Vance and Walz agree to vice presidential debate on Oct. 1

08/20/2024 / By Arsenio Toledo

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have agreed to a vice presidential debate on Oct. 1 in New York City.

The debate will be moderated by mainstream media outlet CBS News, which announced the date of the debate after negotiations with the campaigns of the Democrats and Republicans. “CBS News invited both vice presidential candidates to participate in a debate in New York City,” said the outlet.

“We provided the campaigns with four dates as options: Sept. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8. We look forward to their responses and providing voters with an opportunity to hear directly from the vice presidential candidates.” (Related: Kamala Harris smears Air Force veteran in effort to defend Tim Walz from stolen valor accusations.)

Walz later confirmed on Aug. 14 in a post on X that he had agreed to the Oct. 1 debate. He wrote: “See you on October 1, J.D.” The Ohio senator responded a day later by indicating that he has also agreed to the date of the first debate.

In his statement, Vance indicated that he had initially accepted an offer by CNN to debate Walz on Sept. 18. It is unclear if Walz’s campaign has agreed to this other vice presidential debate.

“The American people deserve as many debates as possible, which is why President Trump has challenged Kamala to three of them already,” said Vance in a statement. “Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!”

CNN later confirmed that it had invited both Walz and Vance to a debate and only the former had accepted the news outlet’s invitation.

In a statement, the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris admitted to turning down the push by the campaign of former President Donald Trump for multiple vice presidential debates.

“The debate about debates is over,” said campaign communications director Michael Tyler in a statement that claimed it was Trump and Vance who were trying to avoid debating Harris and Walz. “The more they play games, the more insecure and unserious Trump and Vance reveal themselves to be to the American people. Those games end now.”

In response to the campaign’s statement, Vance hit back: “Tim Walz refuses to deploy!” This references the accusations levied against Walz of stolen valor surrounding his resignation from the Minnesota Army National Guard just months before his unit was set to deploy to Iraq.

“In all seriousness, if you want to be the VP of the United States, you should make your pitch directly to the American people,” he added. “A debate is an opportunity to take your case to voters without a teleprompter or a script. Can’t imagine why anyone would say no.”

Harris, Trump agree to at least one presidential debate

Meanwhile, Harris and Trump have agreed to two debates, with the first on Sept. 10 moderated by ABC News.

This comes after weeks of protracted negotiations between the Harris and Trump campaigns. Initially, Harris and Trump had agreed to two other debates in September: On Sept. 4 on Fox News and another on Sept. 25 on NBC News.

But a later statement indicates that disagreements between the Trump and Harris campaigns have made it clear that these two other debates will not proceed, and instead, Harris has indicated her willingness to participate in one last debate in October – but only if the Sept. 10 debate goes on as planned.

“Assuming Donald Trump actually shows up on Sept. 10 to debate Vice President Harris, then Gov. Walz will see J.D. Vance on Oct. 1 and the American people will have another opportunity to see the vice president and Donald Trump on the debate stage in October,” said Tyler in a statement that suggests the Harris campaign is blaming the Trump campaign for the uncertainty revolving around the debates.

“Voters deserve to see the candidates for the highest office in the land share their competing visions for our future,” he added.

When President Joe Biden was still the Democratic Party’s nominee, Trump immediately agreed to the campaign’s strict terms and to two debates: One on June 27 and another on Sept. 10. Biden’s disastrous performance in the June debate led to his eventual withdrawal from the election.

Watch this clip from Fox Business of a small business owner from Minnesota revealing that Walz’s administration shut down her business as well as the small businesses of dozens of other Minnesotans.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.