US vice presidential hopefuls Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz clashed over the economy, immigration, gun violence, and abortion, but stayed away from the broader geopolitics that has engulfed the Middle East. The two voiced off their stances in the only debate, and most likely the last debate of the US Presidential Election 2024.
The debate comes amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East with America’s closest ally Israel taking on Iran’s Axis of Resistance – Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The United States risks being sucked into a full-blown war with Iran if it continues to aid Israel with weaponry and strategic strikes.
But the Middle East crisis was not on the vice president candidates’ agenda for the upcoming US Presidential Election 2024. They talked about domestic issues like the economy, gun violence, and abortion.
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US Vice-Presidential Debate Economy and Immigration
Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, said former US President Donald Trump gave tax cuts to the wealthy, and now he’s proposing a 20 percent sales tax on everything the country brings in. He said everyone agrees that doing so would be destabilizing, increase inflation, and potentially lead to a recession.
JD Vance hit back saying “You’ve got to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t deliver lower inflation, which of course he did. “And then you’ve got to defend Kamala Harris’ atrocious economic record, which has made gas, groceries, and housing unaffordable for American citizens.”
On immigration, Senator Vance said Harris bragged for three years that she was going to undo Donald Trump’s border policies, and did exactly that. “We had a record number of illegal crossings. We had a record number of fentanyl coming into our country.” He highlighted that Harris undid 94 Donald Trump’s executive actions to only open up the southern border.
However, Walz lauded the Democrats’ immigration policy. “We had the fairest and toughest immigration bill this nation has seen, but Donald Trump told Republicans to vote against it to help his campaign.”