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    Vance’s Dominant Debate Performance Shows Why He’s Trump’s Running Mate

    The first half of the vice-presidential debate has been the strongest illustration in this campaign so far of why it made sense for Donald Trump to pick JD Vance as his running mate. The Ohio senator is delivering one of the best debating performances by a Republican nominee for president or vice president in recent memory and making a case for Trump’s record far more effectively than Trump has ever been capable of doing.Vance’s performance has included a dose of self-conscious humanization, an attempted reintroduction to his blue-collar background and striking personal biography after weeks of effective Democratic attacks on his right-wing podcast commentary. It’s included some careful rhetorical tap dancing and policy jujitsu on issues like climate change and abortion. But mostly it’s just been an effective prosecution of the case against the Biden-Harris administration, focusing relentlessly on encouraging viewers to be nostalgic for the economy, the immigration landscape and the relative foreign-policy calm of Trump’s term.Tim Walz, on the other hand, seems affable, well meaning and, relative to Vance, largely out of his depth. He’s spending too much time partly agreeing with his rival while making a much more haphazard case against Trump than Vance is making against Kamala Harris.I think one question raised by this performance so far is why the Harris campaign has basically kept Walz away from one-on-one interviews while Vance has been out there dealing with hostile questions from Day 1 of his candidacy. It feels as though the Minnesota governor would have benefited immensely from spending some more time being grilled on the Sunday shows before he was sent out to do battle with a Republican vice-presidential nominee, who, whatever his other weaknesses, clearly knows how to debate. More

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    What to Know About JD Vance and Project 2025

    Democrats have hammered former President Donald J. Trump and Senator JD Vance of Ohio, his running mate, over Project 2025, a conservative policy plan that pledges a radical transformation of the federal government.At the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday, Mr. Vance will spar with Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. Mr. Walz has repeatedly sought to tie Mr. Vance to the project, while Mr. Vance has tried to distance himself from it.“If you’re going to take the time to draw up a playbook, you’re damn sure going to use it,” said Mr. Walz in August about the Trump campaign’s attempts to downplay Project 2025. While he and Ms. Harris frequently pin the project on Mr. Trump, the former president did not author it and, after Democratic attacks, disavowed it.The document, totaling about 900 pages, details extreme executive-branch overhauls, such as plans for disbanding several federal departments including the Education Department, rejecting the concept of abortion as health care, undoing environmental regulations and criminalizing pornography. It also proposes ending protections for many civil-service roles so they may be filled with appointees loyal to the president — a notion backed by both Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance.House Democrats attended a hearing about Project 2025 last week. Democrats have attacked the Republican ticket over the project. Will Oliver/EPA, via ShutterstockProject 2025 was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and created as a blueprint for the next Republican president, though Mr. Trump has his own platform called Agenda 47. But many of his allies and former officials from his administration helped author Project 2025, and there is considerable overlap between its proposals and Mr. Trump’s plans for a second term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    We Watched Vance’s Old Debates. Here’s What We Learned.

    Senator JD Vance assumed his first public office just last year. But to win that job, he had to survive about a dozen debates, sharpening his chops when facing opponents onstage.Some politicians enjoy mixing it up with crowds on the campaign trail, while others revel in fund-raising.JD Vance loves debates.Mr. Vance, the first-term Republican senator from Ohio, will get his moment on the most prominent stage of his fledgling political career on Tuesday, when he represents Donald J. Trump’s presidential ticket in a matchup against his Democratic rival, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.It’s a moment he has been anticipating for months.Mr. Vance spoke eagerly about the vice-presidential debate shortly after being named to Mr. Trump’s ticket in July. When President Biden dropped out of the race, Mr. Vance reacted with disappointment — because now he would no longer debate Vice President Kamala Harris.“Talk about take-backs,” Mr. Vance said at his first solo campaign event. “I was told I was going to get to debate Kamala Harris, and now President Trump’s going to get to debate her. I’m kind of pissed off about that if I’m being honest with you.”For his face-off with Mr. Walz, Mr. Vance has been busy with debate prep, including semiregular “murder board” sessions in which his top advisers pummel him with pointed questions and heated attacks.But his biggest advantage may be his recent experience. While Mr. Vance, 40, assumed his first public office just last year, to win that job he had to survive a gantlet of about a dozen primary and general-election debates.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    We Watched Tim Walz’s Old Debates. Here’s What We Learned.

