Vice Presidential Candidate Debate: Sen JD Vance vs Gov Tim Walz
Screengrab from CBS News
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Senator JD Vance (R-OH) will meet tonight for the one and only vice-presidential candidate debate before the 2024 electoins.
Livestream here for watching and commenting:
Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — both relative newcomers to the national political spotlight — face off Tuesday in the only scheduled vice presidential debate before the November election.
The debate is being held three weeks after former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris had their only scheduled debate.
Walz, who is Harris’ running mate, has had a long career in politics but was largely unknown to voters outside of Minnesota before he joined the Democratic ticket.
Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” was first elected to office in 2022, less than two years before being selected by Trump to be his running mate.
Neil Patrick Harris looks *AWFUL*.Report
I sat through both president debates from start to finish. Thinking I am going to sit this one out, maybe watch an episode of From with my wife instead. After all it is spooky season. Let me know who wins.Report
Voters still think that the economy is in bad shape (though the numbers are wandering back toward the good numbers).
They compared grocery prices since 2021 (up 21%!) to wages since January of this year (up 3%!) and I am yelling at the television begging them to give us a real comparison. How are wages since 2021? Oh, only January of this year? I see, I see.Report
Housing problems? Let’s subsidize demand! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You’ve gotta admit, if you deport 15 million Undocumented people, you are going to free up some housing… but who will build new housing? The undocumented are the only people with the skills to do construction at the prices we need them to build them for!Report
Pitcher of warm something or other. I’m with InMD. Currently watching playoff baseball.Report
My O’s lost earlier. Hoping for a better performance tomorrow.Report
NO HANDSHAKE!!!!!
Wait. There was a handshake, the cameras missed it because the feed was on the studio.
It’s a clownshow.
AND TWO MINUTES LATER THEY ASKED THEM TO SHAKE HANDS AGAIN BUT THE CAMERAS MISSED THE FIRST HALF OF THE HANDSHAKE OH MY GOSH THEY SUCK AT THISReport
Iran, Hurricanes, and Longshoremen.
I guess we have tonight’s menu.Report
Walz is pointing out that October 7th happened and Israel has a right to defend itself.
We need steady leadership and we need someone who isn’t Trump.
Walz talks about Trump Trump Trump and not really Israel.
Vance is wearing a hot pink tie. We’re looking at Vance and not Walz. Look at that tie!
Vance’s turn has him talking about himself instead of answering the question. He’s answering the question he wishes they asked.
He’s not answering the question to a degree I didn’t think possible.
I thought that the Dems would dodge the Israel question and Vance spent 45 seconds talking about himself.
Oh, now he’s answering the question. “Trump was president and there was peace. Harris’s administration is part of the chaos happening now. Also: Israel can do whatever it wants.”
Walz talks about Trump not hitting back against Iran when Iran got antsy and Trump exited the Iranian deal.
Vance is pointing out the the VP for the last 3 years was Harris not Trump.
(I thought that Vance would bring up the general that got killed.)Report
Hurricanes. Climate Change.
Vance: He’s talking about the communities who lost people. He’s putting a lot of words together in long strings with very few ums and uhs and other fillers. Walz has a lot of ums and uhs. Now Vance is talking about reshoring manufacturing and reshoring energy because we’re cleaner than the rest of the world. Outsourcing energy and manufacturing to China means that they’ll make dirty manufacturing with dirty energy.
Walz: Trump called Climate Change a hoax and made jokes about beachfront property. We are creating solar jobs! We need to adapt and make more clean energy. We need to say that Climate Change is real and we can do that and create jobs! We’re doing it already! The status quo is good! Continue the status quo!
My buddy is impressed with Vance. “Dang! He’s a good speaker! Vance for President!”
Vance is hammering on how we need to bring stuff back to the US to make it here. Not just the panels, the components. HE BROUGHT UP NUCLEAR!!! And his time is up.
Walz: We’re producing natural gas. “Our number one export can’t be topsoil from these storms”. That’s a good line. Bury powerlines, that sort of thing. “Trump called it a hoax!”Report
Immigration.
Vance is asked about mass deportation and using the military to make it happen. Will you separate children from parents?
Vance answers “We have to stop the bleeding.” We have to close the borders, we have to keep the fentanyl from crossing the border. We’ve got to reimplement Trump’s border policy, build the wall, and start deporting the criminal migrants. Make it harder for immigrants to undercut the wages of the citizens. What about the children that the government has lost track of? That’s the child crisis.
