Note: I'll be following a format similar to the ones I've done for Biden/Trump and Trump/Harris. A transcript of this debate is available here.
MB [moderator Margaret Brennan] : Thank you, Norah. Earlier today, Iran launched its largest attack yet on Israel. But that attack failed thanks to joint U.S. and Israeli defensive action. President Biden has deployed more than 40,000 U.S. military personnel and assets to that region over the past year to try to prevent a regional war. Iran is weakened, but the U.S. still considers it the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it has drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon. It is down now to one or two weeks time. Governor Walz, if you are the final voice in the situation room, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? You have two minutes.
TW [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz-D]: Well, thank you. And thank you for those joining at home tonight. Let's keep in mind where this started. October 7th, Hamas terrorists massacred over 1400 Israelis and took prisoners. Iran, or, Israel's ability to be able to defend itself is absolutely fundamental, getting its hostages back, fundamental, and ending the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute, fundamental necessity for the United States to have the steady leadership there. You saw it experienced today, where, along with our Israeli partners and our coalition, able to stop the incoming attack. But what's fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter. It's clear. And the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80 year old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment. But it's not just that. It's those that were closest to Donald Trump that understand how dangerous he is when the world is this dangerous. His Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said that he was the most flawed humanity being he'd ever met. And both of his Secretaries of Defense and his national security advisors said he should be nowhere near the White House. Now, the person closest to them, to Donald Trump, said he's unfit for the highest office. That was Senator Vance. What we've seen out of Vice President Harris is we've seen steady leadership. We've seen a calmness that is able to be able to draw on the coalitions, to bring them together, understanding that our allies matter. When our allies see Donald Trump turn towards Vladimir Putin, turn towards North Korea, when we start to see that type of fickleness around holding the coalitions together, we will stay committed. And as the Vice President said today, is we will protect our forces and our allied forces, and there will be consequences.
COMMENT: Walz doesn't answer the question involving a preemptive Israeli arrack on Iran. Most of this response is a personal attack on Trump. The fact is, we had no new wars under Trump and muvh lower casualties in winding down our involvement in Afghanistan. Our NATO allies picked up more of the mutual cost burden. We've had "steady leadership" under Harris? What does that mean? This is the Administration that botched our exit from Afghanistan. Harris has no real military experience and as a one partial term senator no real exposure on foreign relations. She's met a few leaders as VP, but no real Central American breakthroughs in her border czar assignment.
MB: Governor, your time is up. Senator Vance, the same question, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? You have two minutes.
JDV{R): So, Margaret, I want to answer the question. First of all, thanks, Governor. Thanks to CBS for hosting the debate. And thanks most importantly to the American people who are watching this evening and caring enough about this country to pay attention to this vice presidential debate. I want to answer the question, but I want to actually give an introduction to myself a little bit because I recognize a lot of Americans don't know who either one of us are. I was raised in a working class family. My mother required food assistance for periods of her life. My grandmother required Social Security help to raise me. And she raised me in part because my own mother struggled with addiction for a big chunk of my early life. I went to college on the GI bill after I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq. And so I stand here asking to be your Vice President with extraordinary gratitude for this country, for the American dream that made it possible for me to live my dreams. And most importantly, I know that a lot of you are worried about the chaos in the world and the feeling that the American Dream is unattainable. I want to try to convince you tonight over the next 90 minutes that if we get better leadership in the White House, if we get Donald Trump back in the White House, the American Dream is going to be attainable once again. Now, to answer this particular question, we have to remember that 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. Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they're now launching against our allies and, God forbid, potentially launching against the United States as well. Donald Trump recognized that for people to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States' global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world. Now, you asked about a preemptive strike, Margaret, and I want to answer the question. Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are when they're fighting the bad guys. I think that's the right approach to take with the Israel question.
COMMENT: I found Vance's response lacking in several respects. First, Vance lied about the money that the Biden (not Harris) Administration unfroze in the referenced deal was $6B, not $100B, in a deal designed to free Americans taken hostage in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel,. Where did he get $100B? Recall the EU in 2012 instituted sanctions and froze assets over concerns of Iran's nuclear program. As a result of an international deal over Iran's nuclear program, Iran in 2016 reported so $100B+ in Iranian frozen assets had been unfrozen. But that deal partially involved the Obama, not Biden/Harris. There were strings attached (e.g., humanitarian uses) over the release of frozen assets, including Biden's deal. FDD in a 2018 brief estimates that Iran spends $16B/year in sponsoring terrorist and rogue regimes. Now money is fungible, e.g., Iran could simply could divert funds in its budget for social spending. But keep in mind rogue entities also have other funding sources, and economic sanctions don't work very well: there are workarounds..So Vance's argument that you can link specific attacks to unfrozen assets is not convincing. Moreover, I don't buy this talking about Trump's stable global leadership: Trump has initiated global trade wars, extorted Ukraine to investigate his political opponent Biden, and has bullied NATO allies in an effort to get more defense spending out of them. There was also the instability of breaking from the negotiated nuclear deal with Iran.
