Vice presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz faced off in a debate rematch of sorts on Sunday in back-to-back interviews on “Fox News Sunday.”
It’s been two weeks since their debate — which is likely to be the last involving the presidential tickets this campaign season. With three weeks until Election Day, the back-to-back interviews allowed two vice presidential candidates to do some cleanup on their past remarks — and make their campaign pitch again on TV.
Vance, who was pressed again on a later interview about whether he believed his running mate lost the presidential election in 2020, dismissed the questions, saying he'd been "asked this question 10 times in the past couple of weeks," and responded to the gender gap between the two parties: "I'm aware of the gender gap." Walz, meanwhile, sought to reiterate his support for the Second Amendment: "Look, no one's coming for your guns."
In his "Fox News Sunday" interview, Vance, who has had to address the gender gap issue on the campaign trail before, said that issues like public safety and the economy are what women care about and they hope to get that message out. Most polls show former President Donald Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by double digits among women voters.
“I see the polling everyone else does,” Vance told Shannon Bream. “I also think there is some evidence we made progress in the last few weeks, and, of course, we are still a few weeks from the actual game day here.”
Vance’s efforts to explain his ticket’s gap with women comes as Vice President Kamala Harris is facing the inverse challenge — trying to attract male voters, especially blue-collar workers.
Harris’ running mate Walz told local ABC affiliate WPVI in Philadelphia on Friday that he saw Democrats’ challenge winning over men as a messaging problem for the party.
“I think we need to make sure we're getting out to them,” the Minnesota governor said Friday. “We hear what they're saying, we understand that they're concerned, too, with issues whether it's climate or health care or reproductive rights. Men care about that, too — but message in a way that we're hearing them.”
On Sunday, Bream also pressed Walz on his August comments during a "White Dudes For Kamala Harris" fundraising call, when he urged attendees not to "shy away from our progressive values" and called "one person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.”
Walz told Bream he believes “capitalism works and it lifts everyone up.”
“But,” he added: “I also believe you have to make sure that there's things that we collectively do together,” like educating children, building roads and addressing public health.
Both vice presidential nominees also sought to clarify they weren’t trying to deprive Americans of specific rights.
In his “Fox News Sunday” interview, Vance clarified recent comments he made suggesting the Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood, saying that he does not want taxpayer funds to be paying for abortions. But Vance didn’t directly answer when pressed by Bream about Planned Parenthood's non-abortion services, like cancer screenings, if the organization is completely cut off from taxpayer funding.
“What we have said is we don't want taxpayer funding for abortions, and that of course has been the bipartisan approach over 40 years in this country until, frankly, Kamala Harris came along,” Vance said. “I know Planned Parenthood does a lot of things, a lot of things that a lot of young women, a lot of young families need.”
Vance reiterated that he and Trump want abortion policy to be left up to the states and that they do not support a national abortion ban, even when asked about his past comments in support of legislation banning abortion after 15 to 20 weeks.
Walz on Sunday defended Harris from a series of recent attacks Trump and Vance have launched to accuse the Democratic ticket of planning to take away law-abiding Americans’ guns — a major voting issue for rural voters, especially men. Both Harris and Walz are gun owners and have said they support common-sense gun safety measures.
But Bream asked Walz about changes he has made to his gun stance, from his days as a moderate House Democrat when he had an “A” rating from the NRA to his 2018 bid for governor of Minnesota. Bream also referenced comments Harris made as a presidential hopeful in 2019, when she said during an MSNBC gun safety forum that she “support[s] a mandatory gun buyback program” for assault weapons.
In response, Walz downplayed Harris' comments and said mandatory home searches or gun buybacks are not the campaign’s position.
“Yeah, no one's talking about that,” Walz said, noting he was pheasant hunting Saturday in Minnesota with friends who are “conservative” on gun policy. “I will defend the Second Amendment. And there's nothing that we're proposing, whether it's extremist risk protection orders or background checks, that will stop you from owning that,” Walz said later.
“So look, no one's coming for your guns. I continue to buy them. The vice president is a gun owner, so many of your viewers are,” Walz told Bream. “But they also are concerned that we don't need to see our children shot in schools.”
Walz separately tried to clean up comments he made during the debate about the limits of free speech around hate speech and misinformation. On Sunday, the governor said he believed the First Amendment “is foundational” while criticizing GOP efforts to ban certain books in schools. And, Walz reiterated Harris and the campaign don’t support nixing the Electoral College, after he remarked during a California fundraiser last week that the process “needs to go.”
Vance also went on ABC’s “This Week” where he doubled down on his comments on the 2020 election results in which he would not say that Trump lost that election.
“I have been asked this question 10 times in the past couple of weeks,” Vance said in a contentious interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “Of course, Donald Trump and I believe there were problems in 2020.”
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