Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. What happened in that kind of awkwardly restrained debate last night? A New York Times analysis has headlined JD Vance strains to sell a softer Donald Trump. A New York Post analysis is headlined, Tim Walz staggered by cool JD Vance. A lot of the discussion on MSNBC, and we know where they're coming from, but a lot of the discussion on MSNBC has been over whether Tim Walz successfully appealed to less engaged voters, the remaining swing voters, by being as courteous as he was to Vance?

Or did Walz miss an opportunity to call Vance out for being a culture war radical? Charlie Sykes on MSNBC that never Trump could conservative said Vance was sane washing Donald Trump. Sane washing Donald Trump. The question is, why didn't Tim Walz be like, "What, are you kidding me?" More often than he was last night? Here's an example of that alleged sane washing, or the idea that Vance was straining to sell a softer Donald Trump. I would just call it a blatant revisionist take on Obamacare, which Trump tried throughout his presidency to repeal.

JD Vance: Well, look, we currently have laws and regulations in place right now that protect people with pre-existing conditions. We want to keep those regulations in place, but we also want to make the health insurance marketplace function a little bit better.

Brian Lehrer: Meet the new character and try to believe he's real. Donald Trump, the Obamacare rescuer. Walz was very respectful, gave Vance credit multiple times for actually trying to solve problems they both did with each other. He never mentioned childless cat ladies. He never used the word MAGA, or called Trump weird like he has in the past. What he did do, what they both did was try to praise each other's seriousness while discrediting the top of the ticket. Trump or Harris.

For example, the first question in the debate was about Iran, and Walz said this about Trump pulling out of the Iran nuclear weapons deal when Trump was president.

Tim Walz: Donald Trump pulled that program and put nothing else in its place, so Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump's fickle leadership.

Brian Lehrer: Then Vance replied with this.

JD Vance: You yourself just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump. Who has been the vice president for the last three and a half years? The answer is your running mate, not mine.

Brian Lehrer: We'll play some more moments from the debate that I thought were revealing on policy and on the image making they were each trying to engage in. I'll introduce a guest from POLITICO in just a second. Of course, we invite your reactions so we can do that now. Get the phones going and the text stream going. What from last night's debate did you think is worth mentioning this morning? I'll just ask it that generally, what from last night's debate do you think is worth mentioning this morning? 212433 WNYC.

It can be a specific moment or it can be a larger impression or wherever you want to go. 212433 WNYC. 433 9692, call or text. With us for this is Meredith Lee Hill, who is covering the Tim Walz campaign primarily for POLITICO. She previously spent six years at the PBS NewsHour covering the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Also the Trump and Biden presidencies, Congress and economic policy. Meredith, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Meredith Lee Hill: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: I gather you're from Minnesota.

Meredith Lee Hill: I am from Minnesota.

Brian Lehrer: Did we see a classic display of Minnesota nice from Tim Walz last night to your eye, and if so, was it a strategy or maybe, as some of his democratic critics are saying, a missed opportunity to sound a little more incredulous about JD Vance being so slick?

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes, I think some of the mannerisms that we saw from Tim Walz were very classic midwestern nice, a lot of the mannerisms that he deploys as governor. I do think that there is some lingering feelings among some Democrats who, as you mentioned, yes, they are disappointed that Tim Walz didn't make a stronger case against president or former President Trump and the threats that Democrats see for another Trump administration. I think in particular, Tim Walz on the campaign trail in rallies has really strongly made the case against Trump, talked about a litany of Project 2025 pieces, other policies that would be harmful to personal freedoms, limit abortion access, things like that, and paint a really dire picture of what a second Trump administration would look like on the campaign trail.

I think that's something that Democrats were eager to hear from, especially base Democrats were extremely eager to hear from Walz, who is often very energetic. He's very good at working crowds and getting the base fired up on those issues. I think that was something that was definitely missing from a large part of last night. He stumbled, obviously, on some answers right out of the gate. He was asked about whether he would approve a preventative strike in the Middle East, which is something, as a midwestern governor who specializes in domestic policy is certainly not his forte.