Walz: Harris was a DA who prosecuted gangs with undocumented migrants. And the immigration problem is a Congressional problem and Trump blocked the bill that would have solved the problem! So it would have worked but Trump wanted the campaign issue. The legislature needs to do it, not just the legislative branch. Trump lied about the wall and Mexico didn’t pay a dime! Vance used to say that Trump’s position was laughable.
Vance points out that the government is separating children right now. He points out the moderator misstated what he said earlier and he restated it. He’s pointing out that Harris was the Border Czar and undid all of Trump’s executive orders.
Walz is asked about most Americans supporting mass deportations. Walz is talking about the cats. He’s talking about how he believes that Vance wants to solve it but Trump doesn’t.
Vance claims to have been to the border more than the border czar. That’s a good line. He says we just need to empower the law enforcement that we have. Oooh! He’s talking about Springfield! They’re eating the cats! He’s talking about how he cares about the *CITIZENS*. He believes that Walz wants to solve the problem but Harris doesn’t.
Walz is bringing up the bill again. He quoted the Bible!
They fact-checked Vance and he’s fact-checking them back. Dang!Report
THEY HAVE TO TURN OFF THE MICS OF BOTH OF THEM!!!!!Report
Seriously, this is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.Report
Talk about the economy.
Walz: “Harris and I come from the middle class.” Harris is talking about the housing and they want to give down payment assistance for houses. Hey! As a homeowner, that’s money in my pocket! Tax credits. Walz is getting better at talking. He’s hitting his stride. He’s talking about Trump’s sales tax on imports and how it’d lead to a recession. (Does he mean two consecutive quarters of negative growth?)
Vance: A lot of what Harris proposes sounds good but she’s been the VP! If this is such a great policy, why didn’t Harris do it already? She’s VP! Grocery prices went up! Housing prices went up! Why isn’t she doing it now? The fact that she isn’t doing it means that we can’t trust her plan! Trump’s plan is not just a plan but it’s also a *RECORD*. Look at how Trump’s inflation was low and take-home pay went up! Walz wants to get rid of Trump’s tax cut! That was take-home pay for the middle class! He wants to get rid of that tax cut! He knows we’re struggling, that goes away when Trump is President.
Walz: Hey! There was a problem with the economy on day one which was COVID. Walz points out that Vance is saying that he doesn’t trust economists, he doesn’t trust the experts, hey, Trump doesn’t have all the answers.
Vance points out that the experts were wrong about NAFTA and they were wrong about shipping manufacturing overseas. He went against the experts and he was right! He brought manufacturing back! We need to bring more manufacturing back.
Walz: We produce soybeans and corn and we need fair trading partners. Trump created the largest trade deficit in our history. He agrees with Vance on a lot of stuff but Trump wanted right-to-work laws. Harris created 250,000 jobs!
Vance is hitting Harris hard on inflation and defending Trump. He’s doing really well. He’s a good speaker.Report
They’re asking Walz about being in China during the Tiananmen Square. And fact-checked him how he said he was and NPR said he wasn’t. And now Walz is talking about going back and forth to China and how he tried to do the best he could and his community elected him to congress and he was bipartisan. Minnesota elected him Governor! He’s there for the people. Sometimes a knucklehead and sometimes he talks too much and he learned a lot about China. Trump should have come with us on some of those trips to China! Maybe he wouldn’t have blamed Covid on Xi!
The moderator asked the question again and Walz tripped up. That’s a bad clip.
Vance is asked about Trump’s being America’s Hitler and disparaging Trump’s economy in 2020. Why have you flip-flopped on the Trump thing. Will you give Trump the advice he needs to hear and not the advice he wants to hear.
Vance’s answer is that some of that is because he believed the media instead of looking at it himself. Sure, if you change your mind, you should explain it. And so it’s true that there was stuff that we could have done better and if Congress was doing its job, we could have done more. On the border, on Paris(?), and Congress was more interested in impeaching Trump than legislating.
Hey, Biden continued Trump’s tariffs because it’s one of the few good things Biden did.Report
Reproductive rights!
Trump said that Walz was cool with abortion into the 9th month.
