Washington — Gov. Tim Walz agreed Wednesday to participate in a CBS News vice presidential debate on Oct. 1 in New York.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has yet to agree to the date, leaving Republican Sen. J.D. Vance’s participation in the event in doubt.
Earlier in the day, CBS News had proposed four dates for a debate between the two vice presidential candidates: September 17, September 24, October 1 and October 8. The Harris-Walz campaign quickly agreed to the October 1 date.
“See you on October 1st, JD,” Walz said. written on XA campaign official said Walz “looks forward to debating J.D. Vance — if he runs.”
Vance did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether he would debate Walz when he returned from an event in Michigan on Wednesday. Later, in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Vance said he was open to a debate with Walz on Oct. 1 but had not firmly committed to the date.
“We’re definitely going to debate Tim Walz. We only heard about this case three hours ago, so we’re going to talk to them and figure out when we can debate,” Vance said. “We definitely want to watch the debates, watch the moderators, talk a little bit about the rules.”
Vance went on to say, “I strongly suspect we’ll be there on October 1st, but we’re not going to have one of those fake debates, Laura, where they don’t really have an audience, where they don’t really set the parameters in the right way, where we can have a good exchange of ideas.”
Vance also said he wanted to debate Walz more than once.
“I hope we see it on October 1st, but I also hope we see it before or after, because I think it’s important for the American people to see us actually discuss our views,” he told Ingraham.
The Vice Presidential Debate
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The date of the vice presidential debate has been up in the air since the spring, when CBS News first extended the invitation to both presidential campaigns. In May, President Biden’s campaign said that Vice President Kamala Harris, who was still his running mate at the time, was set to face the Republican vice presidential nominee on July 23 or Aug. 13.
Asset chosen Vance Harris was chosen as his running mate on July 15, the first day of the Republican National Convention. His campaign quickly declined to commit to holding a vice presidential debate before the August 19 Democratic National Convention, saying it would be premature since Harris could end up being the Democratic nominee.
Mr. Biden abandoned the race On July 21, weeks after her own poor debate performance with Trump, Harris quickly gathered support to replace him as the Democratic leader and officially clinched the nomination last week. She named Walz as her running mate, finalizing the vice presidential picks for both campaigns and launching a sprint toward the November election.
Last week, Trump said CBS News will host the vice presidential debate, and Vance said he has “really stepped up to the plate” and is “doing a fantastic job.” He added that he is willing to participate in three debates with Harris in September, hosted by Fox News, ABC News and NBC News. Harris’ campaign had previously committed to just one debate, the Sept. 10 one on ABC.
This year marks the first time since 1988 that the debates are not being hosted by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. In 2022, the Republican National Committee voted to ban GOP nominations to participate in debates organized by the commission, accusing the organizers of bias in the two 2020 meetings between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.
The networks were given the freedom to negotiate the dates and terms of the debates directly with the presidential campaigns. CNN hosted the first debate of the cycle between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump in June, a much earlier start than in previous election years. CNN allowed other networks to air the debate on their airwaves, in keeping with the practice for debates hosted by the commission.