Also, he is very reticent to get ahead of Harris and her advisors on policy. That I think right out of the gate kind of knocked him off his focus a little bit. I do think talking to campaign advisors today, they're very eager to press the case on Vance answering the question about whether Trump won the 2020 election. He declined--

Brian Lehrer: We'll play that clip for sure.

Meredith Lee Hill: There are a lot of pieces that Democrats are trying to take away from this, and really, that was their state in grace from last night.

Brian Lehrer: You could certainly tell which one was the social studies teacher, now governor of Minnesota, and which one was the Yale Law school-educated attorney, JD Vance. From the Vance side, he plays a full MAGA culture warrior on the right-wing podcast but was playing a different character last night. What do you think that had to do with trying to win the election since it's the opposite of what Trump did in his debate last, last month? Trump went full MAGA.

Meredith Lee Hill: Certainly. Yes, and I think that is fueling some of the uneasiness among some Democrats who feel that Vance really did get away with glossing over a lot of Trump's vulnerabilities and also really taking a softer touch than some of his really strident attacks on Tim Walz's biography and other pieces that he's done in podcasts and other interviews. He didn't have that same vicious back and forth that he's deployed in other situations. I think certainly even in the beginning, before even answering the first question, Vance essentially turned to camera said he was talking to families at home and wanted to describe his background, introduce himself.

A very obviously huge eye on the suburban moms who are on the fence more mainstream Republicans who the Trump campaign is really going to need to bring into the fold in order to win in November. Obviously, Vance acknowledging that they can't just rely on mega-base Republican votes to pull them over the line in what's really a tight election. I think that was something, a very conscious effort from Vance throughout the night. That obviously played a huge role in the very civil back and forth that benefited Vance in a lot of ways.

Some Democrats are disappointed that it may be Walz in being so nice, he did let Vance get away with maybe more than they had planned.

Brian Lehrer: We'll see if it actually benefits either candidate, but at least those are the Democrats concerns being expressed to some degree. Like I said, watching some MSNBC coverage among other stations, there's a debate in those pro-Democrat circles, did Walz do what he have to do by pulling some punches and therefore trying to appeal to less engaged voters who are not as skeptical of Donald Trump, not as in love with Kamala Harris. They want to know, can we trust you? What are you going to do for me? More than they want to know if the other guy is Darth Vader.

On Vance being slick, here are a couple of examples. The moderator and CBS evening news anchor Nora O'Donnell asked if Vance thinks climate change is a hoax. You will hear listeners that he dodges the question.

Nora O'Donnell: The governor mentioned that President Trump has called climate change a hoax. Do you agree?

JD Vance: Well, look, what the president has said is that if the Democrats in particular, Kamala Harris and her leadership, if they really believe that climate change is serious, what they would be doing is more manufacturing and more energy production in the United States of America, and that's not what they're doing.

Brian Lehrer: Vance's answer on is climate change a hoax? Was to say we should have more energy production here in the United States. No answer on hoax. Really the way I heard it, and I was surprised a little bit that Walz didn't go after him on this. He was endorsing more fossil fuel production, which sort of implies that it's a hoax, or at least not as big a problem as the Democrats say it is. Meredith, I heard that as just a more restrained or intellectualized way to say, drill, baby, drill. Did you?

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes. I think Vance in particular is obviously a skilled debater. In those kinds of situations, he's incredibly good at redirecting around a potentially damaging answer into maybe something that's connected or not connected, but certainly glosses over what would be the Trump campaign's real position and tries to put his opponent on the back foot, which I feel like the follow up on that certainly benefited Vance in being able to say that, and then everyone kind of moved on.