Walz is talking about the Supreme Court and Amanda in Texas died because of the abortion thing and got sepsis and nearly died. Hadley in Kentucky got raped. He’s talking about restoring Roe vs. Wade in Minnesota and if you don’t know those two women, you soon will. (Good line.) Project 2025 shows up! And he’s talking about the states will decide. It’s not about letting the states decide, it’s about Human Rights.
Vance is talking about abortion. He’s talking about being the middle class and knowing girls who had abortions because having the baby would ruin their life. He’s saying holy crap he’s saying that Americans don’t trust Republicans to be pro-family. He’s saying that he wants to regain America’s trust on public policy to give them more options. On abortion we have a big diverse country and he returned abortion to the states and let the individual states make their own abortion policy. And that’s messy. (Holy cow. A better answer than I thought would be possible.)
Walz is talking about human rights shouldn’t be based on geography. We have to restore Roe v. Wade and make it country-wide. “I agree with Vance, I don’t agree with Trump.”
Vance is asked about 15 week bans on abortion. He talks about the partial birth abortion ban. He talks about how Ohio voted *AGAINST* his position on abortion and that got him to see that Republicans need to be better on abortion. That’s why he’s pushing for child care and fertility.
Walz is saying we’re not pro-abortion, we’re pro-women! (Good line.) He’s talking about how Minnesota is the state with the lowest teen pregnancy rate. We’re not pro-abortion, we’ve got $6000 child care credits.
Vance wishes that the kid who died was still alive instead of abortion. He asks about the law that says that doctors aren’t required to give treatment to babies that survive an abortion. He talks about hospitals being forced to give abortions and they shouldn’t be.
Vance and Walz are arguing about that law now and they’re fact-checking each other. Walz is saying that people should mind their own business on abortion.
They’re arguing about the law and they’re saying they need to fact check each other.
Whew.
Commercial break.Report
Okay. So far, I think that Vance is doing better than Walz, but Vance is “too smart” while Walz is clumsy and tripping. That could make Vance look like a bully against a charming midwestern dad.
But I’m not finding Vance weird or offputting. I told my bud. “He’s one of us.”
He’s lightly on the spectrum. He’s not from the internet but he’s been there a lot.
At this point, I’d say Vance is winning the debate but not because Walz is losing it. Walz is pretty good and genial and clumsy. Vance is surprisingly good and eloquent and he talks very quickly without screwing it up.
I can’t believe how quickly both of these guys are talking, though. Whew.Report
I’d find it quite amusing if Vance were to come out well in this and have everyone talking positively about his performance, maybe even a bit of the 2000 VP debate outcome where people were saying Cheney should’ve been at the top of the ticket rather than Bush… and then have Trump get his pride hurt and try to take Vance down a peg or two.
This is not at all a prediction, I hasten to add. I’m not even watching the debate, so thanks for your running commentary.Report
Dude. I’m ‘zausted.
I’m going home and taking a shower.Report
Gun Violence!
Vance is against gun legislation. He’s asked about holding parents responsible.
Vance trusts local law enforcement on this and says that sometimes that’d be appropriate and sometimes not. A kid stealing a parent’s gun is different from parents giving the kid a gun. “We do have to do better.” Walz and I agree on that but we disagree on what to do. He’s talking about illegal guns doing most shootings and how the open border is causing illegal guns to spill across the border. “I say this not loving the answer but I think we have increase security in our schools.” School resource officers and that sort of thing. We need common sense bipartisan solutions.
Walz talks about how his kid witnessed a shooting at a community center. I’m a hunter, I own firearms, our first responsibility is to our kids. More red flag laws, more background checks. We need to do more research on gun violence. We need to do stuff more like Finland. We need to pass more laws. Harris worked on this issue as a DA. We don’t want our schools hardened like a fort. We have to do better.
Vance didn’t know that Walz’s kid witnessed a shooting. We have higher rates of substance abuse and a mental health crisis. It’s not the whole reason we have gun violence is that it is a huge chunk. We need to empower law enforcement to arrest bad guys and get guys with illegal guns off the street.
Walz grew up with a shotgun in his gun rack but we don’t live in that country anymore. Most gun deaths are suicides. And he doesn’t want to stigmatize mental illness. It’s the guns! It’s the guns! We can solutions that respect the 2nd Amendment and protect our children.Report
Inflation and housing.
