When self-admitted “knucklehead” Tim Walz met privately with Kamala Harris about becoming her Vice Presidential running mate, he warned her that he was a terrible debater.
But she rolled the dice on him due to her belief that it was more important to have a radical, subservient VP who wouldn’t outshine her than making the politically savvy choice.
And now Kamala Harris is kicking herself after Tim Walz got laid bare at the worst possible moment.
A total embarrassment
It’s been over two weeks now since the one and only Vice Presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle, and yet, the significance of Senator J.D. Vance’s masterful victory over Minnesota Democrat Governor Tim Walz is still being felt.
Unlike most every other Vice Presidential debate, it was abundantly clear minutes into the debate that Walz was totally faceplanting on national TV, and that it would strike a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
After all, even Democrats’ top media allies couldn’t spin the performance.
For example, immediately following the debate, ABC News host Linsey Davis – who served as one of the moderators who helped stack the deck against former President Donald Trump during the network’s 3-on-1 Presidential debate, and is also Kamala’s sorority sister – couldn’t help but liken Walz’s performance to that of President Joe Biden in the June 27 debate that ultimately served as the beginning of the end of his re-election campaign.
Davis admitted that Walz’s faceplant in the debate could only be described as “weird” and “cringey.”
“And that’s how it felt Tim Walz kind of did tonight,” Davis confessed. “You know, to use Tim Walz’s own words, I mean, a lot about this debate tonight was weird. There were uncomfortable, cringey moments.”
Most notably, Walz seemed to be even more incapable of actually answering questions without serving up a word salad than Kamala herself.
For instance, when the CBS News moderators asked Walz to address the fact that he blatantly lied about being in Hong Kong during Communist China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, he initially replied by explaining that he grew up in a small Nebraska town in which kids rode their bicycles before dubbing himself a “knucklehead” – seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
When the moderators pressed him in a follow up to actually answer their question about his lies, Walz served up a word salad that would even make Kamala blush.
“No,” he said. “All I said on this was – is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So I will just – that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”
Tim Walz is asked why he lied about his trip to China, gives the most cringe-inducing answer of debate season. Seriously watch this unmitigated disaster: pic.twitter.com/eRJapvdxF2
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 2, 2024
The beginning of the end?
And of course, the creme de la creme of Walz’s worst debate moments came when he decided to tell the nation that he’s “become friends with school shooters.”
But while Walz was making a total fool out of himself, Senator Vance was – as Tucker Carlson put it – establishing himself as the undisputed future leader of the post-Trump America First movement.
NBC News’ Kristen Welker revealed after the debate that her phone was blowing up with calls and messages from Democrats who were panicked over how well Vance performed on the biggest stage.
“Sen. J.D. Vance clearly knew his challenge was to deal with the likability factor,” Welker explained. “The fact that in our poll, he’s the second most disliked running mate in history. So I was getting texts from Democrats panicked, quite frankly, who were saying, ‘Wow, he’s really moderating himself on these issues. He’s the most likable he’s ever been.’”
And in the aftermath of that debate, it’s become clear that Walz’s faceplant coupled with Vance’s near-perfect performance has had a major impact on shifting the momentum in the race.
On the day of the Vice Presidential debate, October 1, the Real Clear Politics betting odds average indicated that the Kamala-Walz ticket had a 50.4% chance of winning the race, while the Trump-Vance duo had just a 47.9% chance of winning.
But by October 3, the Kamala-Walz campaign’s chances of winning had shrunk to just 49.6% compared to the Trump-Vance campaign’s 49% chance of winning.
And now, over two weeks later, the betting odds give Trump-Vance a 57.1% chance of winning the race, while Kamala-Walz is struggling with just a 41.3% chance of winning.
Despite the fact that the election is still over two weeks away, it’s clear that the Vice Presidential debate has served – potentially for the first time in modern history – as a defining moment of the 2024 election cycle.
And it could very well be Tim Walz’s faceplant in the debate, especially when juxtaposed with J.D. Vance’s masterclass, will mark the beginning of the end for the Kamala-Walz campaign.