Special MSNBC post-debate analysis with Rachel Maddow and a panel of her MSNBC colleagues
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at CBS News headquarters in New York City. You see the candidates there being joined by their wives, Usha Vance and Gwen Walls. A cordial debate between these two men. I wouldn't describe them as evenly matched because they are so different.

So different in style and so different on substance. Very interested to hear from the spin room, to hear from all of my colleagues here, to get to all of the analysis that we're going to get to. I think the big picture takeaway from this is that one of these candidates is much slicker than the other, is a much more practiced kind of professional debate style speaker. And the other candidate won.

There was one bad moment for Tim Walz in this debate where he got mixed up and embarrassed in answering a question about exactly what month he had been in China in relation to the Tiananmen Square protest.

But then on guns, on January 6th, on Obamacare, on the economy, on blaming everything on the border, back again on health care, on abortion, on every issue on substance. J.D. Vance was very polished and very slick. And Tim Walz beat him on all the substantive points. At least that was my take on it. I do think that there was one

Very blunt, very easily disprovable lie on a very important issue that is going to be real trouble for J.D. Vance coming out of this, which was him saying I never supported a national ban on abortion. J.D. Vance is bluntly on the record and on tape saying I want abortion to be illegal nationwide. His

Actual quote was, I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally. Saying I never supported a national abortion ban when that's out there is something you're never going to shake in your campaign, particularly when so much of the country is mobilized on this issue of reproductive rights, the first presidential election after the fall of Roe versus Wade.

Nicole. Why am I always first? Because you lost the short straw. Short straw. So I think that J.D. Vance spent the night sort of building an intricate and beautiful Ford out of toothpicks.

And it was perfect. And at the end, he sneezed on it. The whole thing fell apart and he had to walk out of that room over the broken toothpicks. I think that God bless the people who watched the whole thing and stayed locked in on it. I checked in with about 20 people all to do this and watch this for a living. And they were kind of in and out of some parts of it. But no matter how you watch this, if you cannot say what happened in 2020, you

and the only reason you're there is because what actually happened in 2020 is that Donald Trump sent his supporters to hang Mike Pence. Just ask them. Then you lose.

And I think that, you know, Governor Walz had a lot of great moments. Tim Walz built that perfect artifice. I mean, J.D. Bannis built this perfect artifice. He was speaking as though he were running to be Mitt Romney's vice. I mean, he spoke tonight. It was a performance that was kind of amazing and totally disconnected from the person who he's running with, Donald Trump. But still unable to say that Trump lost the election in 2020. Unable to say it.

In the moment, I think everything that he did for 88 minutes was lost and wiped out by that one inability to tell the truth in front of a huge television audience. Well, that moment was the moment of the night. I mean, it's like, wait, why is he here?

Oh, right. The Mike Pence thing, right? So that was the moment of the night. J.D. Vance is very good at this, right? I mean, this is what he's been doing since he was in college and the Yale Law, like talking to libs and being kind of like, well, I sort of agree with you here, but here's the other part of this. And he did that all perfectly fine.

There were, I thought, walls on the substance, particularly on health care, was very, very strong on health care, on the sort of basic of like the tax cuts and who you're fighting for. Again, these are meat and potato core messages. The two moments that I think kind of broke me a little bit, I don't know about the median information level of the viewer, the level of gaslighting to say that,

Donald Trump saved the ACA? Yes, he saved Obamacare. Like, really? He really got up on national television and said that Donald Trump had saved Obamacare. In a bipartisan way. In a bipartisan way. And despite the fact, trying to repeal it multiple times. And Wall said a very good fact check on that. And then...

I thought nothing was going to top that, but what topped it was he handed power over peacefully on January 20th. I said it twice. Yes. When the coup failed and the cops' brains had all been bashed in and there were actual dead bodies and blood on the Capitol, 14 days later, we did manage to actually do it. And he didn't show up for the transfer of power, by the way. He said it's really rich for Democratic leaders to say Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully

peacefully gave over power on January the 20th. And everybody's like, what is that alternate universe in which that happened? I would like to visit. It seems nice and much less violent. Joya? I mean, at that moment when Tim Wall said, you really can't answer that question. You really can't say that Donald Trump lost the election. You can't do that. That was the moment of the night. But I was just going through and catalog. You guys have mentioned some of them. He said there were 25 million undocumented immigrants in the country. It's probably more like 15, 16. He said that the...

He repeatedly lied about Springfield again and did it so insistently that he had to have his mic muted because he kept trying to jump in and continue to lie about these people. He said they were brought in through something called the CBP one app. And that is an app that immigrants can use to come in and get a certain kind of visa that was launched in 2020 under Springfield.

Drumroll, Donald Trump. He says that he never supported a national abortion ban. I have here a printout that is already circulating all over social media. This is from the campaign website of J.D. Vance when he ran for the United States Senate. It is headlined,

Abortion. He says he's 100 percent pro-life, believes abortion has turned a society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience, on and on and on. You also gave one of the quotes, I would certainly like to see abortion illegal nationally. He also said he was sympathetic to the view that a national ban would be necessary to stop women from traveling across states.

to obtain an abortion. So he's in favor of a sort of fugitive slave act to stop abortion. So he said that as well. He blamed undocumented immigrants for everything from rising house prices, rising food prices, inflation, maybe ghosts and bad weather. I mean, he was blaming undocumented immigrants for every single thing. I think Tim Walz was really skillful in knocking those things down individually because he was speaking as a governor and could speak from his own experience. He did a great job talking about housing costs and how those actually worked. The bipartisan way to save

healthcare was absolutely absurd. He said, most of our solar panels are coming from China. It's literally the opposite. Google the Department of Education that says 80% of our solar panels come from, drumroll, the United States. Trump peacefully gave over power on January 20, kind of skipped January 6 when he was trying to overthrow the government. He couldn't answer the question, did Trump lose the election? A smooth lie is still a lie. J.D. Vance is incredibly smooth, but he said, number one, nothing memorable.

There's nothing clippable in what he said. They were just all smooth, bland lies. He got outdone by J.D. by Tim Walz, who may be awkward. He may got hit, took him a while to get warmed up, but he won the debate because he actually had substance. He was relatable and he didn't go in there to slay J.D. Vance.

