Five weeks before the final day of voting in the U.S. presidential election, Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate represents what will probably be the last face-to-face showdown between the Democratic and Republican tickets for the White House.

At the start of their nationally televised debate Tuesday night, Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz each said that the other’s party was to blame for the deteriorating conditions in the Middle East, while declining to say whether they would support a preemptive strike by Israel against Iran.

Walz argued that Israel was able to successfully defend itself after an attack by Hamas because of the coalition of nations that the United States helped bring together to support Israel. The Democrat said the crisis showed the sort of steady leadership the Democrats bring to the White House.

He said Donald Trump had shown himself more interested in making comments on social media, instead of leading. “A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment,” Walz said, before noting that Republicans close to Trump argue that the former president is unfit to lead the nation, including Vance.

Vance responded that the international community was safer when Trump was president and argued that the Biden and Harris administration undermined the fear that other nations had of crossing the United States.

“Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence. People were afraid of stepping out of line,” Vance said. “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.”

The debate continued with discussions about immigration and the economy.

After Walz brought up the threats the community of Springfield, Ohio, has faced after Vance and Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, Vance deflected the attack by reframing the question as about broader immigration policy.

“Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said, though the Haitians are in the nation legally with temporary protected status.

“The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border,” he said. “It is a disgrace, Tim, and I actually think I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem, but I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.”

Walz countered that Trump derailed a bipartisan proposal earlier this year that combined increased funding for border security and foreign aid for Ukraine, an effort that appeared to be the first immigration breakthrough in recent history.

“Law enforcement … asked for the bill. They helped craft it. They’re the ones that supported it,” he said. “That’s because they know we need to do this.”

Citing a Biblical quote about showing mercy, Walz said, “This bill does it. It’s funded, it’s supported by the people who do it, and it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people.”

In the 2024 election, immigration has been a top concern among voters worried about the impact of an insecure border on the economy, crime and the fentanyl crisis. While the race is razor close, former President Trump has a double-digit edge on the issue of border security — one of the reasons Harris visited the Southern border on Friday to announce more stringent measures she would take to restrict entry if she is elected president.

With no more debates planned between Trump and Harris, the battle of the No. 2s is the last mass-viewership event on the campaign calendar. The debate is expected to draw tens of millions of viewers.

While experts say that vice presidential debates almost never alter the trajectory of a national election, the debate is expected to be closely watched by partisans on both sides and by the small number of voters still making up their minds.

Polls show that Walz has a more positive profile with the public. Vance has drawn a disproportionate share of the negative attention.

The strongest rebukes have come for the Republican’s claims that the U.S. is being run by Democrats and “a bunch of childless cat ladies,” and for his insistence that he should be able to “create stories” about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating family pets to support his contention that immigrants are hurting America.

Walz has been asked to explain his comment, during a talk about the need for gun control, about “weapons of war, that I carried in war.” Though Walz served for more than two decades in the National Guard, he never deployed to a war zone or carried a gun in combat.

Vance, 40, is expected to lean most heavily into the state of the economy and illegal immigration. Surveys show more Americans have confidence in the Republicans on those issues.

Walz, 60, emphatically defended abortion rights, an issue that the Democratic ticket has used to accuse the Republicans of using the government to reach too deeply into people’s personal lives. Polls show the Democrats have the advantage when they discuss that issue, which they frame as “reproductive freedom.”

“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, host of the network’s Sunday show, “Face the Nation,” moderated the event.

_____

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.