Tuesday’s VP debate might not matter … except for one moment

In the grand scheme of things, Tuesday night’s vice president debate likely won’t move the needle in this presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Vice presidential debates rarely do.

Perhaps the most famous moment in VP debate history was in 1988 when 41-year-old Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, defending his political experience, said, “I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.”

Quayle’s opponent, Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, said, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”

It might have been the biggest bodyslam in VP debate history.

And what happened a month later? Quayle’s running mate, George H.W. Bush, crushed Michael Dukakis to become president.

So when you look back at Tuesday’s debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz, there were a few memorable moments, but nothing really viral that could have a lasting impact.

Well, except for maybe one moment. I’m not saying it’s a game-changer, but it will be a major talking point until the first Tuesday in November.

Near the end of the debate, the topic of democracy came up. Specifically, Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Vance was asked if he would challenge the results of the election.

He danced around the topic and then was challenged by Walz, who brought up the Jan. 6 insurrection.

That led Vance to say at one point, “It's really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country.”

You could feel antennas going up all over the country, especially within the Harris campaign. You could almost hear the Harris camp saying, “Did Vance just say Trump peacefully gave over power after he lost the election?”

Walz seized on it, too, asking Vance, “This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say — he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?”

Vance said, “Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

Walz fired back, “That is a damning nonanswer.”

One could go back and forth about who won the debate, and if Vance actually had a pretty good night. But this was, no doubt, Vance’s worst and most cringeworthy moment.

A little after midnight, MSNBC host Jen Psaki, who was once Biden’s press secretary, tweeted, “Just got a text from a senior Harris-Walz campaign aide that they are already cutting that final exchange on January 6th and Vance refusing to say who won the election into an ad.”

Within hours on Wednesday morning, that ad was already posted on social media. Watch it here.

Again, nothing in history suggests that anything that happened in Tuesday’s debate will have a lasting effect when most voters fill out their ballots.

But …

If there was a moment, and the latest Democratic ad thinks there was, this was it. Just based on Walz’s public appearances on Wednesday, look for Democrats to continue driving this point home in the month before Election Day.

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How’s this for timing?

This breaking story came on the heels of the late debate exchange on Wednesday. In a 165-page legal brief unsealed on Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith laid out the strongest case yet of Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

The Washington Post’s Spencer S. Hsu wrote, “The filing described what the then-president told key figures in his orbit, including vice president Mike Pence, attorney Rudy Giuliani and senior White House and Republican Party officials, though it shielded some of their names, and how some in his orbit told him his claims of having won the election were false. It also detailed what Trump was doing on Jan. 6, as his supporters stormed the Capitol.”

The brief describes how Trump tweeted on Jan. 6 that Pence has let them down by refusing to not certify the election. The New York Times’ Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage wrote, “Mr. Smith laid out extensive arguments for why that post on Twitter should be considered an unofficial act of a desperate losing candidate, rather than the official act of a president that would be considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer.”

Feuer and Savage continued, “After Mr. Trump’s Twitter post focused the enraged mob’s attention on harming Mr. Pence and the Secret Service took the vice president to a secure location, an aide rushed into the dining room off the Oval Office where Mr. Trump was watching television. The aide alerted him to the developing situation, in the hope that Mr. Trump would then take action to ensure Mr. Pence’s safety.”

Instead, according to grand jury testimony, Trump merely looked at the aide and said, “So what?”

There’s much, much more in the released filing and what it all means, but it all fits the narrative that Democrats will continue to push about Trump being a danger to democracy.

Funny you should ask

The New York Times’ Trish Bendix notes some of the funny lines from late-night talk show hosts following Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert said, “These two men were both a heartbeat away from being interesting this evening.”

NBC’s Jimmy Fallon said, “Yep, people you’ve barely heard of on a national stage. Usually we call that ‘Dancing With the Stars.’”

Michael Kosta, hosting Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” said, “One of these men will lose, and we’ll never hear from him again, and the other one will become V.P. and we’ll never hear from him again.”

Kosta also said, “The only other V.P. debate anyone remembers is the time that fly got stuck on Mike Pence’s head. The bar is low.”

PolitiFact’s fact check

For those interested in the fact-checking from the debate, here’s the latest from Poynter’s PolitiFact.

The ratings game

According to the overnight ratings from Nielsen Fast Nationals, roughly 43.2 million people watched Tuesday’s debate across the networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and cable news stations (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC). That’s a 25% drop from the number that watched Kamala Harris and Mike Pence VP debate in 2020. CBS hosted Tuesday’s debate but shared its feed with the other networks. CBS led all networks with 9.1 million viewers. Fox News led the cable networks with 7.7 million viewers.