He went in there to show himself and he showed himself to be bipartisan. He showed himself to be reasonable. He showed himself to be practical. He acted as a governor. He, and a lot of people are complaining that he didn't knock JD Vance out and that he wasn't rhetorically cruel, but

That was not his job. It was obvious that his job was to sell Kamala Harris as president. He did that very well. He won the debate. I wrote a note to myself that he was not on offense against Vance in the first half of the debate. And then he came back after that break, right?

After the break, it was like just destroyed him on health care. And then the January 6th, January 20th thing. I mean, I scratched out my own note. True. He was not on offense against Vance for the first half of the debate. And then he came back and more than made up for it. You know, he will be remembered for that final exchange about, you know,

Did Trump lose the election? And he doesn't answer. His technique is to not answer. It makes him, by the way, the very first vice presidential candidate in history who doesn't know who won the election. That's his place in the election. Where did you see the job listing? Are the Republicans already in office?

It came at the end of a long list of questions that he simply didn't answer. He said words, but didn't answer. For example, the first one he didn't answer, Nor O'Donnell asked him, Donald Trump says climate change is a hoax. Do you agree? That's a one word answer. Yes or no.

He didn't answer that, he just kept talking. Margaret Brennan asked him, "Will you separate parents from children, even if the children are U.S. citizens?" No answer. Did not answer that question. "Your Donald Trump's budget plan will cost $5 trillion added to the national debt. What's your solution to that?" No answer.

"Will you monitor pregnancy?" Got an answer. He said no. Actually said no to that. Finally, there was an answer.

He was then asked, where are you going to seize the federal lands to build on? And he gave no answer. Now, that's a really important question. If you're trying to build anything in America, we really want to know where it is. And a lot of people don't want it to be in their backyard. And then, of course, Walls followed up on that by saying, so when you seize the federal land for the housing, is that also the federal land you're seizing for the drilling?

Are we having people live in the world, Alex? Are they all going to be together? No answer. And then we get to the final big no answer, which is going to be on a loop now of, you know, did he lose the election and the inability to answer that. And so just on that very simple debate topic.

of here's the question and you answer it. He lost spectacularly on any scorecard when you just give him a zero for every single one that he didn't answer. Can I say something about the monitors? Because we spend a lot of time on it before the debate and they defied whatever. I mean, they did. They did a great job. And they also use their mic muting power. And I actually think if you're a

that might be the worst moment J.D. Vance had because he was going to mansplain right over that mute button. He was, and again, I don't pretend to know how everyone will react to this. I think that a lot of women in positions of authority that should command respect just by virtue of that dynamic will see themselves in some dude that disrespected them and talked over, you know, I mean, there was a moment like that with the vice presidential candidate

in the Harris-Pence debate where she said, I'm speaking. I mean, there is this real belief that what he had to say was more important than the debate rules and the moderator. And to Joy's point, the substance of that moment was when he was lying about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio again. And Tim Walz had called him out on it. And then he was trying to say, no, no, no, no.

I'm not lying. Let me tell you why I'm calling them illegal immigrants, even though they are not illegal immigrants. And let me mansplain the law to you. And the moderators in that point not only muted his mic, but said, thank you for explaining the law. It's not what we're asking you about. But that's when he also complained about

being fact-checked, saying the rules say you cannot fact-check me. That's one of the things that's in the video that we'll be hearing a lot of. Nora O'Donnell did a fact-check that was indirect at the end of the climate change discussion. And the discussion ended, and she just said directly, the overwhelming consensus among scientists is climate change is warming at an unprecedented rate. She just said it, not in a direct confrontation to J.D. Vance. So I saw that, and I thought, OK, there's that method.

But then when it was a direct fact check to J.D. Vance, he did complain that CBS was violating its own rules.

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In case you're just joining us, it's the top of the hour. Let me say we're super grateful to have you watching our coverage of the vice presidential debate here on MSNBC. It was a debate that I think started essentially as kind of a slow burn. Like I thought, oh, this is going to be cordial, which is good. I'm not sure what's happening here on the substance. The pace of it was much slower at the beginning. And then about midpoint, it really took off. And then we had what I think was a

what I thought was almost a knockout on health care. I thought Walls basically knocked out Vance on health. First of all, he wobbled really badly on guns. We can talk about that. He almost knocked him out on health care. And then when we got to January 6th, he was out cold. There was something about the debate, too, just in sort of tone and format, to your point about the slow burn. Like, I remember that Cheney-Lieberman debate in 2000. They were sitting next to each other. It was very collegial, very avuncular, very we agree on stuff. And there were some

that vibe. You saw a little bit of like, oh, this is the J.D. Vance that made lots of liberal friends at Yale. This is the Tim Walz that won a very Republican district in really difficult times, including 2010, when basically every other Democrat got kicked out of the House. Like you saw an ability to be able like, OK, I can talk to people who don't agree with me. Right. But the thing that really sort of like

cut it was to get back to that democracy question in the end, which it was interesting. Walls almost apologizes for it, where he says, like, we're agreeing on a lot of stuff and there's a lot of bipartisan. This is a thing I can't go with you on. And I just thought it was very human. You could tell you could see it in his face because you can hear when someone's

Throat is a little closed. He doesn't like fighting and arguing. He doesn't like delivering the blow. It's not who he is He had to kind of steal himself. He almost apologized for it. I'm so shocked I'm so shocked I'm kind of bummed out by this dude that you would say that buddy But it was I found that part all the more effective because of what you were saying about that sort of like Slow burn and sort of collegiality and pretty wonky on stuff like housing which I thought was actually good exchange It's sort of interesting that part it was like right and

We can all walk together and talk about these policy things up to a point. But there is a point at which we can't. I, Tim Walz, am saying this is really the point. Let me just actually break the wall here a second, ask the control room. Do we have SOT 19? The piece of sound that you're getting, that you're referring to, we're going to try to turn around quicker than everything else. It takes us a second after the end of the debate to get all this pieces of sound turns around. But I think that one we've pulled. I just want people to hear exactly what you're talking about here.

Talk about the state of democracy, the top issue for Americans after the economy and inflation. After the 2020 election, President Trump's campaign and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting the results. Judges, including those appointed by President Trump and other Republican presidents, looked at the evidence and said there was no widespread fraud.

The governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6th.

Senator Vance, you have said you would not have certified the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you again seek to challenge this year's election results, even if every governor certifies the results? I'll give you two minutes. Well, Nora, first of all, I think that we're focused on the future. I just think for everyone tonight, and I'm going to

Thank Senator Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear. And I think there's a lot of agreement. This is one that we are miles apart on. 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?

Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation? That is a damning non-answer.

That is a damning non-answer. The verbal rejoinder there, half as powerful as the facial expression in that moment. Lawrence? Yeah, and that was a moment that was coming all night. And I don't know if Tim Walz deliberately held it to that and waited for it to get to that point. But it really was the moment that kind of reshuffled everything, as Nicole says, everything that you thought you had heard in the last 88 minutes or so

changed in a way that was very, very, very clear. That there's one person here who is actually capable of dealing with reality, and there's this other person who will say anything, whatever is necessary to say to get through to

thread the Trump needle to get where he has to be on whatever the question is. There was another great moment where he was asked a very simple, direct question. How do you protect pre-existing conditions in whatever the Trump health care plan will be?

And his answer was, we already have a law for that. That's correct. That is Obamacare. That was the very first law in American history that actually protected people with pre-existing conditions and allows them to get health insurance. And the great thing about the question is,

How do you protect pre-existing conditions? If you're just talking to someone where there was no health care plan in place in the government, if that was your first question, the answer to it actually has to become an entire health care system.

It's an answer that builds the entire Obamacare plan from that one question, even though that is listed as just one thing that it does. In order to do that, you have to do every other thing that Obamacare does, including the subsidies and all that stuff. And so that is that is one of those policy questions that shows you the utter emptiness of the man in policy terms. It's kind of identical to the emptiness of his answer on who won the election.

Yeah. And for Walls to be able to say in that moment, like, I know a lot about health care. I've worked on this a lot. It's really important in my state. Let me just make this simple. What you're talking about is the system we had before Obamacare, which is why we needed Obamacare. And for him to just cut through it all and say, this policy that you think you're inventing here and sounding all amazing about, that's what

we had and that was the disaster that we needed this huge reform to fix that the country is very grateful now, which you want to get rid of, which Trump tried to get rid of, which only John McCain saved him, saved us from him being able to get rid of it. He just cut through it for people who don't maybe have the interest in the policy in a specifics.

But he made it so clear in terms of what the stakes are there. It was sort of perfectly, perfectly done in his very kind of folksy way. Let's go to the spin room now to where Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is standing by with our Alex Wagner. Alex.

Thanks, Rachel. Governor, thank you for wading through the scrum to join me here. Let's talk about what happened on that debate stage, starting, I think, probably with Governor Walz's strongest answer, which unfortunately came at the very end, but I'm optimistic that people followed this through the 90 minutes. Talking about January 6th, what happened at the Capitol, and also...

and also the certification of the 2020 election. He wouldn't say who won the election. He said, I want to talk about the future. He basically suggested that Trump's interest in all the lawsuits that he filed or allies of his filed was about an open conversation about the election. I mean...

I think Governor Walz gave the line of the night when he said, Mike Pence isn't on the stage. Where is the firewall now? This person suggesting that, you know, J.D. Vance was not going to do the thing that Mike Pence did, but importantly, would just stand up to Donald Trump as he tries to subvert democracy. What did you think about that moment? And how much do you think that now is in the forefront of voters' minds heading into the last stretch of the election?

This election is about the future of our democracy. And so that's why that question was so important, even if it came at the very end. Because what you heard was J.D. Vance not willing to say that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. I mean, how can you actually think that that person should be vice president of the United States if he can't even admit what is true? Because what

Well, he's the mini me for Donald Trump who can't live up to the idea or can't, you know, tell the truth about the 2020 election. So I think that we're you know, this was the perfect frame for the rest of the debate. If you look back at the rest, what you'll see is a slick debater and J.D. Vance who

consistently could not answer a question. He just kept shifting, shifting, shifting. And we all know, for example, let's talk about health care. We all know that Donald Trump and the Republicans tried to, well, pull back and end Obamacare. Yeah. Right. And over and over again, they tried to do that. And yet that's not what you heard from J.D. Vance. It was Tim Walz who had to call him out on it.

Thank you.

and kind of slick answers from J.D. Vance. And you know what you heard from Tim Walz? It was a guy who is like a trust that lives down the street from you, the coach that you had in high school that you trusted, the teacher that you could confide in. And just he spoke in a way that I think everyday Americans, you know, the working families of America really understand.

Are you at all surprised that there are, I think, a number of moments in this debate where J.D. Vance was trying to, I guess, burnish his credentials as an empath and suggest that he kind of he cared about the struggles. He was more bipartisan in posture than perhaps you'd seen him in other media appearances. You know, he tried to agree at least notionally with Governor Walz on some things, even though obviously these two tickets are diametrically opposed on substantive policy issues. But

I mean, do you think that's going to convince anybody? Because as you say, he is a fairly slick orator. He was very rehearsed, but it was also a slightly different posture than when he's taken before. Look, he's a slick orator for sure. But you saw a lot of inconsistencies and his whole history is a list of inconsistencies. The guy hasn't held a job for more than two years.

He hasn't been able to keep the same views on things. Remember, he called Donald Trump America's Hitler. He called Donald Trump a Nazi just a few years ago. Now he's his running mate and his mini-me, repeating all of the lines of Donald Trump and defending Donald Trump.

So what is it about him? It's that he wants to achieve power. He wants to get in positions, but he is willing to, well, compromise himself and any morals or ethos that he may have ever had in his life in order to get there. That's been the problem for J.D. Vance. And that's why he's so unpopular with the American public. Yeah, he has historically high unpopularity. That is certainly true. I was struck.

by his, I mean, just how candid he was in terms of the problem Republicans understand themselves to have on the issue of abortion. He at one point said, we have got to do a much better job on abortion and also said, not all Americans agree with what I've said before, which is the litany of strange and weird proclamations on everything to what postmenopausal women should be doing to the age at which women should be having children. Do you, I mean, first of all, that seems to reflect the

you know, broad thinking inside the GOP that they are hemorrhaging voters on this topic. What did you think of his concession to how badly the party's doing on the topic? Well, I remember what he was really saying. He was basically saying, well, trust me and trust Donald Trump, right? That, you know, we'll do the right thing. Trust us. And you heard Tim Walz say, we trust women. That's what Democrats stand for. That's what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz stand for. So I thought that

contrast was very, very clear. And yeah, the Republican Party has a lot to answer for because the deaths that Tim Walz is talking about of women who aren't able to get the kind of reproductive services that they deserve because doctors feel like they might go to prison if they perform those services because it's been criminalized in so many states. I mean, I'm in Illinois where we've had to create an oasis for people because every state around us has criminalized

or gotten rid of abortion services. So people are traveling hundreds of miles, unfortunately, but at least they have a place to go to protect themselves. Tim Walz believes that the entire country should be the haven for women. You should be able to go to your local hospital or your local doctor and get the reproductive services you deserve, whereas Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are okay with people dying in the parking lot. Well, right, and J.D. Vance at one point expresses...

effectively condolences for Amber Thurman, the woman in Georgia who died because she had to leave that abortion desert, go get care in North Carolina and died and effectively the back and forth of treatment. But then also on the same hand, J.D. Vann says, but I think the abortion decision is best left to the state. Well, this is like everything with the Republicans, right? Their policies lead to people's deaths. And then they say, oh, thoughts and prayers.

