Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance will face off next month in the only vice presidential debate scheduled in the United States, a chance for each to reinforce his running mate's message to voters just weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
Below are some details about the event:
When and where is the debate?
The 90-minute debate, hosted by CBS Newswill take place on October 1 at 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT on October 2) in New York City, a Democratic stronghold that is the former home of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee running against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Who are the moderators?
The debate will take place in the CBS Diffusion Center and will be moderated by CBS Evening News Host Norah O'Donnell and “Facing the nation” Moderator: Margaret Brennan.
How can you watch the debate?
The event will be broadcast by CBS Network and live streaming on all platforms where CBS News 24/7 and Paramount+ are available. CBS He said it will also be available for simulcast.
The September 10 presidential debate between Harris and Trump ABC News attracted 67 million television viewers.
What are the basic rules?
The ground rules for the debate have not yet been made public. In the September presidential debate, candidates' microphones were muted when it was not their turn to speak and there was no studio audience.
What to expect from Walz?
Walz, the Minnesota governor, is likely to use his “regular guy” reputation to try to appeal to voters, including some independents, who view Harris, a former senator from California, as too liberal.
Walz, 60, is a former congressman who won election in a Republican-leaning district before becoming governor.
As governor, he has pushed a progressive agenda that includes free school meals, tax cuts for the middle class and an expansion of paid leave for Minnesota workers.
Walz is likely to try to bait Vance, as Harris successfully did in her debate with Trump. Walz has questioned Vance’s credentials as a Midwesterner and mocked his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” for its depiction of rural America.
“Like all the ordinary people I grew up with in the heartland, JD went to Yale, had his degree funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a best-selling book criticizing that community,” Walz said at his first rally as Harris's vice presidential nominee. “Come on! That's not what middle class America is.”
Walz, also a former high school teacher and football coach, has called Trump and Vance “creepy and, yes, weird,” a criticism that has spread widely among Democrats.
The Democratic vice presidential nominee has linked Vance to a set of conservative policy proposals known as Project 2025, which Trump has sought to distance himself from.
What to expect from Vance?
Vance, the U.S. senator from Ohio, will have to work hard not to be on the defensive throughout the debate if Walz employs Harris' debate strategy.
Vance, 40, is likely to face questions about his incendiary rhetoric and could fight back in his typically combative style.
He has come under fire for referring to Harris and other Democrats in 2021 as a “bunch of cat-loving women with no children” and, more recently, for spreading false claims that Haitian immigrants in the Ohio city of Springfield were eating their pets.
He also claimed without evidence that the suspect in the latest assassination attempt on Trump was acting on Democrats' incendiary language.
“The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that… nobody has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last several months and two people have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last several months,” Vance said in comments that prompted a rebuke from the White House.
On the campaign trail, Vance has portrayed Walz and Harris as radical liberals.
She has also questioned Walz's depictions of his military record and his family's fertility problems.
Vance, who served in the Marine Corps and was a public affairs officer during a six-month stint in Iraq, accused Walz of leaving the Army National Guard to avoid being deployed to Iraq and of falsely suggesting he served in combat.
Walz, who served in the Guard for 24 years, retired to run for Congress. He has defended his record, but Harris’ campaign has acknowledged he misspoke in a 2018 video in which he referenced “weapons of war that I took to war.” Walz never served in a combat zone.