I give Vance credit for at least addressing the Israeli government and the possibility of a presumptive strike on Iran by Israel. He's giving Israel a green light on possibly triggering a regional or even global war. I would question the meaning of Trump's "America First" policy and the entanglement of America and Israel, foreign aid to Israel, etc.
MB: Thank you, Senator. Governor Walz, do you care to respond to any of the allegations?
TW: Well, look, Donald Trump was in office. We'll sometimes hear a revisionist history, but when Donald Trump was in office, it was Donald Trump who… we had a coalition of nations that had boxed Iran's nuclear program in in the inability to advance it. 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. And when Iran shot down an American aircraft in international airspace, Donald Trump tweeted, because that's the standard diplomacy of Donald Trump. And when Iranian missiles did fall near U.S. troops and they received traumatic brain injuries, Donald Trump wrote it off as headaches. Look, our allies understand that Donald Trump is fickle. He will go to whoever has the most flattery or where it makes sense to him. Steady leadership like you witnessed today, like you witnessed in April. Both Iranian attacks were repelled. Our coalition is strong, and we need the steady leadership that Kamala Harris is providing.
COMMENT: Walz' response lacks sufficient detail and doesn't mention Trump's 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian government member, which was seen as a violation of international law, a possible act of war. Iran responded by finally breaking from the above-cited nuclear deal. Despite Trump's warning of a severe counterattack to any military response,, there was a subsequent IRGC missile attack on air bases in Iraq, injuring several dozen Americans in varying degrees of severity, and it's likely Walz was referencing this. The referenced shootdown of an unmanned American surveillance drone. What Walz fails to mention is the US has never signed or ratified (and Iran hasn't ratified) the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Iran claims the drone was shot down within 12 nautical miles of its coast in the Strait of Hormuz. Also, much of Walz' response was a personal attack on Trump. Walz also fails to document the Vice President's alleged "steady leadership". Is he referring to her notorious flip-flops from her aborted 2020 POTUS primary positions, like on fracking?
MB: Senator Vance, the U.S. did have a diplomatic deal with Iran to temporarily pause parts of its nuclear program, and President Trump did exit that deal. He recently said just five days ago, the U.S. must now make a diplomatic deal with Iran because the consequences are impossible. Did he make a mistake? You have 1 minute.
JDV: Well, first of all, Margaret, diplomacy is not a dirty word, but I think that's something that Governor Walz just said is quite extraordinary. You, yourself, just said Iran is as close to a nuclear weapon today as they have ever been. And, Governor Walz, you blame Donald Trump, who has been the Vice President for the last three and a half years, and the answer is your running mate, not mine. Donald Trump consistently made the world more secure. Now, we talk about the sequence of events that led us to where we are right now, and you can't ignore October the 7th, which I appreciate Governor Walz bringing up. But when did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the administration of Kamala Harris. So Governor Walz can criticize Donald Trump's tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world. Donald Trump has already done it once before. Ask yourself at home, when, when was the last time? I'm 40 years old. When was the last time that an American President didn't have a major conflict, breakout? The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was President.
COMMENT: It is true that Trump resurrected the idea of resurrecting the idea of a nuclear deal with Iran a couple of weeks ago at a news conference. I do think Vance is right to question why the incumbent administration hasn't acted to resurrect the agreement over the past 4 yeats. No, Harris is NOT the President; that's Biden. I don't think given the way the campaign has attacked Harris' flip flops, that Vance has addressed Trump's own flip flop since he is responsible for the breakdown of the original agreement. No, things were not calm during Trump's tenure. Trump intervened in Syria for non-defensive reasons. "Still, Trump was unable to end those endless wars. He leaves a military that is still fighting and advising in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, though in smaller numbers." Trump undermined discipline by pardoning convicted war criminals. Trump wanted to use troops illegally for domestic reasons, like political protests and the border. He illegally transferred DoD dollars for building his border wall..
NO (:Norah O'Donnell, moderator): Margaret, thank you. Let's turn now to Hurricane Helene. The storm could become one of the deadliest on record. More than 160 people are dead and hundreds more are missing. Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall. Senator Vance, according to CBS News polling, seven in ten Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change. Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change? I'll give you two minutes.
COMMENT: Nope.! We need to fact-check moderators. Let me cite Benjamin Zycher here: "The problem is that “expectations” are predictions, usually based upon climate models that have overstated the actual temperature record by a factor of about 2.3." What do scientists really say?
[T]here is still no consensus on the relative magnitude of human and natural influences on past changes in Atlantic hurricane activity, and particularly on which factor has dominated the observed increase (Ting et al., 2015) and it remains uncertain whether past changes in Atlantic [tropical cyclone] activity are outside the range of natural variability.