Right. This is the same thing about a ban on assault weapons, which is what we need in the United States. What Tim Walz and Kamala Harris want for the people of the United States and to protect our children. Right. And what do they say on the other side? Up thoughts and prayers when people die. But they do absolutely nothing to protect our children and protect people on the streets who are being gunned down by AR-15s. Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, sir, thank you for taking time out of the mosh pit to come visit me. Good luck in there. Great to see you. Back to you, Rachel.

Thank you, Governor. And thank you, Alex, for looking at live images here of Governor Tim Walz and his wife Gwen getting pizza at, I think this is a place on 10th Avenue. I think I know this place. You see Secret Service and other folks around, but they're just, there he is paying for the pizza. We think that both candidates are overnighting in New York before they head back out onto the campaign trail tomorrow. Our friends...

it's called Justino's, I'm advised. Our colleague, Simone Sanders-Tanzant has joined us. Simone, what'd you think of the debate? Well, Rachel, look, I'm in the Nicole Wallace caucus tonight. Let me just say this, that debates are about performance and they are about policy. And why this debate was very important is that there are many Americans out there, not just moderate Republicans, they're base Democratic voters that are saying they want to and need to hear more. Now, I

I think it is very fair for people to want to criticize those base Democratic voters and say, well, what more do you need? You can do that. But that is their lived reality. And so if you are trying to win their votes, you have to meet them where they are. There were so many niceties on that debate stage tonight. I am just kind of like, well, if you agree so much with J.D. Vance, why should they vote for you? I fully believe that Governor Walzman out there tonight did what was practiced in debate prep.

did what the strategy was that the team put together. That was not the Governor Walz that we, that I had seen out on the campaign trail. That's not the Governor Walz that I had seen during the veep stakes, right? That was not the J.D. Vance that I know to be true. I mean, goodness, J.D. Vance was on that stage. He was sorry about Amber Thurman. He was sorry about a lot of stuff. We get things wrong, but do you agree with the policy? And then I just, you know, that's not the Margaret and Nora that I know. Margaret don't do that on Sunday morning.

So I just think that I know that there's so many people out there that want normal. They want normalcy. They just want, you know, just be able to just disagree with. Oh, you said a lot of things I agree with. This is not a normal election. J.D. Vance is actually not to Paul Ryan.

And Donald Trump, sure as heck is not Mitt Romney. Okay. And what happened on that debate stage tonight is was not enough contrast, was not clear enough for people sitting at home or frankly, who will probably consume this through the clips in their local news or here on MSNBC or on social media to distinguish and make a difference. Sure. We, Governor Pritzker was absolutely correct. He did a lot of lies and people know he's, he was correct about one part. J.D. Vance did a lot of lying, but

Everyone doesn't know that J.D. Vance is lying. There is somewhere right now a Republican TikTok creator putting up a little clip talking about how, yes, Donald Trump saved Obamacare. Right.

There was no one there to, I mean, some of this, so I think that Governor Walz got better on the counter-blocking and tackling in the second half, but still. But on that Obamacare point, so Walz came in and said, Donald Trump was trying to get rid of Obamacare and he would have, he signed on to this lawsuit, lost it, and then had a bill to get rid of it and would have got there had it not been for John McCain. You don't think that was a good enough rebuttal? J.D. Vance said, well, Donald Trump strengthened and saved Obamacare. That's what he came back and said. Right. It's the audacity. I

I agree with you that we're in year nine and no one knows how to cover the audacity. The audacity is that someone should have said, stop it. Stop. Stop. Are you effing kidding me? And they should have dropped that F-bomb, right? I mean, they should have just, this is a debate. This may be the only chance people have to see the difference. And instead, I mean, I'll go back to my toothpicks. J.D. Vance just put one little toothpick on top of the other and said, and I'm for this and I'm for this. And I'm so sorry those women died. They died because of Donald Trump.

One man had a litmus test for the people he put on the Supreme Court, and he put not one, not two, but three on because they pass a litmus test that they would overturn Roe. And that's why Amber died.

That's why that little boy doesn't have a mom. And nobody made that reality come to life. Because I think if you, even if you didn't get the contrast you were looking for, neither did you get any, any, you know, wake up and smell the smelling salts. You know, you were sort of lulled into normalcy. There was, let me ask you about one other, one other subject matter and how it went. On gun violence in schools, they both said the same thing about how it's very sad and it breaks your heart.

And then what J.D. Vance said was, listen, I think the reason that we have gun violence in schools, I'm paraphrasing, is because of the southern border. And what we need is stronger windows. He literally used the phrase stronger windows and doors that lock better. And...

Governor Walz came in and said, I think sometimes the problem is the guns. And I say that as a gun owner. Somebody used to keep a shotgun in my truck so I could go pheasant hunting after football practice. I'm not here to confiscate everybody's guns, but we've got problems with gun policy in this country. And that's what it is. It's not stronger windows is the solution to gun violence in the schools now.

Would that have made for a better social media day tomorrow had he said it in a punchier way? Is part of the problem here style? I feel like on substance are part policy, part performance. You have to hit the performance. I'm sorry. When when Joe Biden did his performance, the people were very ready to talk about how Joe Biden did his performance.

I think, though, this was a function of a strategy that they devised for Governor Walz. I think this was the strategy. And frankly, when you devise, when you are going into a debate with someone, the worst thing you can do is ask them to be somebody else. As you try to build them up and try to have them, you know, just put on a little something extra that you wouldn't usually do.

Governor Walz should have been able to go in there and be Tim Walz. And I think we saw a little more Tim Walz towards the mid later into the debate. But in the beginning, it was very clear that he was, you know, doing what they had agreed upon the strategy and debate prep.