Walz is talking about the companies who see housing as a commodity. Companies are buying houses. (This is interesting. But he drops it.) We need to invest more in housing, cut red tape, local folks make it easier to build houses (we can’t do it federally). Veteran home loans means you don’t have to make a down payment. We just need to subsidize demand! But he’s talking about increasing stock and giving down payment assistance. People with stable housing get stable jobs and stability saves us money. It’s not the fault of immigrants. We don’t have enough affordable housing.
Vance: We don’t want to blame immigrants for housing prices and illegal immigrants are competing with Americans for scarce homes. 25 million immigrants are competing for housing. Harris is running like a newcomer but she’s the VP. If she wants to fix housing, she should fix housing instead of campaigning on fixing housing! Lower energy costs would help pay for housing. Lower diesel fuel means that the price of the stuff being pulled will cost less. We could build housing on Federal lands. (But it’s not close to grocery stores and schools and stadiums.)
Walz points out that there isn’t a lot of Federal land around Minneapolis. We need to protect these federal lands instead of building houses on it. We need to protect clean water. Build houses in cities.
Vance is asked about clarifying immigrants are part of the problem. Vance talks about the federal study that talks about migration and illegal migration driving prices and they’ll put it on social media. He’s talking about how Harris’s policies and regulations are preventing houses from being built.
Vance is not talking about “Democrats”, he’s talking about Harris.
Walz asks about the regulations that prevent building and he points out that these regulations are LOCAL. (That’s a good point.)Report
“Walz is talking about the companies who see housing as a commodity. Companies are buying houses. (This is interesting. But he drops it.) We need to invest more in housing, cut red tape, local folks make it easier to build houses (we can’t do it federally).”
huh. “There’s a lot of companies buying up all the houses in the country! And I think that we need to make that easier!“Report
Health Care! Trump has concepts of a plan!
Vance is talking about pre-existing conditions and switching off of private insurance. Vance doesn’t want to talk about a 900 page bill on the debate stage. He talks about Trump’s record. Prescriptions went down under Trump and up under Harris. He’s talking about Price Transparency. Reinsurance regulations. Let states experiment a little bit and figure out the best way to do it. Trump salvaged Obamacare!
You don’t have to agree with everything that Trump has ever done, but Trump didn’t crush Obamacare, but he worked with a bipartisan congress to fix it.
Walz was there at the creation of the ACA. He’s got the city with the Mayo Clinic. Under Harris more people are covered than under Trump. Trump tried to repeal the ACA and he would have repealed it if it wasn’t for John McCain. Harris negotiated pricing with Medicare. Trump’s concept of a plan. Vance’s statement is worse than that. Vance wants to go back to *PRE-OBAMACARE*. Harris will protect the ACA.
Vance is talking about pre-existing conditions. He wants to make the medical system work better. Young and healthy people left the exchanges and Trump helped people stay on them. Trump already was President! If he was going to destroy it, he would have! He’s already been president!
Walz is talking about the individual mandate and Vance mentions that he likes the individual mandate. We need to incentivize people to be in the market. Harris wants to negotiate drug prices.
Next topic, we don’t give Vance a chance to respond.Report
Child care crisis.
Walz is talking about the importance of family medical leave. Minnesota has family medical leave. This gives the child a better start. Big companies can offer it, small companies can’t. The current economy gives tax breaks to companies without medical leave. Walz is talking too quickly and he’s skipping over points. We have to make it easier to get into business and give family medical leave.
Vance is asked about a national family leave program. There is a bipartisan solution here. She has access to paid leave but there is a cultural pressure to keep going back to work. We need a model that allows more choices. These programs that we have now only go to one child care model. We need federal dollars to go to multiple kinds of child care. Not just one kind of it. We can do better.
$5000 per child tax credit. Trump said that we’ll be taking in money from companies that ship jobs overseas and companies that use slave labor overseas and give that money to Americans. Bring manufacturing back. Give paid family leave and child care options to Americans. We’re going to have to spend more money because there are too few people providing this service. THIS IS WHY WE NEED ILLEGALS!!!
Walz is asked about the tax credits. He says that Congress needs to pass the law and they can take care of it. Walz points out that Vance and Walz aren’t that far apart on this but tariffs won’t cover this cost. Minnesota needs more workers!Report
WHAT ABOUT ELECTION FRAUD!
Will you guys agree with the election and electors?
