Democrats can’t say they weren’t warned.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz reportedly told Vice President Kamala Harris that he was a weak debater when the two spoke as part of the running mate vetting process earlier this year.
Harris, who later claimed to have been sleep-deprived at the time, picked the 60-year-old as her VP hopeful anyway.
On Tuesday evening, Walz’s debate skills were put to the test by Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) — and widely panned by pundits across the political spectrum, who zinged the governor for seeming unprepared and acting nervous and fidgety.
Harris, 59, and Walz sat down for a running mate interview on Aug. 4 at the veep’s Washington, DC residence. Despite Walz’s frank admissions about his potential liabilities, Harris opted for him over other contenders like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, giving more weight to her and Walz’s rapport.
Leading up to the debate, Walz conveyed his trepidation about the verbal sparring match to some of his confidants, anxious that he would let Harris down and make her regret choosing him, CNN reported this past weekend.
The Trump-Vance campaign quickly swatted down reports of Walz’s nerves, citing hours of past debate footage the GOP team had combed through.
“Tim Walz is very good in debates. Really good,” senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller told reporters Monday.
“He’ll be very well prepared for tomorrow night. He’s not going to be the wildly gesticulating effeminate caricature we see at rallies pointing to Kamala Harris and dancing about on the stage; Walz is going to be buttoned up.”
Yet, when Walz took the stage, his stumbling start gave credence to the low expectations set by Democrats.
Right out of the gate, the Democrat flubbed the first question about whether he’d back a preemptive strike by Israel against Iran, confusing the two countries in a gaffe.
Moments later, he called himself a “knucklehead” while trying to answer a question about why he had lied about being in China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Vance shrugged off Walz’s jitters post-debate.
“I was nervous. I mean hell, I do a lot of these interviews, but I was nervous. It was the biggest stage of my life,” he told Fox News in the spin room. “To be fair to Tim Walz, he had a very tough job — and that is to defend the policies of Kamala Harris.”
The Harris-Walz campaign and most of its most loyal allies tried to insist Wednesday that the Minnesota governor had either won the debate or fought Vance to a draw, citing various instant polls of forum watchers.
But even historically Dem-friendly pundits had a different view.
“I think there was a clear lack of preparation and execution here,” CNN anchor Abby Phillip said on a post-debate panel.
Host Dana Bash, who co-moderated the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and President Biden, contended that Walz had the opposite problem.
“I think he had too much preparation. He had so many lines that he was clearly trying to say,” Bash said. “I think the lack of interviews that he has done with national media, with local media — it showed he needed more.”
Other prominent voices who have been fiercely critical of Trump and Vance panned Walz’s performance as well.
“You know it wasn’t a good night when the best your allies can say on text or email is, ‘Don’t worry, vice presidential debates don’t matter,’” Bulwark editor-at-large Bill Kristol said.
“Vance is going home tonight with Walz’s wallet. Vance didn’t even have to snatch it, Walz just handed it over, along with a bunch of unearned compliments to Vance’s fine character,” added David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush.
Perhaps most telling was the way some of Walz’s defenders in the spin room described his performance.
“He’s going to be a great vice president,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told CNN after laughing off a suggestion from host Jake Tapper that she would have fared better.
“The Tim Walz that you’re going to get — it’s someone that you can trust. It’s someone that’s plainspoken, doesn’t use a lot of fancy words,” she added, noting that Walz “may not use the exact right word” every time.
Walz is set to swing through Pennsylvania Wednesday for a bus tour alongside Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
There are currently no other debates scheduled between the two tickets.