You know, I don't think it was a good strategy. You know, I disagree with you on I do agree that he was following the strategy he was given by the campaign. But I don't think that this was a debate that was designed to move people off of their team if they were already on it. This debate is not going to move very many people. There is a very small, narrow group of people who have not made up their minds about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. That's.

That small, narrow group of people, when you poll them, you talk to them, they seem to want, number one, more substance. They keep asking, "I need to know more. I need to know more. I need to know more details." Tim Walz was very detailed, and he spoke the way a governor speaks about really specific issues like gun violence, like healthcare. He was substantive and knowledgeable. So if you're that person who the thing that's keeping you on the fence is you need more details, he gave you more details.

Number two, I don't think that small, narrow group of people wanted to see a fistfight. And so I think that the people who want the fistfight are the base of the Democratic Party. Democrats want to see someone get up there and give a knuckle sandwich to Donald Trump. That's what they want. But that is not the group of people who need this debate. Most people are already voting and already know what they want.

I think the reason that Tim Walz was effective in the way he did it, he wasn't angry. He was disappointed. And that's actually in some ways stronger. If I'm that undecided and it is a strange group of people, these people who can't decide between, you know, arsenic and, you know, pancakes, you know, it's like, it's,

It's very hard to say these two things are equal, but there are those people. And when I've heard them talk, they say things like, I don't know, I don't understand Vice President Harris's policies on X, Y and Z. Tim Walz gave you that specificity that I think is going to get those people to feel more comfortable. And his job was to make people feel comfortable. And last thing I'll say is to provide a permission structure for people who aren't core Democrats to come over.

And that lack of meanness, the kindness, the fact that he says, you know, I want to agree with this guy. I think that we agree on a lot of things. I hate to say it. A lot of undecided. That's what they want to hear. I just want to note that there are a lot of base Democratic voters who are not undecided about whether they want to vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. They are undecided if they are going to vote. And I.

I just think if people listen to people, listen to some of the voters, that they're saying that. Melissa Murray and I talked to, I know there were a lot of people who were very, they had a lot of consternation about some of the young women we spoke to in the nail shop and our Black Women in America Road 2024 special. But that young woman that said she didn't think her vote mattered, she lives in North Carolina. Wow.

And you can walk her down about her position or you can meet her where she is and let her know why her vote matters. And what I have heard from a lot of people across the country, not...

not, you know, political strategists, like just regular people that aren't as tuned in. They feel like that the campaign is doing a lot right now to talk to Republican voters, those people in the middle, and that they don't think that they need to persuade pieces of the base. And they do. To me, this feels very much so similar right now to 2016, more though than it does to 2020. That woman in the nail shop, had you been able to remote control

old Tim Walz like a drone tonight. What would you have had him say or do that might have moved her? I think the housing conversation, the second part of the housing conversation, I think Governor Walz was very, I think housing is very important to people across the country. Because when they say affordability and the economy, that's what they're talking about. Talking about housing, they're talking about rent, they're talking about grocery prices. And I thought that housing conversation was clear. I thought, I think abortion was something that she herself said was important to her and the healthcare piece.

I think sometimes when we get into policy healthcare conversation, it gets a little theoretical, but I just think that how you deliver the message does matter. And yes, you can say it and you could say, oh, he said it, but how you say it matters. Yeah. First of all, let me ask, do we need to go to Jacob right now? Is he ready for us?

OK, he is good. Jacob Soboroff is in Oakland County, is Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. We spoke with him as he was setting up with a bunch of students are going to be watching the debate there to watch party. And he's convinced them to stick around, even though the debate ended, which itself is a Herculean effort. Jacob, take it away. How'd it go? Rachel, look at all the people you guys. Thank you very much for sticking around. I really appreciate you guys sticking around. Here's the.

The green flags and the red flags, they did the whole thing and it was amazing and they don't have them any longer. So I'm going to have them start with a show of hands. And I don't know if this is going to surprise you. These are not undecided voters necessarily. These are voters who could very well tip the outcome of the election, uh,

come election day because they live in one of the most consequential counties in all of Michigan, Oakland County. It was 100,000, as I told you before the debate, 100,000 vote swing from Trump to Biden in the 2020 election. Macomb County, one of the neighboring counties, is also a very important swing county here. Let's just start with a show of hands. Did anybody come into this debate

and Lee feeling differently than when they came in in terms of candidate. Raise your hand if you changed your opinion of the candidates because of this debate. Oh, really? One? Come on down, dude. Come on down. Come on down. Come on down. Come on down. Very surprising. What's your name? Henry. Henry, what's going on? Okay, so you came in feeling what?

Um, I felt like JD Vance would have been a lot worse. I think he's very awkward. His, his other like public appearances have been very awkward. I'm thinking back to like the scenario in the ice cream shop where he just made it so awkward for the part for the, for the employee and they don't want me on camera. It'd been the donut too, right? Yeah. I just thought, well, like why, why, why can't he just be normal? Like the rest of us. And that's how you felt coming out of here.

I felt he did a lot better. He spoke... I feel the way JD Vance works is he works very well when he has a lot of preparation.

This is a debate. He knows about it weeks in advance. So he's able to prepare. I think he prepared very well. So one of the things, will you do me a favor? These are for you. Thank you very much. Thank you. One of the things, guys, that I thought got the strongest reaction here was Jimena was talking about guns at the beginning of the debate. And one of the strongest reactions here I thought was interesting was, Rachel, what you were just talking about when J.D. Vance said one of the ways ultimately that we can stop gun violence in this country is by having

better locks on our doors. Did anybody react? You're laughing back here. No, you. What's your name? Nora. What did you think when you heard J.D. Vance talk about that? Himena was talking about how because of what happened at one of your neighboring schools here, it's an issue that rings close to home. I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, the issue is guns. The issue is not better locks on doors.