Brian Lehrer: Like that, there was the Obamacare answer I played at the top. Trump as the rescuer of Obamacare, the manager of a failing Obamacare, according to Vance, rather than Trump as the one who came within one vote of getting Congress to repeal it with no replacement plan. Here's one more like that. Tim Walz, in this case, does put it directly to Vance about another false Trump claim of a hoax, the famous one that the 2020 election was rigged. Again, no straight answer. This starts with Tim Walz.

Tim Walz: This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that, did he lose the 2020 election?

JD 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?

Tim Walz: That is a damning non-answer.

Brian Lehrer: We have non answers on whether climate change is real and on the true outcome of the 2020 election. We don't play the pundit game here and ask if swing voters and swing states care about that or notice it for what it was. I'll just say time will tell. I guess that's what JD Vance was aiming for, that people wouldn't notice that he wasn't answering those very important questions and just kind of redirecting to some criticism or other of Democrats on something else.

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes. He was obviously incredibly eager not to answer that question, which Democrats thought was Tim Walz's probably best point of the night. Obviously, it came late in the debate and he was able to land a blow there, but obviously, so much of the debate had already happened that it was minimal in the real-time impact. Though Democrats have already cut an advertisement TV ad about Vance's answer on that, essentially painting that the Trump ticket as a threat to democracy. That's something obviously, that they're pivoting on and trying to focus on going forward.

Basically, even if he was able to sell Trump in so many other ways and deploy himself as a slick politician, that answer in itself is disqualifying for their hoping swing voters in battleground states.

Brian Lehrer: On how many people actually saw that moment, that late in the debate? I don't know if you have overnight ratings. We know 67 million people, which is huge watch the Trump-Harris debate. I don't know how many people were watching this debate even from the beginning. It certainly wasn't the boxing match that might have kept viewers riveted to Trump Harris, who might not be as interested in policy per se. Also, I think we have to remember, and you were just talking about it, that the Democrats already have cut an ad based on that non response from Vance.

That the original airing of the debate is just the beginning of its media cycle. Now both sides are chopping it up into memes for social media that might have much more legs than whoever was watching on television channels last night or live streaming.

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes, definitely. I think I also should mention, POLITICO did a snap poll on the debate that we have out today. Really it was essentially a 50/50 drop between Vance and Walz. While many maybe based Democrats are disappointed, Walz didn't really go for the jugular on Trump. He seemed to have obviously pretty high approval among independents, among voters that the campaign is highlighting a lot. Walz obviously had higher approval ratings than Vance going into this.

Walz seems to maybe have benefited a little bit across the board on approval, but Vance seemed to have, in some of these initial readings, dug himself out of the hole that he was in and so boosted himself a little bit, as well as Walz boosting himself a little bit. Yes, you're right, they will-- Obviously, there'll be lots of back and forth in the ad wars and the dissecting of this going forward. Democrats will do their best to seize on some of these non answers or what they see as disqualifying answers from Vance and really push that out, especially into battleground states.

Brian Lehrer: On the clip we just played, I think Spencer in Berkeley Heights, and for those of you who don't know, Berkeley Heights is in Jersey, not the East Bay of California. Hi, Spencer, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Spencer: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Yes. JD Vance calling the I like to look at the future moment is to me, the political equivalent of pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Because for the last however long, Donald Trump has had the ability to convey his supposed grievances on any social platform. All he's ever done is look backward, and all he's ever done is try to channel nostalgia to say we need to make America great again, to imply that we're not great now. However he can get his foothold to return to power by rolling back whatever progress we're actually trying to attain, the whole thing is hyperbole and completely trying to modify perspective to his advantage.

At least in the case of what Governor Walz had mentioned was a straight yes or no binary question in terms of how one wins an election. Were there the votes? Was there the electoral college, yes or no? There's no subjectivity on that. The fact that Senator Vance could not commit himself to answering overtly either yes and thereby alienating the base, or even worse, alienating Donald Trump or saying no to thereby reinforce waltz's labeling of the ticket as weird, it just reeked so badly of political squirming.

