CNN commentators and guest analysts offer their take on Tuesday night’s vice presidential candidate debate. The opinions expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors.
S.E. Cupp: Kaine gave tone deaf, unhinged performance
Just wow. Tim Kaine had one (fairly simple) job tonight: make the Donald Trump ticket look like the unstable one. Instead, for reasons only the late Miss Cleo might know, he was the one who was totally out of control.
Sure, he laid out the differences between Trump and Hillary Clinton, hammered away at Trump’s rhetoric and asked numerous times how Mike Pence could defend some of Trump’s words and proposals. But who could hear any of that through the cacophony of hyperactive, ballistic outbursts and interruptions that marked most of the conversation?
At one point, Pence mentioned 9/11 and Kaine interrupted to excitedly announce, “I was there, too, by the Pentagon!” When he wasn’t interrupting, he was steamrolling through prepared paragraphs of alliterative dad jokes and scripted zingers that might have been effective — if they weren’t delivered at warp speed. And he was so wedded to his anti-Trump mandate, he often seemed oblivious. In an answer to a question about the children of Syria — let me repeat, the CHILDREN OF SYRIA — his response was to point out that Trump didn’t pay his taxes.
Whatever substantive points Kaine made about Trump’s unpreparedness — and there were many, and they were important — were totally overshadowed by Kaine’s tone deaf, overly caffeinated, unhinged performance, especially when contrasted with Pence’s calm and composed one. If undecided voters were watching, Pence by far seemed the saner choice, maybe even in spite of his running mate.
S.E. Cupp is the author of “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity,” co-author of “Why You’re Wrong About the Right” and a columnist at the New York Daily News.
Sally Kohn: Mike Pence is living on an alternate planet
Well it turns out, if you refuse to acknowledge any of the horrible things that Donald Trump has actually said, then it’s pretty easy to defend him.
This was the main takeaway from the vice presidential debate. Over and over again, Democratic VP nominee Tim Kaine tried valiantly to hold Republican Mike Pence accountable for the misogynistic, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, pro-Putin things that his running mate Donald Trump has said. And over and over again, Pence acted like Kaine was not only making these things up but, in so doing, actually perpetrating a campaign of insults simply by repeating the things that Donald Trump had said yet Mike Pence refused to acknowledge. I’m pretty impressed that Kaine’s head didn’t explode. Mine certainly came close.
I don’t know how you debate someone who seems to have encamped himself on a different planet. Yet to his credit, Mike Pence dished out his flurry of lies with calm confidence — while Tim Kaine, the truth-teller, came off as ruffled.
In a moment in American media and political history where the very existence let alone definition of “facts” seems worryingly debatable, I pray that the American people can still tell the difference. Or else I pray that not that many people were watching — and that the morning-after media will do its job of fact checking Pence for his downright lies and thus the impression most voters will walk away will be one closer to — well, fact.
Donald Trump has praised Putin. Donald Trump has said it might not be a bad thing if more countries get nuclear weapons. Donald Trump has said we should institute a temporary ban to prevent Muslims from entering the United States. And Donald Trump has said Mexico was sending immigrants who are “rapists” and called women “fat pigs” and “dogs.” No amount of vigorous head shaking on the part of his running mate changes this. Donald Trump has said he would round up and deport every single undocumented immigrant in the country using a “deportation force.”
Facts are facts. We have literal recordings and transcripts.
But if anything, the VP debate tests the relevance of facts in this election. Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s strategy seems to be to repeat lies often enough to convince 51% of voters that they’re the truth. And unfortunately, what actually is true doesn’t matter as much as what voters believe to be true. Donald Trump has already bent the electoral process, the media and the boundaries of basic civility to his whims. He may now bend the concept of fact as well. Certainly, his loyal running mate is trying.
Sally Kohn is an activist, columnist and television commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @sallykohn. She supports Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
Errol Louis: Pence gives lesson on how to defend Trump
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence went into Tuesday’s vice presidential debate burdened with saving the Trump campaign after one of its worst weeks. He emerged as the calmer, smoother counterpart to the erratic performance by Donald Trump during last week’s debate.
