US vice-presidential debate: What Walz, Vance said on Middle East, abortion, migrants

US vice-presidential candidates Tim Walz of the Democrats and Republican JD Vance had their vice-presidential debate early on Wednesday (October 2 India time), about a month ahead of the November 5 US elections.

Walz (60) is the Minnesota governor and a former high school teacher while Vance (40) is a bestselling author and the senator from Ohio. Both are military veterans. The debate was held at the CBS Broadcast Centre in New York City and covered wide-ranging but burning topics such as the Middle East tensions and US foreign policy, the economy, migration, and climate change.

Middle East crisis

As expected, the crisis in the Middle East came up for debate first as Iran launched a missile attack on Israel. Walz brought up Trump’s foreign policy record at once and panned the former president for his “turn towards” Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear disarmament deal (JCPOA) during his presidency.

Walz insisted on “Israel’s ability to defend itself” and blamed Trump’s “fickle leadership” for Iran being closer to a nuclear weapon than it was before.

Vance shot back, praising Trump for “delivering stability” in the world. “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,” he claimed.

Migrant problem

The US presidential race has seen Vance and Trump use increasingly divisive rhetoric. They have even falsely accused immigrants of eating people’s pets.

“We’ve got 20–25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country,” Vance claimed during the debate. “The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border,” he added. “It is a disgrace.”

Vance accused Vice-President and democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris of allowing fentanyl to flow into the US through the southern border. “Before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding. We have a historic immigration crisis,” Vance said.

He reiterated Trump’s plan to build a wall along the country’s border with Mexico. “The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’s wide-open Southern border... There are massive child separations due to Kamala Harris’s open border... I think we should build a wall along the US-Mexico border,” he added.

In response, Walz accused Vance and Trump of villainising the legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, Vance’s home state. “This is what happens when you don’t want to solve it, you demonise it,” he said.

Climate change

Coming to the question of climate change, Walz said, “My farmers know climate change is real,” taking a dig at Trump’s claim that climate change was “a hoax”.

Vance avoided giving a direct reply, and attacked Vice-President and democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris instead, saying if she really believed that climate change was serious, what she would do is manufacture more and produce more energy in the US.

US economy

On the question of economy, Walz accused Trump of not paying taxes and blamed the former president’s Covid-19 pandemic response for the economic situation. Vance responded by saying that judging economic issues requires common sense and not “listening to experts”.

Walz also criticised Trump for being out of touch with the middle class and flaunted his track record on policies to boost them. In response, Vance asked if why Harris had not put such measures in place if she had such great plans addressing middle class problems.

Abortion rights

Speaking on abortion rights, Walz emphasised Trump’s role in appointing three Supreme Court justices who overturned women’s constitutional right to abortion, leading to widespread restrictions in Republican-led states. “Donald Trump set this all in motion,” Walz stated.

Vance maintained that the states should determine abortion policy. “The proper way to handle this... is to let voters make these decisions. Let the individual states set abortion policy,” he said. However, Vance did not seem to present a hardline view but a rather “compassionate” one.