Reproductive freedom is also something that got a big reaction in this room. And I saw a lot of green flags go up when Governor Walz was talking about how he wants to protect a woman's right to make her own choices. I see you reacting strongly here. Really, ultimately, guys, what this is about is enthusiasm and whether or not in this state that had the highest youth voter turnout in the 2022 midterm elections, whether or not folks like this are going to be able to make their own choices.

are going to be compelled to come out. These guys are compelled to stay here till 11 o'clock, 11, excuse me, 27 on a school night. You know, you heard that answer. What did you think? Sorry, could you repeat that? Reproductive freedom. What did you think when you heard Governor Walz say that he thought it was a woman's right to make her own choices? I completely agree with that. Like, I feel like that should be considered common sense almost, but it isn't. It's become such a heated debate for what feels like

should be a no-brainer. And he just kind of voiced that. The other one was immigration. I thought, God, and you guys correct me if you feel like I'm misstating everything here, but on immigration, number one, there was a loud laugh in this room when those mics got shut off. LAUGHTER

And that was, of course, around the issue of the Haitians that are in Springfield, Ohio, under the temporary protected status. J.D. Vance was saying Senator Vance was saying that they were there illegally. Of course, that wasn't true. The moderators pointed out and they cut the mic. But I also thought you guys in the room responded strongly to the pushback on the point that.

President Biden and Vice President Harris put forward one of the strongest and most conservative, actually, immigration bills in recent history. And Donald Trump killed that bill. Did anybody did that? Did that did that ring true? You're up here. Let me just come up here with you real quick. You're not in your head. Yes. Hi. What's your name? James. Why was that something, James, that resonated with you?

It is true. Congress has power for these immigration policies and it just keeps getting pushed back between presidency to presidency, which Congress does have power in these situations. It's really just forming a demonization of immigrants, which is such an issue. We see a lot of violence against immigrant communities. These are not illegal people.

They come here undocumented for whatever reason there is. And it's just causing more harm than anything. And we just need to push towards like true policy rather than like all these like talk points. I appreciate it, you guys. And I guess, you know, maybe the final thing that I just want to ask, we were talking, Marcus, about this constant criticism about the vice president not being able, about the vice president being in office for these last, he's already upset about it.

The vice president being in office for all these years and not being able to make the change was the allegation from J.D. Vance. You said to me, I've been to high school civics class. Why did you say that?

Because if anybody took high school civics class, they'd know what the vice president can do and what the vice president can do. I want to make a quick point. Neither candidate on that stage talked about what executive action they're going to take on day one to do what they want, nor were they asked because they know that they can't. That's not how the vice presidency works. You don't get to do what you want. You do what the president delegates you to do.

One day, Marcus is going to be all of our teachers in civics class, guys. I want to thank you all very much for being here. And Rachel, just reiterate how important that these voters are, the enthusiasm that is here. You can really feel it. And it's exciting to be here with all of you guys. We appreciate it very much. And I know they do, too, back in the studio. Rachel, back to you. Thank you.

of the nation is in your hands from Madam President Jimena and to all of them. Very, very thankful. Very thankful to you, Jacob, for being there with them. It's inspiring to see them. Thanks, Rachel. All right. Thanks, guys. Jen Psaki has joined us. Jen, what is your reaction to the debate? We have lots of heated and interesting discussions. I've seen. First of all, I want to get Marcus an internship. He knows better how civics works and how government works than most people.

I felt that if you're sitting at home and you were watching and you were not fact-checking and you weren't familiar with what J.D. Vance had said previously or what Donald Trump stood for, he seemed at many moments to be reasonable. Yeah. And that was clearly a change in tone. And I know you all were talking about the strategic shift there. That was interesting to watch. Why?

Watching Tim Walls, what I thought about was when he emerged onto the scene, we all probably interviewed him five times during Veepstakes. He propelled himself single-handedly into Veepstakes, right? He became the running mate because of their chemistry, but also because he was so effective at connecting people authentically and organically on television.

He's been absent. I think that's a huge mistake to hold him back and not put him out there. Meaning he hasn't been on the media. He hasn't been out in the media for a while. He's been absent. I do think that's a missed opportunity. But tonight, I felt like he was spending a lot of time in the first half or two thirds proving he read the briefing material.

And I was missing the magic and the organic spontaneity of Tim Walz. I know you already all talked about the January 6th moment, which I thought was great. And the moment on health care, also great. I loved it when he quoted the Bible and made it about morality on immigration. But I

but coming out of it, I hope that they free Tim walls and put him out there and let him be rusty at times and make mistakes and hug football players and cry and be off, be funny. Sometimes that's the magic. That's why he's on the ticket. Yeah. Do you feel like he, he,

There was a transition from over the course of the debate. I feel like after that first break, when he came back is when he landed all his punches. Yes. He was clearly nervous. Who wouldn't be? It's the biggest moment you've ever been on in your life on that stage. He was on tonight. There was a shift, I felt, maybe about 45, 50 minutes in around abortion. He was quite strong. And I was thinking to myself, and we've talked about this.

We are now in a stage in 2024 where men are very comfortable running for office and talking in detail about abortion rights and sepsis and everything that can happen. And that in itself is progress. On gun violence, I thought he was stronger. And obviously the moment on January 6th, it took him a while to get there. My point is, I think he's an enormous asset to the campaign. I think people really connect with him. That's why he's on the ticket. And he should be out there more because when he gets into a groove, it is sometimes messy, sometimes sad.

Ben says funny things that are slightly off. That's okay. He connects with people because that's who he is. And I hope we see more of that. That very difficult exchange at the end about January 6th, about Vance being unable or unwilling to answer about who won the 2020 election is going to be one that sticks. That is going to be an important part of the legacy of this debate, but also a quicker earlier moment in the debate where J.D. Vance told the

a lie that is really, really going to stick to him, that he told very bluntly, very cleanly, and very much 180 degrees wrong. And the antidote to it, the fact check on it, is himself on tape. That one is really, really going to stick to him. We'll have that for you right on the other side of this break. We'll be right back. Stay with us here on MSNBC.

When Donald Trump said, "I've got a concept of a plan," it cracked me up as a fourth grade teacher because my kids would have never given me that. But what Senator Vance just explained might be worse than a concept because what he explained is pre-Obamacare. And I'll make this as simple as possible because I have done this for a long time. What they're saying is, if you're healthy, why should you be paying more? So what they're going to do is let insurance companies pick who they insure.

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Senator, about that, he mentioned, I think referring to a national ban. In the past, you have supported a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. In fact, you said if someone can't support legislation like that, quote, you are making the United States the most barbaric pro-abortion regime anywhere in the entire world. My question is, why have you changed your position?

Well, Nora, first of all, I never supported a national ban. I did during when I was running for Senate in 2022 talk about setting some minimum national standard. But wait, I never supported a national ban. I talked about setting some minimum national standard. I never supported a national ban. Do we have tape of reality here? I certainly would like abortion to be legal nationally.

