More politics, less personal attacks: Tim Wells and JD Vance in confrontation

The battle is political and politeness comes from home – Tim Wells, the Democratic candidate for Vice President Kamala Harris and governor of Minnesota, arrived smiling and polite, “minneosta nice” they call it in the USA. JD Vance, the Republican counterpart of Wells, is also from the Midwest and represents the peaceful state of Ohio. The two met tonight (early Wednesday morning, Israel time) for a confrontation that may also be the last until election day.

The vice-presidential confrontation opened with a hearty handshake, exchanging smiles and respect for each other, those who were attacked during the presidential confrontation had their heads held high, as the two candidates threw political punches at each other’s presidential candidate. In stark contrast to the September presidential showdown between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who barely managed to hide their distaste for each other, the running mates tried to be polite this time, focusing more on policy differences than personal insults.

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They offered praise, expressed sympathy and acknowledged that they agree on the way to deal with some of the country’s most vexing and divisive issues. At the time, neither of them shied away from the dirty work they had to do for their campaigns.

Vance referred to “our fellow Democrats” as he also implied Harris had “allowed the Mexican drug cartels to operate freely in this country” and accused her of setting the stage for global instability fueled by an expanding war in the Middle East. “Tim, I think you have a tough job here because you have to play whack the mole,” Vance said sympathetically before attacking.

“You have to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t bring about an increase in net wages, which of course he did. You have to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t bring down inflation, which of course he did. And then you have to simultaneously protect the terrible financial record of Kamala Harris.’

Welles slightly dodged the first question, which was of course about the Middle East, to argue that the American nation does not need “an 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about the size of an audience” to solve the situation. He cited Trump’s recent dismissal of the traumatic brain injuries suffered by US soldiers during his presidency as a “headache.”

And he chided Trump for conducting diplomacy on Twitter and not paying federal taxes. Wells sharply criticized his Republican opponents when the two continued to spread fabrications about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, the home of Sen. Vance. He also said that Trump helped torpedo a law that would have solved the immigration problem, because he wanted to run on immigration reform.

“I believe that Senator Vance wants to resolve this, but by siding with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point,” Wells said. “And when it becomes such a talking point, we devalue humanity and discredit other human beings.”

One of the more heated points of contention between the two was when Tim Wells directly asked JD Vance whether Trump lost the 2020 election, a claim that the former president vehemently denies and continues to claim his victory, “Tim, I’m focused on the future” Vance dodged.

The confrontation that took place tonight may be the last direct confrontation between the candidates of the major parties in a race that remains virtually equal in the main battleground states. Harris, who entered the race at the end of July, is calling for a second confrontation between her and Trump. The Republican candidate refused.

Vance, 40, a first-term Republican senator, former US Marine and best-selling author, presented himself before the showdown as a determined and defiant ideological bulldog – a leader of a new kind of conservatism pioneered by Trump.

Wells, 60 — a former teacher and Army National Guard veteran who has held elected office since 2007 — has taken a more upbeat approach, rallying Democrats with an energetic message while dismissing his Republican opponents as “oddballs.”

Both candidates have acknowledged that they erred several times during the campaign – Wells was asked to address his claims that he traveled to China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, despite traveling to the country only months later. In response, Velez claimed stupidity and said he had spoken by mistake. “I will talk a lot. I will get carried away with rhetoric,’ he said.

Vance also apologized for his past criticism of Trump, including once privately questioning whether Trump was “America’s Hitler” and comparing him to “cultural heroin.” “I’ve also been very open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump,” Vance said. ‘I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest falsifications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump has provided for the American people.’

“I think there was a lot in common here,” Wells said afterward, “I’m sympathetic to the mistakes that were made.”

“Me too, bro,” replied Vance.

One of the only other tense moments in the debate came when one of the moderators, Margaret Brennan, pointed out that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, who were falsely accused of eating pets were there legally under a Biden administration program. Vance objected.

“The rules were you don’t check facts,” Vance replied, before speaking out of turn to argue that the Biden administration’s policies were inadequate. After repeated requests for the debaters to stop talking out of turn, the moderators turned off the candidates’ microphones and changed the subject.

CBS News has not publicly announced that there will be no fact-checking prior to the event. But the Harris campaign was concerned about the debate rules that said “moderators shall strive to enforce scheduling agreements,” whereas the debate rules issued by ABC News for the Sept. 10 presidential debate said, “moderators shall strive to enforce scheduling agreements and ensure a civilized debate.”

When the discussion turned to abortion, Wells shared the horror testimonies of women who could not get abortions, ending at times devastatingly saying “Donald Trump set all of this in motion.” Wells also shared how he and his wife, Gwen, needed fertility treatments to conceive their daughter and warned that similar procedures could be threatened by draconian abortion restrictions under Trump.

Abortion rights are a central issue for Harris and the Democratic Party’s campaign, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harris and Wells linked the abortion ban to what they called intrusive Republican interference in people’s everyday lives.

Trump has boasted about picking the conservative Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, but he has sought to distance himself from state bans that go further, or efforts to impose federal restrictions on the procedure. Lownes and Trump also had disagreements on the issue. In August, Vance said Trump would veto a national abortion ban if it passed Congress; Trump, during his confrontation with Harris, said he had not discussed the ban with Vance.

Vance said he has never called for a national abortion ban, although he has said he would like abortion to be illegal across the country. He said Trump’s position is that a wide variety of countries should have the ability to make their own decisions.