JD Vance was everywhere on Sunday, doing three separate interviews with CNN, NBC News, and CBS News. Facing adversarial questions and interviewers determined to protect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, Vance dominated with precision.
He was prepared for every question and skillfully batted down various attacks while turning each topic in his favor. In one especially satisfying moment, Dana Bash tried to obscure reporting from her own network to cover for Walz lying about his service. Vance was ready for it.
BASH: And on the question of when he left the National Guard, he filed his election paperwork February 10th, 2005. That was a month before the National Guard even announced that it was possible that they would deploy to Iraq, and that ended up being two months, he retired two months before they actually got the paperwork.
VANCE: But on CNN last night, Dana, one of the people who was actually in charge of him said they knew they were gonna deploy to Iraq in February of 2004, excuse me, Fall of 2004. So he knew he was going to Iraq, he decided to quit, to retire, whatever word you want to use.
BASH: Retire.
VANCE: Because, whatever, because he wanted to run for Congress. He lied about that. He said that when he decided to retire, he did not know that he was going to Iraq. That is another untruth as even his senior military officer said.
You have to love that little interjection by Bash that Walz didn’t quit but that he “retired.” That’s quite the semantic leap given retiring before one’s enlistment is up is a form of quitting. Walz didn’t age out. He chose to quit on his men after telling them he was going to deploy with them. As Vance points out, we know that because it was on CNN that Command Seargent Major Doug Julin, Walz’s direct superior at the time, confirmed that.
SEE: Tim Walz’s Former Superior Officier Goes on CNN, Delivers Devastating Testimony
It’s Orwellian to watch a supposed journalist ignore reporting from her own network to instead continue to perpetuate a lie to protect a politician. That’s what Bash did, though. Many Republicans wouldn’t have been ready to knock that down in an interview setting.
On ABC News, Vance showed a similar level of preparedness, knocking down biased inquiries from Jonathan Karl. This moment on immigration, in which Karl tries to defend Harris as not being the “border czar” is especially good.
Senator @JDVance DESTROYS Jon Karl as he tries to claim Kamala Harris was never the Border Czar🔥
“We have to start with the fact that we have a wide open southern border because our Border Czar set a lot of open border policies…She assumed the title. She had control over a… pic.twitter.com/tAj8fGcOP0
— William Martin (@wsmartin218) August 11, 2024
VANCE: Well, John, we have to start with the fact that we have a wide-open Southern Border because our border czar actually set a lot of open-border policies. They suspended…
KARL: You know she’s not actually, she wasn’t the border czar
VANCE: Oh, that was what the media called her, She assumed the title. She had control over a lot of our border policy at a time…
KARL: Well, it was the root causes of the migration…
Let’s pause there because this has become a favorite line in the press. Oh, she wasn’t the border czar, you silly head, she was just in charge of addressing the root causes of migration, they proclaim. Well, how did she do at that job? Because last I checked, she was given the role in mid-2021. In the preceding years, illegal immigration exploded, reaching record levels and completely overwhelming the southern border.
So is it much of a defense to say she was in charge of solving the root causes when the root causes weren’t just not solved but escalated? The answer is, of course, no. It’s a ridiculous deflection that seeks to keep Harris from bearing any responsibility even though she’s the vice president of the administration. What’s even the argument there? That as vice president, Harris did absolutely nothing? Because that would be quite the admission.
In response to Karl’s incredibly obtuse framing, Vance laid out the litany of policies Harris helped oversee, including the suspension of Remain in Mexico and the reinstitution of catch and release. Karl, noticing the conversation was not going well for Harris, again moved to redirect.
KARL: But how are you going to get 10, 15, 20 million people out of the country?
VANCE: Well, the first thing you have to do is stop the bleeding. Stop the open border. Get Kamala Harris out of there and actually reimplement the Remain in Mexico policy, rebuild or finish Trump’s border wall, and you do that and you stop the bleeding. Now, you’re right, once you do that, once you stop Kamala Harris’ open border policies, you’ve got to do something with the people already here, and I think that you take a sequential approach to it. You are going to have to deport some people. If you aren’t willing to deport a lot of people, you’re not willing to have a border when there are 20 million illegal aliens in our country.
KARL: But 10 to 15 million people, this is like, I mean…
VANCE: Well, Jon, I think it’s the wrong attitude to take
KARL: Would you go knock on their doors and ask people for their papers?
Good on Vance for keeping his cool, because this had to be like debating a child. The fact that something will be difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take steps to accomplish it. Vance explains that dynamic perfectly.
VANCE: Well, again, I think this is the wrong attitude towards it. There are 20 million people here illegally. You start with what’s achievable, you do that, and then you go on to what’s achievable from there. I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals, and frankly, if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem.
But President Trump is absolutely right. You can not have a border unless you are willing to deport some people. I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with one million, that’s where Kamala Harris has failed, and then we can go from there.
This isn’t rocket science, no matter how hard Karl and other liberals try to make it. What Vance is saying is common sense, and I suspect it resonates with most Americans.
Let me say this about Vance, and some people are going to take this as a criticism of Donald Trump. So be it because I’m going to say it anyway. What Vance is doing is showing, from the second highest perch in the MAGA movement no less, that you can be a “fighter” while being disciplined and smart about it. You don’t have to throw all strategy to the wind to be “tough.” Vance doesn’t run off cliffs to prove a point. He goes around them and makes his opponents look stupid in the process.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t own the libs a bit along the way.
I enjoyed sitting down with three of the major networks today to answer the tough questions any leader should answer. Kamala Harris has done as many tough interviews as Tim Walz has battlefield deployments.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) August 11, 2024
Vance nailed it on Sunday. When it comes time to debate Tim Walz, I have no doubt he’ll wipe the floor with the Minnesota governor.
