With no knockout blows and even agreement, Tim Walz v JD Vance felt like a flashback to a pre-Trump era
The primary aim for candidates in a vice-presidential debate is to do no harm to the name at the top of the ticket. Both JD Vance and Tim Walz passed that test with flying colours.
In fact, this debate was more substantive, policy-focused and certainly more cordial than anything we heard from the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris head to head last month.
The running mates largely listened to, and answered, questions from the moderators, rather than serving warmed-up, pre-packaged talking points.
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US election latest: Vance and Walz face off in VP debate
It felt like a flashback to a pre-Trump debate era when candidates were allowed to be civil and, shock-horror, even briefly agree with those at the opposite lectern.
The debate between Vance (L) and Waltz was much friendlier than that between Trump and Harris.
Pic: AP
Vance is the most interviewed of any of the four presidential candidates or running mates this year, regularly appearing on cable television in the US, and in the early exchanges it was telling.
He was slick and commanding, in contrast with Walz who betrayed early signs of nerves, stumbling over his words.
In Walz’s first answer about the Middle East crisis, he appeared to confuse Israel and Iran twice, at one point referring to “Israel and its proxies”.
But the man from Minnesota – as he so often reminded the viewer – soon found his way, peppering his answers with appeals to “folks” at home. He stared down the camera while delivering the everyman schtick which was the main reason Kamala Harris picked him as a running mate.
“I misspoke,” Walz said when challenged on his inaccurate statement about being in Hong Kong teaching when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened (newspaper records indicate he was, in fact, in Nebraska).
“I’m a knucklehead at times,” he added as if to say – you and I are just the same, you forget your keys in the car, and I forget that I was in the Midwest and not in the midst of one of the most notorious events in recent memory.
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‘Still saying he didn’t lose election’
Team Walz may have been expecting Vance to assume his “attack dog” persona but this was a more mellow, balanced, and even likeable performance from Trump’s understudy, specifically designed to appeal to the independent voter.
He began with a thank you to the broadcaster CBS for hosting the debate and to the viewers “caring enough about this country” to tune in.
He expressed concern for the 17-year-old son of Tim Walz, who had witnessed a shooting while playing volleyball. “I didn’t realise your son had witnessed a shooting,” he said, “that’s awful.”
Even on abortion – one of the thorniest issues for Republicans – he made a decent stab at appearing moderate.
“This is about health care,” he said. I just want to “make it easier for mums to afford to have babies,” he insisted while stating he has never called for a federal abortion ban.
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Vance and Walz debate abortion
In fact, Vance has in the past expressed his support for a bill which would ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Walz spotted his moment to seize upon the reproductive rights debate, one of the loudest rallying cries for the Democratic Party.
He retold the tragic story of Amber Thurman, a woman who died because she could not access legal abortions and timely medical care owing to Georgia’s abortion ban.
It is an incredibly powerful, distressing story and one the Democrats are using on the campaign trail to shine a light on Donald Trump’s role in overturning Roe v Wade, which gave women the constitutional right to choose.
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There were no knockout blows for either candidate and as with all vice-presidential debates, it is unlikely to shift the dial on polling or alter the momentum of the election race.
But the fact that JD Vance did so well on the undercard may just entice Donald Trump to accept the offer of another bout against Kamala Harris because – as we well know – he does not like being outshone.
At least 51 people have died after heavy rain caused flash flooding, with water bursting from the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas.
The overflowing water began sweeping into Kerr County and other areas around 4am local time on Friday, killing at least 43 people in the county.
This includes at least 15 children and 28 adults, with five children and 12 adults pending identification, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference.
In nearby Kendall County, one person has died. At least four people were killed in Travis County, while at least two people died in Burnet County. Another person has died in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County.
People comfort each other in Kerrville, Texas. Pic: Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP
Large piles of debris in Kerrville, Texas, following the flooding. Pic: Reuters//Marco Bello
An unknown number of people remain missing, including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River.
Rescuers have already saved hundreds of people and would work around the clock to find those still unaccounted for, Texas governor Greg Abbott said.
But as rescue teams are searching for the missing, Texas officials are facing scrutiny over their preparations and why residents and summer camps for children that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before the devastation, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.
Debris on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt. Pic: AP Photo/Julio Cortez
An overturned vehicle is caught in debris along the Guadalupe River. Pic: AP
The NWS later issued flash flood emergencies – a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
“These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,” AccuWeather said in a statement that called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.
But one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.”It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.
Officials said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain, equivalent to months’ worth in a few short hours, insisting that no one saw the flood potential coming.
One river near Camp Mystic rose 22ft in two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29.5ft.
A wall is missing on a building at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Bedding items are seen outside sleeping quarters at Camp Mystic. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
A Sheriff’s deputy pauses while searching for the missing in Hunt, Texas.Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
“People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,” Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in a statement.
“We know we get rain. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”
Judge Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because “the public reeled at the cost”.
A drone view of Comfort, Texas. Pic: Reuters
Officials comb through the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was asked during a news conference on Saturday whether the flash flood warnings came through quickly enough: “We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that is why we are working to upgrade the technologies that have been neglected for far too long.”
Presidential cuts to climate and weather organisations have also been criticised in the wake of the floods after Donald Trump‘s administration ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the NWS, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods.
A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.
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Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were “devastating”.
“Accurate weather forecasts matter. FEMA and NOAA matter. Because little girls’ lives matter,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a national security and intelligence analyst at Sky’s US partner organisation NBC News.
Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.
It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.
On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.
Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
From bromance to bust-up
The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).
But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.
Donald Trump gave Musk a warm send-off in the Oval Office in May. Pic: Reuters
In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.
After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.
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