Pence’s skillful performance was, in part, a product of the five years he spent as a radio talk show host, a job that put a premium on maintaining a clear and conversational tone and timing.
To make his burden easier, Pence made as few references as possible to Trump, dancing around criticisms about his running mate’s tax returns, insults to a former Miss Universe and the constitutionality of his “extreme vetting” plans. Instead, he spent the bulk of the night smoothing out what he dismissed as misinterpretations of Trump’s proposals.
Even if he didn’t fully answer questions on race relations and questions on Trump’s business acumen, Pence was the cooler alternative to Sen. Tim Kaine, who came off as canned, too-clever and nervous, interrupting Pence throughout the debate.
Pence calmly dismissed assertions from Kaine with a chuckle, calling his points nonsense. That won’t eliminate all the political damage Trump has done with his nonstop insults and mockery, but it demonstrated to other Trump supporters how to defend their candidate without doubling down on his abrasive style.
Errol Louis is the host of “Inside City Hall,” a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel.
Tim Stanley: Pence delivers pleasingly banal performance
Now, that was the kind of polite and intelligent debate we used not to watch. Yes, the VP encounter was feisty, but never personally offensive — and its substance also felt incredibly old fashioned. The separation of church and state, a subject never mentioned in Trump v Clinton, was tactfully addressed; memories of 9/11 were invoked; both candidates agreed that Russia is a strategic threat. In fact, Mike Pence’s performance was so old school Republican that he seemed unaware of the reality of Trump’s iconoclastic campaign. “Yes, I am happy to defend Mr. Trump,” he insisted, adding that Hillary Clinton was the lady with all the insults and Trump was a great and honest businessman. He was defending the Trump of his imagination.
Kaine gave a spirited performance that was, to his detriment, wholly negative. If he couldn’t say “But your candidate said XYZ!” then he wouldn’t have had much to say at all. Pence defused the antagonism with the wry smile of a genial old man humoring a simpleton — and won most rounds. He scored highly on law and order, insisting that there’s no contradiction between acknowledging that police racism exists and refusing to exploit tragedy for votes.
So effective was his performance, so pleasingly banal, that many Republicans will be calling for the ticket to be switched. They do so forgetting that Trump’s radicalism deflects but does not diminish Pence’s: He was once considered a politically incorrect conservative himself, and any other year would have been regarded as a risky choice for VP.
So this debate reinforced the impression that while the Democrat ticket is weak and unlikeable, the Republican one is eccentric. Pence, undeniably effective, won in large part by not being as bizarre as his running mate. Any momentum gained will doubtless be squandered by Trump himself.
Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of “Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics.”
Haroon Moghul: Pence’s dishonesty is spiritually toxic, socially radioactive
When the five wizards arrived in Middle Earth many years ago, the shipwright Cirdan gave his Ring of Power to Gandalf, not the leading wizard, Saruman. Cirdan chose wisely: While Gandalf would rally men and elves against Sauron’s evil, Saruman not only conceded to tyranny, but embraced it.
If there’s a reason Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” endures, it’s because it isn’t really fantasy. It is a kind of scripture. I’m not claiming Donald Trump is Sauron. I am, however, arguing that we can get an insight into what happened to Mike Pence by seeing how great writers explore the effect of power on the human soul.
Sen. Tim Kaine repeatedly cited Trump’s most egregious comments, but all Pence did was deny Trump ever said any such thing. We have a non-focus grouped term for that. Lying. Pence may have lied more than Trump did, and that’s a historic achievement.
So whether Pence loses the debate in the court of public opinion is secondary. Whether he becomes vice president almost does not matter. Pence’s dishonesty is not just spiritually toxic, but socially radioactive. If the top of your ticket indulges anti-Semitism, moots war crimes, mocks veterans, shames women, and mines Breitbart for campaign direction, then you’re no different.
What difference does it make if you’re not a racist, but you want a racist to become president? Donald Trump was the test God placed before Mike Pence, and he failed. That’s so much worse than losing.
Haroon Moghul is a senior fellow and director of development at the Center for Global Policy. His next book, “How to be a Muslim,” will be out in 2017.
