Vice Presidential candidates: Democrat Tim Walz (left) and Republican JD Vance.
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(CBS News) – Tonight’s vice presidential debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will feature live mics for the entire 90 minutes, CBS News announced Friday.
The hot mic rule is a departure from presidential debates between former President Donald Trump and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. In [those debates], hosts CNN and ABC News [decides that] the candidates’ mics would be muted unless it was their turn to speak.
CBS News [announced for tonight’s debate] that it “reserves the right” to mute microphones if producers deem fit.
The Walz-Vance [debate will take place] on Tuesday at 9 p.m. at the CBS’s studios in New York City with two four-minute commercial breaks. Campaign staff are not allowed to interact with the candidates during the breaks.
The debate will be moderated by “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
Other rules for the debate are in line with the two presidential showdowns, including no studio audience, candidates standing up rather than sitting at a table, and no notes allowed. They will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a water bottle.
Each candidate will have two minutes to speak in response to moderator questions and their rival will have two minutes to respond, followed by one minute each for rebuttals. And the moderators may at their discretion give candidates an additional minute each to continue a topic.
Lights in front of each candidate will indicate how much time they have left to speak. The candidates will also each have a countdown clock.
The moderators will be seated and will be the only ones in the room permitted to ask questions.
Vance won the coin toss and opted to give his closing remarks last. Candidates will be given 2 minutes each for closing statements.
Walz will be standing on the right side of the stage as TV viewers see it, similar to where Biden and Harris opted to be placed in previous debates.
There will be no opening statements. CBS has said that no topics or questions will be shared with the campaigns in advance.
Compiled from CBS News with Associated Press.
Questions
1. List the following information about tonight’s debate:
a) Time, station, location
b) Moderators
c) Length of the debate
d) Time each has to answer questions, for follow-ups, and for closing statements
e) Additional rules
f) Walz chose which side of the stage he wants to stand on during the debate. Why will Vance deliver the final statement?
2. The candidates will not be able to question each other directly during the debate. Do you think this is a good rule for political debates? Why or why not?
3. a) Mics will be live during the debate, with what exception made by CBS?
b) What do you think of this? (Should the candidates have agreed to it?) Explain your answer.
4. Traditionally the debate moderators release the topics that will potentially be discussed during the debate. As with the Trump-Harris debate, for this VP debate, CBS is not giving out topics/potential questions in advance. Do you agree with this practice? Explain your answer.
5. Presidential candidates always accept interviews – they are seen as a way to get their message out to voters – to be able to explain their policies and show voters who they are (it is free publicity). The media in general have gone out of their way to promote Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz – they are seen as friendly to the Democratic ticket. Why do you think Harris and Walz have done so few interviews (and only with “friendly” media) and no unscripted events? Ask a parent what they think regardless of how they will vote.
6. A recent analysis of ABC’s World News Tonight, hosted by debate moderator David Muir, found ABC Coverage of Kamala Harris 100% Positive and ABC coverage of Donald Trump 93% negative. MRC analysts presented this information after reviewing all 100 campaign stories that aired on ABC’s World News Tonight from the day Harris entered the race (July 21) through September 6, including weekends.
Consider the fact that during the ABC Trump-Harris debate, the moderators argued with several of Trump’s statements, saying they were not true, while allowing Harris to make statements know to be false. That debate was widely viewed as 3 against one (Harris and the two ABC moderators against Trump). Pay attention to the CBS moderators and whether their questions/interaction with the candidates are balanced and fair.
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, do you think the CBS moderators will be able to be fair to both candidates? Some say as they are known to be biased against Trump-Vance, they will do their best to appear balanced. Others say they will do whatever they can to help make Tim Walz look good. Nobody thinks CBS (or any major media outlets) will be biased against Harris-Walz and try to help Trump-Vance. What do you think?
7. Do you think Kamala Harris can win the election WITHOUT help from the media, Google, social media, the entertainment industry, et al? Explain your answer.
[NOTE: This is a realistic question, regardless of your politics. It is a fact that elected Democrats and the media did not think Harris was a good VP – or that she would be a good presidential candidate. The tone of reporting changed once Biden named her as his choice to replace him. Especially noteworthy is the fact that President and Mrs. Obama took several days to endorse Kamala Harris after Biden named her his replacement.]
8. If Walz or Vance does poorly in the debate – or if they both do great – do you think it will affect the outcome of the election? Explain your answer.
QUESTIONS FOR Tuesday night’s Vice Presidential DEBATE:
Read over all questions BEFORE watching the debate. While watching the debate, answer #1-8 below.
1. Which 3 issues do you think are the most important for the moderators to include in tonight’s debate questions:
- Inflation/the economy
- Energy: The Green New Deal vs. use of fossil fuels; fracking, etc. to create low energy costs and U.S. energy independence
- Border security/Border crisis/illegal immigration – and with it, crisis of human trafficking, illegal drugs/fentanyl flowing across southern border; gang members and other criminals and terrorists infiltrating the U.S.
- Reducing crime/violence especially in our cities with soft on crime DA’s – stores closing as a result of thefts not being prosecuted
- Climate change
- Abortion
- Gun control
- etc.
2. List a question/questions the moderators asked on any/all of the three topics you think are most important.
3. What do you think of each candidate’s answer(s)?
4. List questions the moderators asked on issues you do not consider important, or were not listed in question #1.
5. A debate moderator’s role is to act as a neutral participant, to hold participants to time limits and to try to keep them from straying off the topic of the questions being raised in the debate. Do you think the moderators fulfilled this role? Explain your answer.
6. a) Do you think the topics chosen by the debate moderators at CBS helped viewers understand the candidates’ positions on the issues? Explain your answer.
b) Do you think the questions asked by the moderators on each topic helped viewers understand the candidates’ positions on the issues? Explain your answer.
7. Do you think the moderator’s questions were fair to each candidate? Explain your answer.
8. a) What do you think was Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz’s best or worst line or answer? Explain your answer.
b) What do you think was Republican VP candidate JD Vance’s best or worst line or answer? Explain your answer.
Background
The Commission on Presidential Debates was established in 1987 as “non-partisan” and had run every presidential debate until 2024. The June 2024 debate between Trump and Biden was the first time presidential candidates bypassed the commission and made their own debate agreement.
Regarding microphones: In October of 2020, after the first debate that year in Cleveland between Trump and Biden included lots of interruptions, the commission decided to mute each candidate’s microphone during the other’s opening statement at the start of each 15-minute segment of the final debate.
In the June 2024 debate, under moderator CNN’s rules, the candidates’ microphones were muted every time they didn’t have the floor. [The Biden campaign did not want Trump to talk while Biden was speaking.] It was the first time ever the candidates’ mics were muted throughout the entire debate.
In another first (with the June 2024 Trump-Biden debate), CNN had two commercial breaks. Before 2024, presidential (and VP) debates ran uninterrupted.
The June 2024 Biden-Trump debate was also the first time a major presidential debate that had no studio audience. Even during the Covid pandemic debates, there were small groups in the room.
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