EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz "embarrassed himself" during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, while Sen. JD Vance's steady presentation "reconfirmed" his choice to make the senator from Ohio his running mate.
Trump spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning, hours after Vance, R-Ohio, and Walz faced off in the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate in New York City. The two sparred on issues like foreign policy, border security, abortion and climate change, while introducing themselves and their records to the American people.
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"JD was fantastic last night – it just reconfirmed my choice," Trump told Fox News Digital. "There was a brilliance to what he did."
"On the other hand, Tim Walz proved to be a man that doesn’t have it in any way shape or form for the office that he is seeking, though I would put him a large number of steps above Kamala," Trump said.
The former president and Republican presidential nominee said Walz "embarrassed himself and the Democrat Party last night but was made to look even worse by JD’s brilliant performance."
"This is what the country needs; smart people, not people that can’t put two sentences together," Trump said. "We have to take our country back."
Vice presidential debates are traditionally seen as second-tier, but with Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris unlikely to debate again before voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5, the stakes were raised for their running mates as they attempted to tackle the most important issues facing the nation.
CBS News anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan moderated the debate in New York City Tuesday night, which was filled with more substantive policy discussion than personal jabs. Tuesday began with nearly 50,000 unionized dockworkers going on strike from Maine to Texas and ended with Iran launching its largest attack on Israel in history, firing nearly 250 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state.
The first question for Walz and Vance was whether they would support a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran.
A visibly shaky Walz had a rough start to the debate, pausing and stumbling over his words as he spoke about the need for "steady leadership" from the White House. Instead of answering the question, Walz took a shot at Trump.
"What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter," Walz said, pointing to Trump’s debate performance against Harris last month. "It’s clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago. A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment."
But Vance, in his first answer, defended Trump, saying he "delivered stability to the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence."
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"People were afraid of stepping out of line," Vance said. "Donald Trump recognized that for people to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength. They needed to recognize that if they got out of line, the United States' global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world."
As for a preemptive strike, Vance said, "It is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe. And we should support our allies wherever they are, when they’re fighting the bad guys."
Walz fired back. He slammed the Trump administration for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying Iran is "closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump’s fickle leadership," adding Harris is providing "steady leadership."
"You blame Donald Trump, but who has been the vice president for the last 3½ years? And the answer is, your running mate, not mine," Vance said.
Vance, again defending Trump, saying he "consistently made the world more secure."
"Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world," Vance said. "Donald Trump has already done it once before."
Vance also urged voters to ask themselves, "When was the last time that an American president didn’t have a major conflict break out?"
"The only answer is during the four years that Donald Trump was president," Vance said.
The debate shifted to the ongoing crisis at the southern border, a top issue for voters.
Vance said he has already been to the border more than "border czar" Kamala Harris, while touting Trump’s plan to secure the border.
But Walz blasted Trump for his alleged efforts to get Republicans to vote against a border bill.
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"As soon as it was getting ready to pass and actually tackle this, Donald Trump said no, told [lawmakers] to vote against it, because it gives him a campaign issue," Walz said. "What would Donald Trump talk about if we actually did some of these things?"
On the same topic, moderators asked Vance whether he and Trump would support family separation as part of Trump's proposed "mass deportation" should he be elected.
"We have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost," Vance explained. "Some of them have been sex trafficking. Some of them, hopefully, are at homes with their families.
"Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris' wide open southern border. And I'd ask my fellow Americans to remember when she came into office, she said she was going to do this. Real leadership would be saying, 'You know what, I screwed up. We're going to go back to Donald Trump's border policies.' I wish that she would do that. It would be good for all of us."
As for the issue of abortion, another top issue for voters this cycle, Walz maintained that he and Harris are pro-choice, while Vance said Republicans need to "do so much better of a job at earning the American people's trust back on this issue, where they, frankly, just don't trust us."
"And I think that's one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do. I want us, as a Republican Party, to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word. I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies," Vance said. "I want to make it easier for young families to afford a home so they can afford a place to raise that family. And I think there's so much that we can do on the public policy front just to give women more options right now."
