JD Vance's debate performance showed his skill at gaslighting

JD Vance and Tim Walz shake hands on the debate stage.

Oct. 2, 2024 12:59 PM PT

Oh my gosh! They were just so darn nice to each other.

You may have expected nice from Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Midwestern Everydad and running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris. A former high school teacher and assistant football coach, the guy’s a good egg.

But what the heck was going on with former President Trump’s running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance? An attack dog from the moment he was picked as Trump’s No. 2, recently seen making up racist stories about Haitian immigrants and canine cuisine, Vance was suddenly all charm and civility.

His job in the only vice presidential debate Tuesday was clearly to smooth Trump’s jagged edges and show American voters, particularly the coveted bloc of white suburban women, that JD Vance is not weird! Unfortunately for Walz, Vance understood the assignment.

Walz, who was slightly nervous and entirely sincere, seemed to be debating a body double.

Vance — who previously embraced a national abortion ban, dismissed Democrats as miserable, “childless cat ladies,” claimed that people who don’t have children have less of a stake in their country, and asserted that the role of postmenopausal women is caring for grandchildren — was kinder, gentler and entirely disingenuous.

If you didn’t know any better — if you hadn’t seen his speeches or interviews with bro-ey podcasts — you might not have caught Vance’s gaslighting, especially on the issue of abortion, which has become ballot box kryptonite for Republicans.

While Walz signed a bill making Minnesota the least restrictive state for women seeking abortions, Vance and his party want to outlaw abortion everywhere. Their position is so unpopular with voters, the majority of whom support women’s right to choose, that Vance and Trump have furiously backpedaled. Trump has now said repeatedly that he would not sign a national abortion ban, a promise worth as much as a degree from Trump University.

My head almost popped off when Vance spoke approvingly of the many young women he knew growing up who had abortions “because they feel like they didn’t have any other options.” One of those women was watching the debate, he said. “And she told me … that she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.”

So let’s get this straight: The running mate of the man who said women who have abortions should be punished, appointed much of a Supreme Court that overturned abortion rights and put the lives of women who actually need abortions at risk is saying he understands why abortion rights are so important?

Does he think we all just fell out of a coconut tree?

“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us,” said Vance. “And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do.”

Yes, they are. They are endeavoring to pretend they care about women‘s ability to control their reproductive lives when, in fact, the decisions Trump made are killing them.

Vance’s shocking hypocrisy gave Walz an opening for one of his best moments, when he noted that overturning Roe vs. Wade had put women’s lives at the mercy of state legislatures.

“How can we as a nation say that your life and your rights, as basic as the right to control your own body, is determined on geography?” Walz asked.

He invoked the experience of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old Georgia mother who died because Georgia doctors refused to treat her after she took abortion pills and developed an infection.

“There’s a very real chance that if Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota,” Walz said, “she would be alive today.”

How could Vance disagree? “Amber Thurman should still be alive,” he said solemnly, “and there are a lot of people who should still be alive, and I certainly wish that she was.”

Vance was also conciliatory about gun violence. “We do need to do better,” said the man who opposes an assault weapons ban and, though he once supported red-flag laws, now calls them “a distraction.” His proposed solution is the same old Republican nonsense: “harden” schools against gunfire and develop concepts of plans to improve mental health treatment.

“Just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you’re violent,” Walz retorted. “I think what we end up doing is looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just the guns.”

Vance positioned himself as such a reasonable, friendly guy (who is not weird, OK?) that he avoided calling out Walz’s exaggerations — that he carried weapons “in war,” that he was in Hong Kong during China’s Tiananmen Square assault. That was a lucky break for Walz, who bumbled his way through an explanation of the China discrepancy, pleading that he is a “knucklehead” who gets “caught up in the rhetoric.”

Vance’s deceptions culminated with his response to a question about the 2020 election. He has said he would have done what Vice President Mike Pence did not — refuse to certify the election results, which, as moderator Norah O’Donnell noted, would have been “unconstitutional and illegal.” The Jan. 6 insurrectionists responded to Pence’s stand by erecting a gallows on the Capitol grounds and threatening to hang him, which Trump said was a good idea.

“It’s really rich,” Vance responded, “for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country.”

But Trump did not peacefully give over anything. He summoned the mob, riled it up and unleashed it on Congress. Several people died, at least 140 peace officers were injured, and Trump was impeached a second time for his brazen disregard for democracy. He still faces federal and state criminal charges for attempting to overturn the election.

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Trump’s running mate.

“Tim,” replied the consummate gaslighter, “I’m focused on the future.”

@robinkabcarian