I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.” Walz got married on the fifth anniversary of the anti-democracy massacre, reportedly telling his wife he “wanted to have a date he’ll always remember.” He has also praised Chinese communism as a system where “everyone is the same and everyone shares.”

Practically anyone would have been better by comparison, but Vance’s considerable debate skills made it a lopsided affair. The GOP candidate was particularly adept at fact checking the CBS moderators after they intervened several times to challenge Vance’s statements despite insisting they wouldn’t at the outset. During a conversation about the migrant crisis in Springfield, Ohio, Brennan chimed in to note that the town “had a large number of migrants who have legal status.” Vance insisted on getting the last word and explaining how the Biden-Harris administration has exploited existing laws to grant “temporary protected status” to some illegal immigrants. “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check,” he said. “So I think it’s important to say what’s going on.”

Brennan also grossly mischaracterized Vance’s comments during the immigration portion of the debate, suggesting he had accused Harris of personally “using kids as drug mules,” which prompted another direct rebuttal from the senator. Brennan and CBS News colleague Norah O’Donnell were slightly less obnoxious than the ABC News duo—David Muir and Linsey Davis—that hosted last month’s presidential debate between Harris and Donald Trump, but they neglected to ask Walz any questions about the radical policies Harris endorsed in 2019 but has supposedly disavowed. Vance, meanwhile, was repeatedly asked to defend Trump’s statements on a variety of issues.

Walz was unable to knock Vance off topic but repeatedly tripped himself up. “Look, I’m a hunter, I own firearms. The vice president is,” he said during an exchange about the Second Amendment. (That was the first we’ve heard about Harris going hunting with the gun she claims to own.) Walz gaffed again during the gun discussion by claiming to have “become friends with school shooters.” When the conversation moved to the First Amendment, Walz claimed, “You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater,” which isn’t true.

Vance fared far better than his running mate when it came to staying focused on the Biden administration and reiterating that Harris “has been the vice president for three and a half years,” even as Walz and the moderators did their best to ignore that fact. “Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward,” Walz said during his closing statement. “She’s bringing us a politics of joy.” He went on to praise Harris for assembling a broad coalition of supporters “from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift,” which may or may not resonate with swing-state voters struggling to make ends meet.

The early reviews of Walz’s performance were devastating. ABC News anchor Jon Karl described the governor as “unsteady” and “out of practice.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said she “wouldn’t describe [Walz and Vance] as evenly matched because they are so different.” MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator, attempted to shrug off Walz’s poor debate by suggesting voters wouldn’t care. “I actually think most Americans fundamentally understand that the VP is not the President,” she wrote.

CBS News correspondent Robert Costa offered a different take in the moments leading up to the debate, which he touted as “high stakes” because “we live in a time of assassinations” and “one of these candidates could be president” because “you never know in American history.”