    He may not be a lofty orator, but he has shown an ability to deliver punchy critiques with Everyman appeal.Before he was known to the nation as an affable Midwestern dad and a vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz was a fast-talking political long shot in an ill-fitting suit, spoiling, in his Minnesotan way, for a debate-stage fight.As he stood next to his opponent — a crisply dressed six-term Republican congressman — Mr. Walz, a teacher by training, offered viewers a stark contrast at that 2006 debate, hosted by KSMQ-TV. Mr. Walz cast their choice as one between a political insider focused on “moving up in elected office” and the alternative he said he represented: “I live in the world that most of you live in.”Mr. Walz sparred with Gil Gutknecht, then the Republican incumbent, in a 2006 congressional debate.KSMQ-TV, via C-SPANNearly two decades later, Mr. Walz is the one who has moved up in elected office, rising from congressman to governor and now, Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. He is set to face Senator JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, in a high-profile debate on Tuesday.Mr. Walz and his allies have tried to set expectations high for Mr. Vance, emphasizing his Yale Law School credentials. And Mr. Vance is a practiced verbal pugilist who seems to delight in combative exchanges on cable news and Sunday morning shows.But a review of a half-dozen recorded debates over Mr. Walz’s career makes clear that while the camo-wearing, car-tinkering man from Mankato may not be his party’s most stirring speaker, he is in fact a seasoned debater himself.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Twists Harris’s Position on Fentanyl After She Called for a Border Crackdown

    When Vice President Kamala Harris visited the southern border on Friday, she called fentanyl a “scourge on our country” and said that as president she would “make it a top priority to disrupt the flow of fentanyl coming into the United States.”Ms. Harris pledged to give more resources to law enforcement officials on the front lines, including additional personnel and machines that can detect fentanyl in vehicles. And she said she would take aim at the “global fentanyl supply chain,” vowing to “double the resources for the Department of Justice to extradite and prosecute transnational criminal organizations and the cartels.”But that was not how her opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, characterized her position on Sunday at a rally in Erie, Pa., where he made a false accusation against Ms. Harris that seemed intended to play on the fears and traumas of voters in communities that have been ravaged by fentanyl.“She even wants to legalize fentanyl,” Mr. Trump said during a speech that stretched for 109 minutes. It was the second straight day that Mr. Trump had amplified the same false claim about Ms. Harris; he did so on Saturday in Wisconsin.The former president did not offer context for his remarks, but his campaign pointed to an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire that Ms. Harris had filled out in 2019 during her unsuccessful candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.A question asking if Ms. Harris supported the decriminalization at the federal level of all drug possession for personal use appeared to be checked “yes.” Ms. Harris wrote that it was “long past time that we changed our outdated and discriminatory criminalization of marijuana” and said that she favored treating drug addiction as a public health issue, focusing on rehabilitation instead of incarceration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris y Trump están empatados en Míchigan y Wisconsin, según las encuestas

    La contienda se ha estrechado en dos de los estados disputados del norte, según las encuestas de The New York Times/Siena College.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y el expresidente Donald Trump están en una contienda aún más apretada en los estados en disputa de Míchigan y Wisconsin que hace solo siete semanas, según las nuevas encuestas de The New York Times y Siena College.La ventaja de Harris de principios de agosto se ha visto ligeramente reducida por la fortaleza de Trump en cuestiones económicas, según las encuestas, un hecho potencialmente preocupante para la vicepresidenta, dado que la economía sigue siendo el tema más importante para los votantes.A menos de 40 días de las elecciones, la contienda está esencialmente empatada en Míchigan, con Harris recibiendo el 48 por ciento de apoyo entre los votantes probables y Trump obteniendo el 47 por ciento, bien dentro del margen de error de la encuesta. En Wisconsin, un estado donde las encuestas suelen exagerar el apoyo a los demócratas, Harris tiene un 49 por ciento, frente al 47 por ciento de Trump.Los sondeos también revelan que Harris aventaja en nueve puntos porcentuales a Trump en el segundo distrito electoral de Nebraska, cuyo único voto electoral podría ser decisivo en el Colegio Electoral. En un escenario posible, el distrito podría dar a Harris exactamente los 270 votos electorales que necesitaría para ganar las elecciones si ganara Míchigan, Wisconsin y Pensilvania, y Trump capturara los estados en disputa del Cinturón del Sol, donde las encuestas de Times/Siena muestran que está por delante.El Times y el Siena College también analizaron la contienda presidencial en Ohio, que no se considera un estado en disputa para obtener la Casa Blanca, pero tiene una de las contiendas senatoriales más competitivas del país. Trump lidera por seis puntos en Ohio, mientras que el senador demócrata Sherrod Brown aventaja a su oponente republicano, Bernie Moreno, por cuatro puntos.How the polls compare More