Brian Lehrer: Spencer, thank you very much. We do have to acknowledge Tim Walz doing a little political squirming, and looking uncomfortable when the moderators called him out on saying he was in China for the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, when he really didn't go until two months later, Margaret Brennan had to ask him this follow up question.

Margaret Brennan: Governor, just to follow up on that. The question was, can you explain the discrepancy?

Tim Walz: No. All I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just-- That's what I've said. I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.

Brian Lehrer: Tim Walz there, Brian Lehrer here with Meredith Lee Hill from POLITICO covering the Walz campaign. It's obviously a very small deal compared to, say, Trump lying about the election to overthrow electoral democracy, but along with Walz saying he carried weapons of war in war as a National Guard member, when he didn't serve in a war, but he did actually carry those weapons domestically in the National Guard, people have to decide to believe that he just misspoke about these things, as he put it there, or whether he was doing a little exaggeration of his experience in his past statements and got caught.

Such minor inaccuracies around actual experiences he actually had in the bigger scheme of things, but there it was in the debate as a trust and credibility issue. Again, time will tell if it matters. Anything you want to add on that since you're covering the Walz campaign in particular?

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes. You're right that the kind of ticky tackiness around some of these examples, it's questionable how much voters will latch onto that, though the seeming embellishment of a couple of these kind of biographical stories is certainly curious for Tim Walz. I guess in the immediateness of the debate, just the fact that he didn't have a great answer on this, obviously, this had been reported on in 24 hours or so before the debate. He had a chance to prepare an answer and be succinct and explain why he said what he said.

He just stumbled over it in a manner that you wouldn't expect from vice presidential candidate who had time to prepare for something like this. That is one thing that Democrats in particular were disappointed about. I think also you heard him even he gave an answer, and then Margaret Brennan paused a little bit and he even filled that space with more rambling, essentially, about this and not really in a succinct way. I think that is something that was clearly kind of the lowest point of his delivery and connection with American voters that Democrats saw for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Rob in Hicksville didn't like that moment, I think. Rob, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Rob: Hi. Good morning. Yes. I was basically going to make the point that you made that he was not in Tiananmen Square. Then tying that back to he did not carry weapons of war in Afghanistan when he was stationed in Italy during that time. Your framing of your comments of this was these minor inaccuracies, however, is not a minor inaccuracy. Whether or not you were in Tiananmen Square during the riots, or whether or not you carried an M4 or some other type of weapon in a war zone. Those are not minor inaccuracies as you guys are framing it, versus the mortal sin of not accepting the results of the election.

I think that we need to call a lie a lie when we see it, whether or not it's on one side or the other. These are not minor inaccuracies. Versus, like, was I in Tiananmen Square? No, I was not. During the riots? No, that's a lie. He got caught. Did I carry weapons of war in a war zone? No, I did not. We shouldn't frame these as minor inaccuracies, or however you guys are framing these things. These are straight-up lies and it's disingenuous and they're lies. As undecided voter or an independent voter as myself, those things matter on both sides. It's not fair coverage of these things.

Brian Lehrer: The argument about it not being the equivalent of, say, denying the election is because as I said, electoral democracy was at stake. If Trump had gotten away with that. In this case, with the weapons of war, and you'll tell me what you think, Rob. With the weapons of war, it was in the context of talking about gun regulation. He was saying, I know what these weapons are. I've carried weapons of war. Which was true. He was trained as a National Guard member in those weapons and carried them. He just noted--

Rob: He said that he carried weapons of war in--

Brian Lehrer: In war. That was the false part. Hang on. That was the false part in war, those two words. It's up to you how you judge that. In this case, he made like 15 trips to China with groups and was interested, including in that summer. Yes, it was after Tiananmen Square. It was not during the protests. I think he even said during the protests last [unintelligible 00:23:55]

Rob: These are large [unintelligible 00:23:59]

Brian Lehrer: He was there exploring the context of that with groups of Americans, but go ahead. You get one more go.

