Comment on WATCH: President turns the heat up on Senate Republicans at White House luncheon

A CBS News instant poll of vice presidential debate viewers found 42% believed J. D. Vance won, 41% thought Tim Walz won and 17% said it was a tie. A CNN instant poll found 51% thought Vance won while 49% believe Walz won.

In a debate-night surprise, climate science got near-top billing during the vice presidential face-off between Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. JD Vance in New York on Tuesday, as the sprawling impacts of Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 160 people, were still being felt across the Southeast. Just after an opening that addressed the escalating crisis in the Middle East, CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell noted that climate change is only making storms like Helene worse and asked Vance if he agreed with Donald Trump’s assertion that climate change is a “hoax.” Vance, in a pattern that repeated across the night, couldn’t bring himself to contradict the former president. Instead, he pointed a finger at his opponents.

GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance has a refrain he loves to repeat when he’s questioned about his draconian anti-abortion positions and former President Donald Trump’s plans for reproductive rights: Leave it to the states. That’s essentially what he said when he faced off against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at the vice presidential debate Tuesday night when moderator Norah O’Donnell asked if he would create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency.

Compared to the rest of this campaign, that was actually a real and civil debate. It focused more on policy specifics than anything we’ve seen so far — and I’d even say it was somewhat enlightening. J. D. Vance presented himself as a friendlier, less fiery candidate than the one who often appears on Fox News and Newsmax.

By BILL BARROW, ZEKE MILLER and NICHOLAS RICCARDI WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice presidential hopefuls Tim Walz and JD Vance focused their criticism on the top of the ticket on Tuesday as they engaged in a policy-heavy discussion that may be the last debate of the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the first encounter between Minnesota’s Democratic governor and Ohio’s Republican senator, following last month’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

I’m rubber, you’re glue. That’s the Trump campaign’s strategy when it comes to the cruelest part of former President Donald Trump’s record—and the serious concern that he intends to repeat it. During the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, refused to say whether Trump’s mass deportation plan would separate parents and children, including children who are citizens. Instead, Vance repeatedly claimed that it was Vice President Kamala Harris who had engaged in family separation.