So if you're on tape saying, I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally, that means you supported a national ban on abortion. J.D. Vance, an incredibly slick, facile talker. I mean, he's a professional talking head. This is what he's been doing his whole adult life.

But on that one, on an issue that important, to lie on something that bluntly, I feel like, Ari, that's going to follow him around a little bit. Yeah, it's a huge deal. It might have been the most significant substantive gaffe. We were having a debate earlier on the table about style. This was a substantive huge error. He lied. He lied because his past position is too close to the real Donald Trump Project 2025 position. The GOP platform won't.

also talks this up. It doesn't use the national ban language. But this is the person, Donald Trump, who put the people on the court to overturn Roe. They all pledged to do it. They're not just looking for some interstate quilt.

which is what they've currently fallen back on as a, I would, again, I say this respectfully, but a nonsensical or illogical defense of their position. They are looking long-term, and it's all out there, for a national ban, which means wherever you live in the country, you know, California, New York, wherever, that would be their policy. And...

They're giving away the game. Everywhere in the country that Republicans are in control now, there is an abortion ban. Yes. And so if you want abortion to be banned, vote for Republicans. Everywhere they get power, they do it. And this is J.D. Vance and Donald Trump saying they want power nationally. And here is J.D. Vance bluntly lying about his overt statement that he wants it illegal nationwide. And just briefly, that's why it's so important that he also

admitted under questioning, wait, I thought we agreed on no fact checking. That's important if lying about your positions from abortion policy to what happened on January 6th is central to your campaign and how you plan to hopefully win over votes is by lying to people. On a lighter note, it reminded me a little bit of the famous Saturday Night Live impression of the Gerald Ford debate when he said, I thought there would be no math. And the joke was,

The president has to deal with these things. I thought that was a real giveaway from Vance. I think there's lies and there's misrepresenting things, right? So J.D. Vance showed up tonight to sort of put a smoother sheen on Trumpism, which is interesting because it's the opposite of who he is on the campaign trail. On the campaign trail, he is the most aggressive, the most offensive. But his goal

was to sort of take you back to this idea that pre-COVID life was great. We had this great economy. And people like to tend to go back and believe that, forgetting that Donald Trump had the same economy, slightly worse than President Obama did. But he really got up there and lied.

or stretch things when he would immediately link migrants, illegal migrants, which they're not in Springfield, Ohio, to the lack of affordable housing, which simply isn't true. He all but said Donald Trump protected Obamacare. And in those cases, you're watching Tim Walz going, come on, like, are you going to get in there? Are you going to get in there? And it wasn't until J.D. Vance simply wouldn't say no.

Joe Biden won the election free and fair. And that's kind of what gave the game away. They're like, yes, he was slick. He gave a great excuse to lots of people who don't want to publicly say that they're voting for Trump. He's OK. But right then and there, you're like, oh, everything that you said before this, I'm not so sure of. We all know who won the election. You know, we played a little bit from that.

portion at the end of the debate, the discussion about January 6th, the discussion about whether or not we respect election results. We played a little bit of it before, but there's one other piece of it that we haven't played yet that and we're all talking about it. So let's just hear it. I see a candidate out there who refused. And now again, and this I'm pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. Look, he's

When Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that's why Mike Pence isn't on this stage. What I'm concerned about is, where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall if he knows he could do anything, including

taking an election and his vice president's not going to stand to it. That's what we're asking you, America. Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office even if the president doesn't? So, America, I think you've got a really clear choice on this election of who's going to honor that democracy and who's going to honor Donald Trump.

Stuff got real right there. Up until then, they were trying to be more cordial. I heard all the analysis tonight. You know, it seemed more normal right there. That's when normal stops. Right. And you say, where's the firewall? Because it's not necessarily going to be the speaker of the House. And it's definitely not going to be this guy if he's the VP. And let's explain the firewall point. And maybe Wall should have explained it in the moment. But he's saying, listen, we all saw that Donald Trump lost the election, claimed that he didn't lose and then unmasked.

hell in this country to try to hold on to power even though he lost. The firewall was Mike Pence. Mike Pence not only respecting the Constitution but being willing to stand up to Donald Trump and not do what Donald Trump was ordering him to do. He was the firewall. J.D. Vance will not be a firewall and that's why he got the job. Nor will Mike Johnson. And he could have said that.

I mean, J.D. Vance is on television basically saying he would help him with another fake electors plan. Yes. That may or may not be why he is the running mate currently. It probably is a big part of it. The other piece we haven't played this, but I wrote this down with like exclamation points where J.D. Vance said he'll have my prayers, best wishes and my help. That's what J.D. Vance said about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz if they won.

And that was part of the Earth 2, as you like to say, the alternative universe, whatever you may call it. You're like, buddy, your campaign is currently planning to suppress votes, to challenge votes, to use lawsuits to make it, to challenge the outcome. I mean, that...

was, I mean, a jarring moment. Tim Walz had some good moments, but there were some missed moments, too. And I don't think we can emphasize this enough. It's called a bloodless coup for a reason, right? There's also a bloody coup. They did try both. But let's remember, we've reported on it, and Rachel, you've warned about it. I think everyone at this table has reported on it. The original move before they resorted to storming the Capitol was the bloodless coup of trying to get the states or the alternate electors to

to override the congressional certification without storming the Capitol. And as Vance put it, throw it to the Congress for a big old fight. That fight involves overturning the will of the voters. And so when he says that publicly and he showed, again, I thought there were some moments that I do think, for the record,

J.D. Vance was able to pretend that he's more rational or logical seeming in these 90 minutes than he is day to day. And whether that works for him politically is a point. But there were those revelations. And so when he's caught there, unable to acknowledge the winner of the last election is the current president, which is a giveaway that you're still alive.

working within the big lie and double down on what he said, which is we want to throw it to the Congress. Everything else is BS. That's where I think our friend Nicole Walsh was calling for the F-bombs. You know, you know, and I'll give you one. It was frivolous. It was a frivolous claim. As far as I can go. Blood pressure. Yeah.

A different F-bomb. On MSNBC, as far as we're going to go here, family television. But that was important because, yeah, you want to stand up and go, wait a minute. And I thought, you know, basically, Walls was able to do some of it. The moderators, I thought, did a decent job. But they didn't do a ton in that moment to be like, this is nuts. The person standing up here is promising another. And again, I say bloodless. He did not. I'm not saying he advocated a Proud Boys insurrection.