Vance is asked about contesting the election. Vance talks about how we need to talk about inflation. He’s covering for Trump now and we need to debate the election in the public square. The protestors needed to protest peacefully. January 6th was a problem but January 20th was peaceful. The problem is big tech silencing debate. Harris wants to censor disinformation and that’s a bigger threat to democracy. Vance has been endorsed by JFK and Tulsi! They think we need to debate! Harris doesn’t *WANT* debate! And that’s a bigger threat to Democracy than January 6th.
Walz is close to Vance on this and he’s talking about the Trump loss in 2020. Walz talks about his kid being scare in January 2020. Democracy is bigger than winning the election. He talks about hanging Pence. “A president’s words matter!” We need to shake hands when we lose and January 6th was a travesty and Trump tried to overturn an election. 4 years later we’re in the same boat. The winner needs to be the winner after everybody shakes hands.
Vance explains that Trump handed over power on January 20th. If Walz wins, Vance will shake hands. Vance points out that Clinton said that Trump stole the election. BOTH SIDES DO IT!
Walz “January 6th was not Facebook ads.” It’s not censorship, they’re talking about getting rid of death threats, censorship is book banning! Okay, January 6th was a big deal. Walz asked Vance about the election and Vance asked Walz about Harris rejecting the 1st Amendment.
FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATER!
“You wanted to kick people off of Facebook for criticizing the government.”
Walz: Trump lost the election, this is not a debate. Where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Walz is talking about honoring the election. (This was a pretty good segment for him.)Report
I’m listening and typing and not watching. I asked my bud, how did they look.
Walz comes across as way more unprepared, deer in the headlights, red-faced, and flustered.
Vance comes across as prepared and in his element and comfortable debating.
Now, from my perspective as someone who is listening, I’d say that Vance comes across as, yeah, in his element. He was in debate club, baby, and this is a debate! Walz trips over his sentences and his own words sometimes. Now he’s not *BAD*, but he doesn’t sound comfortable in this environment.
If there’s a criticism of Vance, it’s that Vance is too smart and a know-it-all and Walz is a bumbling dad from a 90’s sitcom and so Vance comes across as the bad guy from a 90’s sitcom.Report
CLOSING STATEMENTS!
Vance won the coinflip.
Walz made a joke about the people who missed Dancing with the Stars. Talking about how optimistic their coalition is and how they want freedom and optimism. Trump is a bad guy. Vance is a guy who will stand with Trump. Harris is a better option. Vance said that Trump makes the people Vance cares about afraid. Walz asks for us to give Harris a new day where everybody gets a chance to voice.
Vance is talking about energy and, rich or poor, you should be able to turn on the heat, afford a nice meal, afford a nice community. Harris’s policy makes things worse. Harris says she’ll make things better on day one. It’s not day one, it’s day fourteen hundred. There are people on the campaign trail who don’t have food but they ask Vance how he’s doing. He wants to help these people live their American Dream but we can’t do that with this stale leadership. Please vote for Donald Trump!
Whew.Report
Chewed on it on the drive home.
My football score for Harris/Trump was 27-10. Trump got on the board but he was pretty decisively defeated.
My football score for Walz/Vance is something more like 31-35.
It was close but Vance won it, and he won it by more than a field goal. But that doesn’t mean that Walz sucked! Walz had a very good showing.
Remember this graphic from the Trump/Biden debate?
Oh, that brings a grin to my face even now.
Anyway, pick it up and move it over 2.5 points.
I can see how the most partisan people would say that Walz won! Definitively! I could see how pretty partisan people would say that Walz won! In a squeaker. I could see how somewhat partisan people would say “it was a tie!”
It was not, absolutely not, a blowout. But I think that Vance won and it wasn’t a squeaker. But Walz didn’t look bad. He should be proud of his performance too.Report
My takeaway:
1) Undecided voters don’t watch VP debates. Seriously. They don’t.
2) If an undecided voter was watching this debate looking for reasons to vote for Trump, the undecided voter found them. If an undecided voter was watching this debate looking for reasons to vote for Harris, the undecided voter found them. If an undecided voter was watching this saying that this debate would be the tie-breaker? The undecided voter is voting for Trump.
3) Undecided voters don’t watch VP debates. Seriously. They don’t.Report
This is probably the best way to sum up all of the VP debates. Especially points 1 & 3.