Buck Sexton: Tuesday night a sign of what’s to come Sunday?
The veep debate felt much like an extension of the presidential debate before it, as the two contenders on stage focused more on top-of-ticket targets than each other. Both Mike Pence and Tim Kaine hammered at the opposing side’s would-be president. Overall, substantive policy discussions took a rear seat to the back and forth of political attacks — and personal insults — directed at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This was a proxy battle, with each surrogate taking the biggest swings at the other team’s presidential nominee.
As for the head-to-head aspect of it, Pence won the debate against Kaine. In tone and style, he came across as more measured, poised and statesmanlike. Pence also made a much more coherent case against Hillary Clinton — both on her record and her judgment — than anything Trump pulled together in the first debate. Pence had much more difficulty defending Trump’s record, however, as he often was left shaking his head without a response when asked about a specific Trump quote.
Kaine was in full assault mode the whole time. His supporters probably enjoyed this, but stylistically he came across as rude, snippy and snide. He constantly interrupted Pence, engaged in so much crosstalk that it was difficult to know what anyone was saying, and repeated an endless string of talking points meant to undermine the Republican nominee while skipping over the moderator’s questions whenever Clinton’s weaknesses were at issue.
It’s unlikely the debate will sway many voters in any direction, but perhaps Kaine and Pence’s feisty exchange is a prelude to a much more fiery event coming up between Trump and Clinton this Sunday.
Buck Sexton is a political commentator for CNN and host of “The Buck Sexton Show” on TheBlaze. He was previously a CIA counterterrorism analyst. He has endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency.
Julian Zelizer: The start of Pence 2020?
Both campaigns will find something to be pleased about with the debate. If Clinton wanted an in-your-face attack dog, Tim Kaine answered the call. He took some tough shots at Donald Trump and everything that the Republican campaign has supported. He reiterated most of the key talking points from the campaign, right from the start of the night.
When Mike Pence brought up the Clinton Foundation, Kaine turned the conversation to what he sees as the much more egregious and less altruistic nature of the Trump Foundation.
Most importantly, Kaine forced Pence into the uncomfortable position of being challenged to defend Trump’s most outrageous, polemical and insulting comments about women, Mexicans and Muslims. Mostly Pence side-stepped the points Kaine made.
“I’m just saying facts about your candidate, and you can’t defend him,” Kaine said when Pence complained about their “insult-driven” campaign.
But Pence achieved his goal in this debate, which was simply to provide some positive coverage for the Republican ticket and offer an image of the ticket that differs from everything Trump has conveyed. Of course, the bar was low after Trump’s performance in the first debate. Throughout most of the back-and-forth, Pence appeared calmer and more deliberative than his opponent. If Kaine wanted to provoke him in the same way that Clinton did with Trump, he was not able to do so.
This time, it was the Democrat who kept interrupting and throwing out attack lines. Pence was able to express some of the major lines of Republican criticism against Clinton’s policy record, something that Trump has mostly failed to do. He brought in the attacks on whether voters can trust Clinton without letting the issue overwhelm his argument.
Pence scored some points by responding to the claims about Trump’s insults by pointing to Clinton’s line about half of Trump’s supporters being in the basket of “deplorables”.
Kaine’s aggressive demeanor, filled with endless interruptions and jabs, will not play well with some voters. Pence’s statements about religion and abortion are sure to comfort some Republicans who are uneasy with their nominee.
Republicans were absolutely desperate to halt the stream of negative news stories coming out about the Trump campaign that has dominated the past week and, in this respect, Pence achieved his goal.
The challenge for the Republicans though is that Trump is still at the top of the ticket, with all the negatives he has brought to the party. With Trump live tweeting insulting comments throughout the debate, the real question is whether this has any impact at all on the polls.
There is little evidence that Trump will show any signs of remorse about his style or about his policies. Trump is also in the middle of preparing for a town hall debate on Sunday that will give Clinton a huge opportunity to use her seasoned campaign skills a second time around.
In the end, it might be that Pence’s biggest accomplishment Tuesday night was to help him launch a possible presidential ticket of his own for 2020.
Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and a New America fellow. He is the author of “Jimmy Carter” and “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society.”