Rob: I'll say I'm a former high school social studies teacher and I'm an army reservist. I'm a veteran as well. These are large details that we should not frame as a minor inaccuracy when that's a lot. You know if you were in Tiananmen Square during a riot that has that much cultural significance, you know for a fact, whether or not you carried a weapon in a war zone. You know those things. Trying to play up or beef up your biography in order for-- On the largest stage to make it seem like you were there for these cultural things when you weren't.

Again, it's not to say that they're at the same level as denying the results of an election or downplaying January 6 as it was. I was overseas when January 6 happened. I was watching that from the Middle East, and I was watching it on the TV, like, what is going on here? To say that I carried weapons, no, I was not in a designated combat zone like Afghanistan or Iraq. I am an army veteran that deployed to the Middle East, but I'm not going to say that I carried weapons of war in war.

Brian Lehrer: Got it. Rob, thank you. I got to go for time, but thank you. I appreciate it. Call us again. Okay. Thank you very much.

Rob: Okay.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Well, there's an example of somebody who's not buying it. Even while saying, as the caller did, Meredith, that yes, it's not the equivalent of denying the election, he took it as a very serious example of dishonesty nonetheless. I guess I don't know what we can say about that except we'll see how it plays with the voters.

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes. It's certainly a contrast to everything that Tim Walz is trying to put out there about himself as a congenial Midwest governor, someone who is from modest roots and has worked in a bipartisan fashion on all different kinds of things. The embellishments, at the very least, about key pieces of his biography are really troubling for some Democrats. It just really goes against the vision of what most voters have of him. I think that is something that Republicans in particular have been trying to point out and certainly seizing on that if he's at least being misleading about these things. His trustworthiness on a host of issues is in question.

Brian Lehrer: Both, interestingly, about being in places where it would have been dangerous in China during Tiananmen Square or weapons of war in war.

Meredith Lee Hill: Right. Seemingly closer to some of this action.

Brian Lehrer: The rest of the context was accurate. Here's yet another example of Vance trying to sell his truth as the truth. This is about the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, largely being here legally, even though Vance has continued to insist on saying they're here illegally. In this clip, he literally redefines legal to illegal.

JD Vance: There's an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum, or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a Green Card, and waiting for ten years. That's the facilitation of illegal immigration, Margaret, by our own leadership.

Margaret Brennan: Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Meredith, in that clip, he actually says it's legal status. He used that term, but then concludes it's the facilitation of illegal immigration. When he goes back on Tucker Carlson or somewhere, he'll just keep calling them illegals. I guess the strategy is to think his redefinition of legal goes over people's heads, so they just discredit the whole idea of those pathways, those legal pathways which were available to the Haitians without the public hopefully on Vances part understanding them.

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes. Obviously, a majority of the Haitian migrants that are in Springfield or that Vance is talking about have temporary protected status, which is different than trying to claim asylum at the border or another process. They have current legal--

Brian Lehrer: Authorization, work authorization included.

Meredith Lee Hill: Right. In the United States. I think the argument that Vance has been making, obviously, he's getting so much pushback about different pieces of his claims are not true. He's essentially tried to pivot that into arguing that this is some sort of irregular migration happening in this small Ohio town and other small towns in the United States, and it's harming essentially white working class folks who are living there. That is something that he's really made the conscious effort to pivot to. He's been back and forth glossing over the details of these individual stories of the protected status or not of the immigrants themselves--

Brian Lehrer: It's so unfair to the immigrants themselves is what it seems to me because he's basically saying I don't like this pathway to legal status, but therefore I'm going to call these people here illegally, which they're not. Then it seems to pertain to them like they did something wrong, when really it's a policy dispute. All right, enough on that one. When we come back from a break, I want to play a couple of very substantive exchanges, one on reproductive rights and one on trusting experts and institutions. Listeners, we can keep taking your calls and texts, 212433 WNYC.

