Walz, Vance prepare for debate as hurricane politics swirls around presidential campaign • Florida Phoenix

WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will face off in a vice presidential debate Tuesday night, the last scheduled face-to-face exchanges between the campaigns as polls continue to show a tight race in just over five weeks show from the November election.

The debate, moderated by CBS News, is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and last 90 minutes. The event will be broadcast live on local CBS affiliate stations and streamed on the CBS News app, CBSNews.com, YouTube and Paramount+.

The duel between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris brings together two men who both have congressional records and formerly served in the U.S. armed forces.

The debate comes as the southeastern United States reels from the effects of Hurricane Helene, which swept inland as a tropical storm, bringing record-breaking flooding and killing more than 100 people – a third of them in North Carolina, a swing state in the presidential race 2024 election.

Republican National Committee and Trump campaign officials said Monday that Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, plans to attack Walz on multiple fronts during the debate, including linking Walz to the Biden administration.

“No amount of niceness from Minnesota will make up for the fact that Walz embodies the same catastrophic economic situation, the same openness of borders and the same softness toward crime [record] “Harris has done damage to our country over the last four years,” said Minnesota GOP congressman Tom Emmer, who stepped in as Walz during Vance’s preparation for the debate.

“JD Vance is ready to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him for the radical liberal that he is,” Emmer told reporters in a phone call Monday morning.

But Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, warned: “Walz is very good at debates.” I want to reiterate that Tim Walz is very good at debates, really good. He has been a politician for almost 20 years.”

Trump announced on his Truth Social platform on Monday that he would follow the debate “personally, piece by piece.”

The Harris campaign has not revealed details about Walz’s preparation for the debate. CNN reported that Walz was nervous and had been practicing with Transportation Department Secretary Pete Buttigieg to replace Vance.

Walz spent Saturday in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan Wolverines vs. University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football game, where he was greeted by local elected officials and encouraged students about the importance of youth voting, according to the campaign.

Military service, China

Trump campaign officials said debate watchers are guaranteed to see Vance attack Walz over his military service.

Vance touts his own four years in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007, during which he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a military journalist.

The Trump campaign claims Walz retired to avoid deployment to Iraq. Trump campaign officials featured two veterans on Monday’s call who criticized Walz as a “renegade.”

“He left his post and his unit after 24 years of military service,” said Tom Behrends, a retired Minnesota National Guard command sergeant major.

Walz, a former six-term congressman who represented the state’s 1st Congressional District, served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before running for office. He deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, a non-combat post, between 2003 and 2004.

A fact check by PolitiFact found that he filed his candidacy papers in February 2005, a month before the Walz Battalion was notified of a possible deployment within two years. According to the fact check, Walz submitted retirement paperwork five to seven months before the deployment notice.

According to the National Guard, Walz introduced a U.S. House resolution in 2007 to honor Minnesota military members for their service in Iraq.

According to his congressional biography published in 2017, Walz holds the distinction of being the highest-ranking soldier to ever serve in Congress.

Walz suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus after specializing in heavy artillery for two decades, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records he shared with reporters during his 2018 run for governor.

In a 2013 benefits application, he wrote that explosions “would knock us out and I had ringing in my ears after the shooting,” according to records reviewed by Minnesota Public Radio. Eventually, Walz underwent surgery to improve his hearing loss.

Retired sergeant. 1st Class Tom Schilling, who joined the RNC call Monday, attacked Walz’s trips to China and how the governor handled “the George Floyd thing,” referencing protests that followed Minneapolis the police killing of Floyd, a black man.

“He had 30 trips to China that really went unanswered. As governor, he let Minneapolis burn,” said Schilling, who served in the Minnesota National Guard.

Walz said he was proud of the way local, state and federal officials handled the protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul. About three days after the protests began, Walz ordered the full mobilization of the National Guard. However, both Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Republican officials in the state criticized parts of Walz’s response, according to a review by The Associated Press.

Walz taught for a year in the southern Chinese city of Foshan. Then, as a public school teacher in Minnesota, he took his students on annual trips to China. In the past, he said he had visited China 30 times. When pressed by APM Reports to document the trips, the Harris campaign said his visits totaled “more like 15.”

Trump visits Helene’s destruction in Georgia

Trump gave a speech Monday outside a damaged furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia, wearing his signature red “Make America Great Again” hat.

“We are here today to stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia, with all who have suffered the terrible consequences of Hurricane Helene,” Trump said alongside American evangelist Franklin Graham, who coordinated the delivery of aid .

Trump said the presidential campaigns should take a back seat to responding to the storm. “We’re not talking about politics now, we all need to come together and solve the problem.”

Moments later, he falsely stated that President Joe Biden had not answered calls from Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Biden spoke to Kemp by telephone on Sunday.

Journalists traveling with Harris in Las Vegas, Nevada, reported in the early hours of Monday that the vice president was canceling her campaign events to return to Washington. DC to be informed of the response to Helene.

Harris issued a statement Saturday saying, “Her hearts go out to everyone affected by the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.”

“Doug and I are thinking of those who tragically lost their lives, and we keep everyone they loved in our prayers in the difficult days ahead. President Biden and I remain committed to ensuring that no community or state must respond to this disaster alone,” she continued.

At his campaign rally on Sunday in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump criticized Harris for being in San Francisco “at fundraising events with her crazy radical left donors while much of our country has been devastated by this massive hurricane and is flooded with many, many . “People are dead.”

Biden delivered a speech from the White House early Monday, pledging government support to affected areas. Biden has already issued emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. He said he would visit areas devastated by the storm as soon as his motorcade did not impede relief efforts.

Republicans for Harris

The Harris campaign continues to tout growing Republican support.

Former conservative Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona announced his support for Harris over the weekend.

“I served with Kamala in the U.S. Senate. I also served with Tim in the House of Representatives. I know her. I know firsthand of her good character and love of country,” Flake wrote on X Sunday.

Anti-Trump Republican voters announced a new multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in swing states on Sunday.

The group launched a $5.8 million advertising campaign in the Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh media markets in Pennsylvania. According to a press release, the advertising launch is part of a $15 million campaign that will also reach Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Many swing voters will be making a decision in the coming weeks, and it’s important that we let them know what’s at stake,” Sarah Longwell, executive director of the political action committee, said in a statement.

“You can reject him without giving up your deeply held conservative values. “We are here to help create a permission structure for right-wing swing voters so they can do the right thing and vote according to their conscience,” the statement continued.

Continue with the election campaign

Trump is scheduled to return Saturday to Butler, Pennsylvania – the site of the first attempt on his life in which he suffered a non-life-threatening ear injury and a bystander was killed by gunfire while two others were seriously injured.

Trump plans to hold a town hall meeting on Thursday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, far east of the devastation caused by Helene.