The day after the only vice presidential debate of the year, Democrat Tim Walz calls out Republican challenger J.D. Vance for trying to rewrite history and gaslight people about Donald Trump’s record. He called him a “skillful speaker.”
Walz made his first public comments about the debate during a rally in York, Pennsylvania, where polls showed the two vice presidential candidates were virtually neck and neck. Minnesota’s governor was touring the battleground state Wednesday.
Walz said the two had a “civil but lively discussion” and that he did not underestimate Vance’s debating abilities.
But “you can’t try to rewrite history or try to mislead us about Donald Trump’s record. That’s gaslighting. It’s gaslighting on the economy, on reproductive freedom, on housing, on gun violence. ”
He brought up a question he asked Vance during a debate about whether Trump lost the 2020 election. The Republican vice presidential candidate has waved off saying he is focused on the future, but Walz called that a “total non-answer.”
All Americans should be able to easily answer that question, Walz said Wednesday. As he said on stage during the debate, Trump’s first-term vice president, Mike Pence, is not participating in this year’s election because he defied Trump and supported the election results. No, he pointed out.
“With that abominable non-answer, Sen. Vance has made clear that he will always make different choices than Mike Pence,” Walz said Wednesday. “And as I said then and I will continue to say, if you’re hoping to be vice president, that should absolutely be a disqualification.”
He also criticized Vance, who he claimed saved the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) when Trump “spent his entire presidency trying to repeal it.”
Walz said he sees the debate as a way to speak directly to the American people who will decide whether to give him and Kamala Harris the White House. Meanwhile, Vance was “speaking to an audience of one,” Walz said, referring to Trump.
“Campaigns are supposed to give you a vision, and last night you saw two very different visions for the future of this country,” he said.