We'll keep talking to Meredith Lee Hill from POLITICO covering the campaigns, especially the Walz campaign. More to come. Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we discuss the vice presidential debate with Meredith Lee Hill from POLITICO and your calls and texts on reproductive rights. Trump and Vance have sort of boxed themselves into this position that when some women are dying now from not being able to get emergency abortions in many red states, that was what came up in the debate last night. One of the things that it's just a reflection of the beautiful diversity of America.

They're not crazy about diversity generally, you might remember, but when it comes to abortion, apparently so. This clip starts with Vance and goes on to Waltz.

JD Vance: Now, of course, Donald Trump has been very clear that on the abortion policy specifically, that we have a big country and it's diverse. California has a different viewpoint on this than Georgia. Georgia has a different viewpoint from Arizona, and the proper way to handle this, as messy as democracy sometimes is, is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy. I think that's what makes the most sense in a very big, a very diverse, and let's be honest, sometimes a very, very messy and divided country.

Margaret Brennan: Governor, would you like to respond and also answer the question about restrictions?

Tim Walz: Yes. Well, the question got asked and Donald Trump made the accusation that wasn't true about Minnesota. Well, let me tell you about this idea that there's diverse states. There's a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurman died in that journey back and forth. The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights as basic as the right to control your own body is determined on geography?

Theres a very real chance had Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. Thats why the restoration of Roe versus Wade.

Brian Lehrer: Meredith, is this like now saying Trump as President saved Obamacare when he really tried hard to repeal it. In this case, Trump ran in 2016 as pro life, as he put it. Now its just about diversity.

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes, I think the argument from the Trump campaign and obviously from Trump himself has been to claim the Republican and conservative benefits of having Roe overturned. Obviously, they don't want a ton of the backlash. Especially as we're seeing abortion access is generally popular among a lot of different demographics that are key to the election. That's something that Trump obviously has been focusing on, is that he really just returned this decision to the states and then they can take it from here.

Even during the debate, he commented on Truth Social that he wouldn't sign a national abortion ban. That's the furthest he's ever gone on that. They are certainly seeing abortion as a major issue on the GOP ticket side of things. Really as they try to make inroads with women voters, which they're pretty behind on, they're obviously deciding to make the conscious effort to come off softer on abortion, limiting abortion access in a lot of ways. Essentially going back to the argument that, yes, they are leaving this up to the states, and then obviously states can make these decisions and it's less of a punitive measure, obviously, as we're seeing these stories of women dying without receiving care and other women suffering in states that don't have abortion care access right now.

Brian Lehrer: That Truth Social post that you just referenced, Trump saying he would not sign a national abortion bill if one came to his desk. Was that before or after the Trump Harris debate?

Meredith Lee Hill: That was after.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, was after. He was trying to clean that up, right? Because in the debate, he left the door open to signing that.

Meredith Lee Hill: Right. It was last night, essentially during the debate he said that. Yes, they are clearly trying to clean up abortion comments, and Trump was watching the debate last night and there was, as you mentioned, and played pretty substantive back and forth from Tim Walz about the women who are dying and suffering currently with the current restrictions in place. That's obviously a huge, compelling emotional factor for a lot of female voters, but also some male voters as well. Something that Democrats think they have a clear winning message on and something that they will continue to hammer Trump on.

Brian Lehrer: Peter in Centerport thinks Walz got away with one a little bit on the abortion exchange. Peter, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Peter: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I think what I saw, this question of reproductive rights, which maybe is a focus group word, because if you're talking about abortion, you've obviously already exercised your reproductive rights. The abortion question then came to this Minnesota issue, and that in two seconds on my phone, I looked up what the law was, and there are no limitations on the timing of that.