Trump’s bizarre speech

While Walz and Vance were squaring off in New York City on Tuesday night, Trump was campaigning in Milwaukee. And The Washington Post’s Sabrina Rodriguez and Isaac Arnsdorf reported Trump’s speech was “especially scattered and hard to follow” and that Trump “spoke slowly and appeared tired.” It was his second stop of the day as he has ramped up his campaigning. The Post reported he was much more energetic at his first stop on Tuesday.

In the second event, the Post wrote, “Several times Trump mixed up his words or spoke in vague terms. He praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as a ‘tough guy’ when he appeared to mean ‘strongman.’ He complained that an interviewer with ‘60 Minutes’ ‘challenged me on the computer’ — meaning the interviewer argued with him in 2020 about the provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. He referred to Afghan attacks on coalition forces, known in NATO as ‘green on blue,’ as ‘blue on brown and brown on blue.’”

There were other such moments, as the Post noted in detail.

This paragraph in particular addressed the gist of the story: “Trump, 78, often speaks in a digressive, extemporaneous style that thrills his fans at large-scale rallies. But Tuesday’s event, in front of almost entirely reporters, was especially scattered and hard to follow. Polls show voters’ concerns about Trump’s age and fitness have increased since President Joe Biden, 81, withdrew and was replaced as the Democratic nominee by Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Layoffs at ABC News

About 75 staffers are being laid off at ABC News and ABC-owned local TV stations.

Variety’s Brian Steinberg wrote, “Employees were notified Wednesday of the staff reductions, according to a person familiar with the matter, and the number of jobs affected is believed to be split evenly between the national newsgathering arm and the local-media business. Disney’s ABC owns eight stations in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco. ABC News is responsible for flagship ABC programs including ‘Good Morning America’ and ‘World News Tonight.’”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin reported, “No programming will be impacted, and no entire teams will be eliminated, but the company is making the changes to be ‘sustainable, efficient and future-forward,’ per someone familiar with the decision.”

ABC News president Almin Karamehmedovic told staff in a memo, “As you know, this has been happening across the broader company and the industry at large in recent weeks and months. For us, it means shaping a team that embraces the new media landscape and evolves along with it, which we must do to continue serving our viewers. As we look to the future and refining a team that is not only capable of excellence in reporting and delivering the highest quality content but is also streamlined and sustainable, we must occasionally make some tough decisions. Unfortunately, today is one of those days.”

Chad Matthews, president of ABC’s station group, wrote in a memo to his team, “It’s no secret that our industry is undergoing a transformation unlike any other, and we’re seeing headlines every day about streamlining across every major media company. While we’re not immune to the pressures facing this business today, we have been — and will continue to be — strategic with decisions about our organization’s future.”

More on Brennan and the WNBA

I’ve had lots of reactions to my writing about the WNBA players wanting USA Today columnist Christine Brennan banned from covering the league. Most of it stems from Brennan asking the Connecticut Sun’s DiJonai Carrington if she intentionally hit Indiana star rookie Caitlin Clark in the eye during a playoff game last week.

I felt Brennan was doing the job of a responsible journalist by asking Carrington directly about a narrative that was already out there. The WNBA players, in a statement, said the questions Brennan asked were a “blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating into a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media.” Many readers of this newsletter agreed with the players, suggested that Brennan was out of line, and emailed to tell me so.

Anyway, The Washington Post’s excellent sports media reporter Ben Strauss dug into all even more in “A reporter keeps asking about Caitlin Clark. Players want her banned.” It’s a good look at what happened, and the backdrop of it all.

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Media tidbits

• CNN’s Matt Egan with “Elon Musk’s X is worth nearly 80% less than when he bought it, Fidelity estimates.”
• Speaking of Musk, The Wall Street Journal’s Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar with “Elon Musk Gave Tens of Millions to Republican Causes Far Earlier Than Previously Known.”
• My Poynter colleague Amaris Castillo with “A photojournalist reported on dozens of hurricanes over the years. Then Hurricane Helene flooded his home.”
• The New York Times has launched a newly designed app. Here are the details.
• The Atlantic’s Gal Beckerman with “The Journalist Who Cried Treason.”
• The New York Times’ Insider takes readers behind the scenes with Times reporters. The latest one features media reporter (and former Poynter managing editor) Benjamin Mullin in “Layoffs, Mergers and Ego Clashes, Oh My! How One Reporter Covers It All.”
• Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, interviews Matt Strauss, the chairman of direct-to-consumer at NBCUniversal, for “NBCU’s streaming chief isn’t worried about you canceling cable.”

Hot type

• The great Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post weighed in on baseball’s hit king with “No one loved baseball, or damaged it, as much as Pete Rose.”

Finally, I will be taking a few days off to look at the leaves in Vermont with my wife. But my Poynter colleagues will continue to bring you The Poynter Report. Also, be sure to check out the debut episode of our “Poynter Report Podcast.” If you like what you hear, give us a good review and rating. I’ll have more details next week about the second episode.

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].