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    Vance Criticizes Ukraine’s President a Day After His Meeting With Trump

    A day after former President Donald J. Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, criticized the Ukrainian president Saturday during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.Speaking in Newtown, Pa., near Philadelphia, Mr. Vance opened his speech by criticizing Mr. Zelensky for having toured an ammunition factory in Scranton with the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat.“He came to campaign with the Democratic leadership of this country,” Mr. Vance said in Newtown. “We spent $200 billion on Ukraine. You know what I wish Zelensky would do when he comes to the United States of America? Say thank you to the people of Pennsylvania and everybody else.”In fact, Mr. Zelensky did use his visit to the plant to thank the United States for its support, as well as to thank the workers in Scranton for manufacturing artillery shells to support Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky told the 400 workers churning out shells to support the war effort that they “have saved millions of Ukrainians.” He added in a message on social media that “it is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail.”The visit to the munitions factory had scandalized Republican lawmakers, who accused the trip’s organizers of engaging in partisan campaigning ahead of the election. Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, called for Ukraine to fire its ambassador to Washington over the episode.Mr. Vance has been a vocal opponent of American aid to Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky called Mr. Vance “too radical,” in a recent interview in The New Yorker for making remarks he saw as suggesting that Ukraine give up territory in exchange for a peace deal with Russia. That prompted Mr. Vance to hit back from the campaign trail in Michigan on Wednesday, saying, “I don’t appreciate Zelensky coming to this country and telling the American taxpayer what they ought to do.” More

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    How JD Vance Turns Taking Questions Into the Show

    He uses showdowns with reporters to cast himself as a pugnacious, unscripted defender of Donald J. Trump.“We’re a little behind on time, so I won’t take as many questions as I normally do,” the senator from Ohio said, before casually inviting local reporters to ask him whatever they’d like. “If you’ve got a microphone, just shout a question and I’ll answer it.”Usually, when candidates on the campaign trail take questions from the press, they do so before or after their events, far from the crowd. Vance holds gaggles like that, but he has also developed an unusual routine that has swiftly become a trademark of his campaign events: He has taken to parrying reporters’ questions in front of his voters — turning journalists into set pieces in a performance where he casts himself as former President Donald Trump’s pugnacious, unscripted defender while his raucous supporters tilt the playing field in his favor.That night, as Nick Ochsner, a reporter with the local broadcaster WBTV, began to speak — “I want to ask you about Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson,” he said, referring to the state’s embattled Republican candidate for governor — the crowd began to boo, drowning out Ochsner, who implored Vance’s supporters to let him finish. With a theatrical cough, Vance turned to the people behind him, well aware that they would share his exasperation.“I knew I’d get this,” Vance said, throwing one hand up with the air of a parent allowing a troublesome child to have his say, instead of a candidate for vice president answering a reasonable question.Ochsner pressed on, pointing out that Robinson, a Trump-endorsed candidate who campaigned alongside both Trump and Vance in happier times, wasn’t by Vance’s side after CNN reported that Robinson made lewd and racist comments on a pornography website.“Is there something disqualifying about the comments uncovered by CNN that wasn’t disqualifying about any of the previous comments he made?” Ochsner asked, as the crowd jeered some more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More