I'm a little curious why the moderators couldn't very easily check that and at least a little pushback and say, answer the question, is it okay for an abortion in the 9th month, 8th month? What are those limitations, if any? It's a very, very contentious and very personal subject, but when you just left that gloss over, here's what we have again. With question asked but never answered.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you. I think the point that Vance was trying to make last night, Meredith and Walz said it just wasn't true, and the moderator seemed to back up that it wasn't true. Vance was arguing that the Minnesota law allows, in the case of what he called a botched abortion, for the doctor not to try to give life saving treatment to the fetus. Walz said that isn't in the law. Then one of the moderators, like happened in the ABC debate, affirmed that there's no state in the country where a doctor is allowed to kill a born baby.

Vance was trying to make the distinction between killing and not giving life saving treatment to a fetus who was in the process of being aborted but somehow survived it. Is that anything you fact checked as far as what that law says or if that ever happens?

Meredith Lee Hill: That's something that Republicans, especially when Tim Walz was first tapped for this role. That Minnesota law is something that Republicans pointed out as a reason that he is far left and a radical progressive on issues like abortion. Yes, I mean, I think the law in Minnesota tries to limit restrictions on abortion in a way that Republicans have-- As you mentioned, have tried to argue that a fetus-- Maybe a doctor would be able to make the decision not to save a fetus's life. That is something that Minnesota lawmakers say is not the case.

Obviously, the moderators pointed out last night that it is not legal in any state to actually kill a fetus in that situation. I think the efforts by Republicans have been to try to noodle around that law and see if there's any kind of open interpretation to what doctors can do in that kind of moment. That's something that Minnesota Democrats in particular have said and Tim Walz himself has said is not the case.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie in northern Virginia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kylie.

Kylie: Hi. With that first answer that Walz gave, I was very nervous because I think that he just stumbled out of the blocks. What I now realize is that I think that Walz got Vance to play his game, because I just don't see a world where Tim Walz out debates JD Vance. I feel like the folks that the Trump campaign is trying to get, these kind of young, white, male voters would have loved it to see this bloodbath. They really didn't get it. They got civility, and I agree with you. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. I felt like the fact that it was relatively not memorable in that way, has got to be a win for Tim Walz because it could have been awful if he tried to take down JD Vance.

I just think it was clear that JD Vance was going to out debate Tim Walz no matter-- With any kind of head on confrontation. At first I was a little upset, but then I was like, no, I think this was a good debate for Tim Walz.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie, thank you very much. Kylie, being a pundit there, I guess time will tell. A last word as we wrap up this segment. Meredith, what happens post debate? Is there already post debate, spin of the debate, people trying to clean up things that were said in the debate, or a lot of the conventional wisdom is vice presidential debates never matter anyway. Where are we on the morning after?

Meredith Lee Hill: Yes, I think the Harris campaign in particular was obviously trying to lower expectations for Tim Walz going into this. He's not known as a great debater. Privately, Harris's advisors were acknowledging this was pretty high stakes, given the fact that there's not another debate scheduled. This could be the final debate and really a final campaign event in a way that millions of Americans watch it ahead of November. I think that there is a lot of effort by the Harris campaign to move on from this and to highlight, obviously, the good points for Tim Walz.

They are putting him on the campaign trail. They announced this morning in a more full court press manner, he's going to do more national media interviews, which is something that he's been reticent to do. They're trying to get him out more. He's had fairly limited interactions, unscripted interactions with voters. They're going to try to put him more in direct contact with voters and get him out there in the mix on the campaign trail over the final sprint in a way that they think people getting to know him, talking to him, will be a lot more effective than keeping him more guarded than he has been.

Brian Lehrer: Meredith Lee Hill covers the Walz campaign and the election generally for POLITICO. Thanks so much after a late night for getting up and doing this with us today. Thank you.

Meredith Lee Hill: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We turn the page. Much more to come.

 

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