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 of Ohio 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 the Jewish state. 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,” said Vance, 40. “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 90-minute debate continued with discussions about immigration and the economy.

With no more debates planned between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala 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 the Democrat, 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, 60, 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.

“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.