But he did advocate the end of American democracy. That's not normal. Right. Discussing health care, the economy, all that stuff is nonsense. It's are you going to accept the outcome of the election results? Are you participating in politics or is this just before the war? Yes. That's the question here, right? Are you going to seize power?

Or are you going to accept that people vote on who's in power? Because those are the only two choices. And to not be able to get a clear answer on that is, as you say, the whole enchilada. On the point, actually, this is not on this point at all. But this is something, Joy, that I want to show you. Because I know that you and I are old enough and have similar enough internet tastes that you remember dramatic chipmunk.

Do you remember dramatic chipmunk? It turns out it was dramatic prairie dog. Do we have dramatic chipmunk? No, no, no, not the honey badger. Do we have it? It's the, I thought it was a chipmunk, but it's a prairie dog. Watch. Intriguing. Yeah. Hold on. Where is it? Come on. Cause he does like a, yeah, I know it. I think I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes. Okay. Okay.

So dramatic chipmunk was a thing, right? And the moment, I think, do we have this actual shot of it where the chipmunk kind of turns and faces the camera and raises the eye like that? Because there was a number of things, there was a number of incidents in the vice presidential debate tonight where J.D. Vance was looking at Tim Walz, looking at him from the side, and then turned without moving his head and raised the eyebrow to the camera like that, basically to make eye contact with the audience at home, like, do you believe this guy? Anyway.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, Joy, I don't... You know what? I made that face when J.D. Vance said that Donald Trump peacefully...

over power on January 20th. How about he talked about all the bipartisan ways he led during those four years? And to me, I struggle to find this big group of undecided voters in America. I think there's a lot of people who aren't necessarily saying who they're going to vote for and what J.D. Vance said. I can tell you on my phone tonight, it was filled with people who love to say, see, he's totally normal, don't you think? He put on the show that people who were

already voting for Trump needed and wanted to feel OK about it. Let's go to Alex Wagner, who is in the spin room at the site of the debate with our friend Claire McCaskill.

I just want you to know that Claire McCaskill risked life and limb to get into this room. Almost got bounced from the debate hall. I thought they were going to tase me trying to get into the spin room. The Secret Service was a little out of control here tonight. Like most Americans, we blame Donald Trump Jr. for the problems. Yes. But I do want to call your... He's sitting right next to us, so I won't go on at length about that.

Secret Service protection, much more hardcore this debate than the last one. Claire, there is a new sort of CBS, I will call it a snap poll after this debate. And they people who are asked who won the BP debate, 42 percent of them say J.D. Vance won it. Forty one percent say Governor Walz won it. Seventeen percent say it's a tie. Does anything about that surprise you? No, I think the debate, first of all,

J.D. Vance tried to do one thing and he focused on it. He tried to be Tim Walz. He tried to be the nice guy. And he was very smooth. And the other thing about J.D. Vance is that he's a better liar than Donald Trump.

He wraps it up in prettier ribbon with a bigger bow and does it with such a straight face and does it so effortlessly. Trump, you know, lots of times when he lies, you kind of like can tell, no, this guy's a really good liar. And he obviously lied. I mean, I about fell on my chair when he said on

on the ACA because I was there. I was in the Senate chamber when John McCain walked in and gave the thumbs down. I know what Donald Trump tried to do to the ACA. And the idea that he would try to pretend that somehow he was protecting it

The other thing that struck me about the debate is I think most Americans, and I know you guys have probably talked about this already, but most Americans don't see the vice president as the policymaker. And I don't remember any time during the debate that they talked about the Pence years.

when Trump was president. The Pence administration? The Pence administration. And Pence did all these things. And so I don't think most Americans really believe the vice president has the power to pass legislation and implement policy unless she is working on behalf of the president she's serving. So I don't

think that is, I think that's one of the reasons probably the debate polling is so close. And I think the debate probably in the long run, even though Trump, Vance was a really good liar, and even though he tried to be really nice, I think it's probably a wash. I talked to Jason Miller, the senior Trump campaign advisor, after the debate, and he

I brought up the January 6th exchange at the end of the debate, and I said, you know, is that a problem for your campaign? And he said, if that's all Democrats have, then I'm not worried. What do you think? I think they should be worried.

I think it was so stark. It was at the end of the debate. It was a dramatic moment. It was unbelievable that he would not say that Trump lost the election. He would not say that they would not try to do the same play again. So I do think that was the most damning moment.

As some of our colleagues said earlier, that's kind of when it all fell apart, I think, for Vance at the end. And you realize, OK, maybe this all was just an act and he really is just a Donald Trump wannabe. I am disturbed by the phenomenon that you have called out, which is this attempt to revise history in real time. It's something our own Steve Bannon at MSNBC has written a book about. But the idea that you can basically rewrite the facts immediately.

minutes after they unfolded, whether or not it's Donald Trump saying he had nothing to do with the killing of the Langford bipartisan immigration bill, whether it's J.D. Vance saying he never supported a national abortion ban. And the question is, is the sort of universe of information so bifurcated into the truth and the not truth, Earth one and Earth two, that all of those assertions on the Vance Trump ticket are

don't actually matter, that the lies don't matter? Or do you think the truth actually eventually breaks through? I don't know, but I do know this. There is something deeply ironic that they had a debate question about Tim Walz misspeaking about when he was in China 35 years ago. But Donald Trump said some outrageous lies today and every day makes outrageous lies. And there was not one question about

being a vice presidential candidate to a man who says daily massive things. I mean, just what he said about Kemp and President Biden and the hurricane disaster just yesterday. The idea that they're making a big deal out of a misstatement of walls when Donald Trump is a walking line machine. Literally every minute, every hour on the hour. Unbelievable. Senator Claire McCaskill, take her to the club because she's going to get you in.

Over to you, Rachel. What would we have done had you actually got tased, though, Claire, honestly? I mean, we would have had... It would have been a story. It would have been a story. It would have been a story. Alex, will you please accompany... What got me mad was I found out they let Hannity in, and they were about to let the dog puppet in, and they hadn't let me in. I'm going, come on, guys. The dog puppet was...

was advocating, the Daily Show dog puppet was advocating for the senator to be let out. Well, thank God. The dog puppet actually said, Claire should go in before the dog puppet. And I said, thank you for that. Well, you know what? If there's one thing that can bring Americans together, I mean, I really feel like the dog puppet can show us the way. We're glad you're okay. Say thank you to the dog for us. All right. We're going to take a very quick break. Our MSNBC coverage of tonight's vice presidential debate continues right after this. Stay with us.

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