JDV: Sure. So first of all, let's start with the hurricane because it's an unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy. I just saw today, actually, a photograph of two grandparents on a roof with a six year old child, and it was the last photograph ever taken of them because the roof collapsed and those innocent people lost their lives. And I'm sure Governor Walz joins me in saying our hearts go out to those innocent people, our prayers go out to them. And we want as robust and aggressive as a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible. And then, of course, afterwards, to help the people in those communities rebuild. I mean, these are communities that I love, some of them I know very personally. In Appalachia, all across the Southeast, they need their government to do their job. And I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster. And Norah, you asked about climate change. I think this is a very important issue. Look, a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it's important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer, but one of the things that I've noticed some of our democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions. This idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change. Well, let's just say that's true, just for the sake of argument, so we're not arguing about weird science. Let's just say that's true. Well, if you believe that, what would you, what would you want to do? The answer is that you'd want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible and you'd want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America because we're the cleanest economy in the entire world. What have Kamala Harris's policies actually led to? More energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world. When I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they're doing per unit of economic output. So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people. And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite. That's raised energy prices and also meant that we're doing worse by the climate.
COMMENT: Vance's approach is interesting here. He doesn't seek to question the limitations and evidence of climate science, the relative contributions of natural and human factors. He could differentiate the GOP by distancing himself from Dem industrial policy. He could talk about crony capitalism, e.g., EVs. (Let me point out anecdotally I own a hybrid which tells me I'm averaging 58 mpg; this is more than twice the rate of my prior car But I didn't receive a penny of subsidies.) He might promote reliable, feasible carbon-free nuclear power
The unspoken truth is Vance is the running mate of "Drill, baby, drill" Trump, who early in his term withdrew from the 2015 Paris climate change mitigation agreement. Trump has referred to climate change as a scam and relevant agreements as really at the expense of the American economy. So it's hard for Vance to respond in the posed question context.
Yes, carbon emissions are a key but not comprehensive view of greenhouse emissions. Note that results may differ by context. For example, China emits nearly a third of global emissions, roughly triple the US total but on a per capita the US has nearly triple the Chinese citizen. I did not find the source for Vance's claim the US has the cleanest economy in the world. [In fact, one source complains "Under current policy, industrial emissions are projected to increase by 12% from current levels by 2035.."] The bipartisan Climate Leadership Council does make the following claims:
- Goods manufactured in the U.S. are 40% more carbon-efficient than the world average.
- The U.S. carbon advantage is 3X that of China and nearly 4X that of India.
- Currently, the U.S. imports 75% of its goods from less carbon-efficient countries.
CLC argues for a tradeable carbon tax, essentially arguing that greenhouse gas emissions are an externality and tradeable carbon credits would provide an incentive to implement more feasible emission controls and hence lower the aggregate. In essence, CLC would apply a carbon-based surcharge to goods from less carbon-efficient nation imports. (Note this would provide other nations an incentive to limit emissions for access to our markets.)
Note that Vance is not advocating the CLC position. He's arguing on one hand that Biden/Harris' policies have continued manufacturing exodus to China et al. I'm not sure of the stats behind this claim'; the data I've seen show a general trend of increasing manufacturing jobs under Biden ("Comparing the raw numbers, Biden has seen an average monthly increase of 18,200 manufacturing jobs per month, compared to 11,600 per month pre-pandemic under Trump. (And again, revisions are likely to lower Biden’s average monthly gain, though it would still be higher than under Trump.)"); see below; this is more than bounce-back jobs.
Vance has a fairly simplistic view of why China is the global manufacturer leader and why producers outsource there. It's more than lower-costing labor:
- "[R]aw materials are often more affordable and — more importantly — the cost of skilled labor is cheaper. China often has both the equipment and skilled labor force to manufacture your products at a fraction of what it would cost in the U.S."
- "Mass production is more feasible."
- "Manufacturing capacity can be scaled quickly."
Whereas goods labeled “Made in China” make up 2.7% of U.S. consumer spending, only 1.2% actually reflects the cost of the imported goods. Thus, on average, of every dollar spent on an item labeled “Made in China,” 55 cents go for services produced in the United States. In other words, the U.S. content of “Made in China” is about 55%. The fact that the U.S. content of Chinese goods is much higher than for imports as a whole is mainly due to higher retail and wholesale margins on consumer electronics and clothing than on most other goods and services.
Much has been written about China’s numerical advantage in science and engineering. China awarded 1.38 million engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2020. The comparable American number is 197,000 (144,000 in engineering and 54,000 in computer science), or just one-seventh of China’s total.
The US [second leading producer] is a major importer of rare earth materials. The USGS estimates the value of US rare earth imports for 2023 at US$190 million, down from US$208 million in 2022. The country has classified rare earths as critical minerals, a distinction that has come to the fore due to trade issues between the US and China.Aiming to bolster its domestic supply, the US government is implementing a 25 percent tariff on rare earth magnet imports from China. “The tariff rate on natural graphite and permanent magnets will increase from zero to 25 percent in 2026. The tariff rate for certain other critical minerals will increase from zero to 25 percent in 2024,” states a May statement from the White House. “Concentration of critical minerals mining and refining capacity in China leaves our supply chains vulnerable and our national security and clean energy goals at risk."
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) October 2, 2024
“The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the Earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate.”
Reality:
1. Science is not done by consensus.
2. There is no evidence that the Earth's climate -- whatever that is -- is… pic.twitter.com/jEL0QTIB9y