You’re doing the Lord’s work watching this slop, Jaybird.Report
The debate I really want to see is the Vance-Mayor Pete debate.
And the likelihood of that is, I believe, quite high.Report
By the way, @Jaybird, thank you for this. Great summaryReport
You’re welcome!
I agree with the Mayor Pete thing.
My Buddy said this: If Harris and Walz lose come November, we’re never going to hear about Harris or Walz on the national level again. Governor stuff, maybe senator stuff, but nothing in a headline.
If Trump and Vance lose come November, we’re not going to be hearing much from Trump but we will be hearing from Vance again. This isn’t the last time we’ve seen Vance up there.
While I have quibbles with that (I thought Trump would recede after Jan 6th and was wrong), I agree with him about Vance. This ain’t the last time we’re going to see him on the debate stage for a presidential election.Report
I think y’all are right on Vance: regardless the outcome, we haven’t heard the last of him. HOWEVER. Regardless the outcome, we’ll never stop hearing about Trump because he’s taken the place of Saint Ronald of Reagan in the right wing pantheon.
Instead of watching, I spent the debate having beers at a nice downtown brew pub with our friend the librarian. I had a much better time that you did. 😀Report
Sounds like a push from all I’ve picked up. Vance may have won on points but in terms of moving voters I am guessing it’s a “no effect” result.Report
I think the only thing that would’ve moved the needle would’ve been if one of them had stepped on his dick, and that didn’t happen.Report
I agree and I haven’t seen any dick stepping being shouted from the rooftops. Walz was nervous but affable; Vance was smooth but peddled flat out knee slapping lies; only us junkies will pick up on that and all us junkies already know who we’re voting for. The undecideds and low infos won’t be moved. A push then.Report
As far as I can tell, Walz did better with voters. Vance did better with hobbyist fretters and professional political writers who can’t understand folksiness as an asset but do understand polish because they have friends who are lawyers.Report
It helped Walz a lot that people liked him, or at least were predisposed to like him. That got his pop-eyed gibbering and aimless rambles interpreted as “pleasant down-to-earth folksiness” rather than “signs of age-related mental illness and low intelligence”.Report
Walz won independents 58-42 according to a Politico snapshot: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/02/politico-snap-poll-division-debate-00182131?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=05a75012-1e11-4876-9ba5-f36b56d0d671&nlid=630318
“But Walz had a commanding advantage with independents, 58 percent of whom sided with the Minnesota governor while 42 percent gave Vance the edge.
Walz’s strongest ratings came from younger people, particularly those ages 25-34, those with college degrees, and Black and Latino respondents — all key components of the Democratic coalition that powered President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020.”
CBS had a snapshot that has Walz’ favorability increase from 52 percent to 60 percent after the debate.
But somehow people are still breaking down because Walz did not transform into Sub-Zero and finish off Vance in a brutal way.
Trumpism will not be felled with one swift slash but by a thousand cuts.Report
What would be useful to know is how independents broke before the debate. Then we could see if it moved the needle.Report
New favorability polling: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
Vance is negative 1, Walz is + 15. CBS polled with 42 percent stating Vance won, 41 percent stating Walz one, and 17 percent calling it a tie.Report
PA voters on NBC give Walz the victory: https://x.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1841333207469343229?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1841333207469343229%7Ctwgr%5Eb9ebe20e3e5a42a92c5bdfec6e86bc3f313c7d7b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14502020https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145020t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F102Fvance-refuses-to-say-trump-lost-the-2020-electiont_e%3DVance20refuses20to20say20Trump20lost20the20202020electiont_d%3DVance20refuses20to20say20Trump20lost20the20202020electiont_t%3DVance20refuses20to20say20Trump20lost20the20202020elections_o%3Ddefaultversion%3Db040cc4fb9749f836fa39cae48953897Report
I missed the debate. I was busy at my Toastmasters group giving a speech with Q&A, entitled “Debates Are Bad, Actually.” This is 100% not a joke, I was really doing exactly that.Report
I’d love to see that reprinted here as an essay.Report
I’ll see if I can get Tod Kelly to co-author it with me.Report
Isn’t Toasmasters about getting that perfect brown on your bread?Report
“speaking to an audience” is actually a skill, or at least a process whose execution is bettered by experience. I know that my ability to talk without filling in a lot of “um” “uh” “ahhhhhh…” was greatly improved when I co-hosted a podcast for a while.Report