CNN anchor Abby Phillip on Tuesday criticized Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s “preparation” for the vice presidential debate, saying Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance dealt him significant blows.
Vance and Walz faced off on Tuesday on CBS News in what might be the last debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. Phillip said Vance “landed a lot of punches” on Walz, who she said appeared unprepared and missed opportunities to counter the senators’s arguments.
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“I think we shouldn’t lose track … of the fact that J.D. Vance came to this debate to land a bunch of punches and he did. He landed a lot of punches in between all the niceties and all of that. And the thing that really stood out to me was that Tim Walz did not seem prepared for it,” Phillip said. “He didn’t respond to a lot of the criticisms and attacks that Vance put on the table. He allowed some clear falsehoods to just go completely unanswered. ”
“He allowed J.D. Vance essentially to dodge on a whole host of issues, on climate change, on the issue of his flip-flopping on Donald Trump. He allowed Vance, initially, to claim that Trump salvaged the Affordable Care Act,” she added. “It took him several sentences to get to the part of … Walz’ answer, where he actually responded to that. I mean, I think there was a clear lack of preparation and execution here.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash disagreed, saying she believed Walz “had too much preparation,” adding, “He had so many lines that he was clearly trying to say that he didn’t listen.”
However, Bash also said she thought that Walz avoiding interviews played a role in weakening his debate performance, saying “he needed more reps.”
Vance has engaged with the media about seven times more than the Harris-Walz ticket combined, Axios reported.
The governor made multiple blunders during the face-off, such as when he faced questions about a CNN report finding that he had falsely claimed to have been in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Walz also asserted he was “friends with school shooters” while answering a query on gun control.
Four out of six voters in a Grand Rapids, Michigan, panel told CBS News national correspondent Jericka Duncan they felt Vance emerged victorious over Walz in the debate, citing his style, immigration policy and answer on abortion. CBS News’ poll found debate viewers close to evenly divided on who they believed won the debate.
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