00:00:44.580Both candidates, I think, did an effective job.
00:00:47.400Tim Waltz was frankly better than I expected.
00:00:49.960But he had a very difficult case to make because his job was to defend Kamala Harris's record.
00:00:56.780And the reason that I think it was such a good night for Trump is I think J.D. did a good job of prosecuting Kamala Harris's actual record.
00:01:06.220She is desperately, desperately, desperately trying to run away from her record, trying to hide in the basement.
00:01:10.900And tonight the contrast was made between the incredible successes on the border, on the economy, on foreign policy under Donald Trump, as compared to the incredible failures on the border, on the economy, on foreign policy under Kamala Harris.
00:01:29.760I think Tim Waltz tried mightily to pretend the record didn't exist.
00:01:35.240But there were some rough moments because he couldn't deny reality.
00:01:40.920And it really goes to the fundamental core conceit of the Kamala Harris campaign, which is she is trying to live in this alternate reality where she is the change candidate.
00:01:53.560And Donald J. Trump is the incumbent president.
00:01:57.200And that is not, in fact, the planet on which we live.
00:02:01.280And I think J.D. did a good job multiple times of saying, gosh, if she has all these policy proposals, why isn't she doing any of them now?
00:02:08.840Yeah, for the last three and a half years.
00:02:10.580And Waltz has no answer to that other than, well, what's happening now isn't working.
00:02:16.160There was one funny part of the debate that I laughed in.
00:02:18.820And it was when he was talking about how none of the wall was actually built.
00:02:24.200And then it was like he realized, oh, wait, maybe I don't want to go that far with this point because she's got an ad out showing Donald Trump's wall.
00:02:31.160And he was like, he kind of backpedaled on it.
00:02:33.120He's like, well, you guys didn't build much of that wall.
00:02:36.240Didn't she just say, didn't who you're here to represent just say we got to have a secure border, build a wall?
00:02:41.780Well, and you could tell that Waltz was uncomfortable defending Kamala's record because he kept trying to go back to Minnesota over and over again and say, look at what I've done in Minnesota.
00:02:59.320And I thought in particular the strongest moments of the debate were on economics and the impact for working men and women that just people's lives are harder, that the cost of everything has gone up.
00:03:13.540The cost of food, the cost of health care, the cost of gasoline.
00:03:21.900I think J.D. Vance made a good point of, look, 11 and a half million illegal immigrants.
00:03:25.980Do you think that's driving up the cost of housing?
00:03:27.660And I will say two of the losers tonight were sitting in the moderator chairs, and they seem to be trying to topple prior moderators for the biggest partisan hacks of a debate.
00:03:41.820I thought CBS's moderators, Nora O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan, did a terrible job.
00:03:49.020There is not a person in the universe who watched this debate who has any doubt for who they're voting for.
00:04:44.060You made the Anchorman quip as we were watching the debate, and I was really waiting for one of them to lean over as Ron Burgundy and say, screw you, Santiago.
00:04:52.560And I'm cleaning the language up a little bit from the actual line of the movie.
00:05:29.040And I think CBS really got a black eye.
00:05:31.320I think that could hurt them, for real, when it comes to people watching.
00:05:34.980And it's really hard to defend that they were nonpartisan when they did that.
00:05:38.560Let me tell you about our friends over at Patriot Mobile real quick.
00:05:41.160Americans are tired and frustrated by a stalling economy and inflation and the endless wars and the relentless assault on our values.
00:05:48.320We talk about this on the show all the time.
00:05:50.520Well, thankfully, there are companies like Patriot Mobile that still believe in America and our Constitution.
00:05:56.240Now, Patriot Mobile does something that's amazing as a company.
00:05:59.260They actually give about 5% of your bill back every single month to organizations that support our First and our Second Amendments, the sanctity of life, and our military, our first responder heroes, and our wounded warriors.
00:06:12.880So I want you to take a stand with conservative causes and switch to a company that's fighting for your values.
00:06:38.240And then when you make a phone call, you know you're making a difference and setting up for what you believe in.
00:06:42.660You also may not know that Big Mobile, where you are now, they give massive donations to democratic causes, candidates, and organizations, including organizations that pay and support abortion.
00:06:53.520So go to patriotmobile.com slash verdict.
00:06:59.000Call them 972-PATRIOT and you're going to get a free month when you use the offer code VERDICT.
00:07:04.740That's patriotmobile.com slash verdict or 972-PATRIOT right now to get a free month when you use the offer code VERDICT.
00:07:13.740Senator, I want to go back to the beginning of the debate.
00:07:16.740And the first question coming into the debate was one I think we all knew was going to be on Israel and the attack on Israel from Iran.
00:07:25.340And Waltz was very, very, very nervous.
00:07:28.200You could tell, but he also didn't know what to do because there's a hard part of the Democratic Party, especially him in Minnesota, with the extremists there that hate Israel.
00:07:39.740And they're the ones that are protesting and supporting the terrorists.
00:07:43.420And when he came out, he had a little bit of an oops.
00:07:57.640I was like, come on, man, you got to do a little bit better than this.
00:08:00.360But it tells you where the Democratic Party is right now.
00:08:02.920They don't want to come out and defend Israel too much, but they know they have to defend him on the face tonight.
00:08:08.140And it was this weird, awkward moment for him.
00:08:11.760Well, and look, he had a talking point that was written for him, for his handlers, by his handlers, that was to say Israel has a right to defend itself and the hostages should be returned.
00:08:24.300And so those are the two sentences he was told to say.
00:08:27.440And then he immediately said, but we have to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza because that's really what the Democrat Party is worried about is that too many Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists are being killed.
00:10:45.420And anything that Trump did, they were not allowed to make reference to.
00:10:48.840But explicitly, the State Department was instructed, don't use the words Abraham Accords.
00:10:53.140So we went from historic peace, the first peace agreements signed between Israelis and Arabs in four decades,
00:11:01.480to suddenly Joe Biden and Kamala Harris come in and they start flooding cash into Iran and Iran starts flooding cash into Hamas and Hezbollah that paid for the death squads on October 7th.
00:11:16.020And Tim Waltz had not a word to say about that, not a word to say about the hundred billion dollars that Kamala Harris gave as a gift to Iran.
00:11:25.240And you know what, is still giving today, today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris still refuse to enforce the oil sanctions against Iran.
00:11:34.820They are literally funding the missiles that were fired on Iran today in a very real sense.
00:11:40.420Kamala Harris paid for those missiles.
00:11:42.380It's shocking also the media when you're watching this.
00:13:24.000And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:13:33.500So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:13:36.480Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:13:40.920The question I wish they would have asked them is both them like, hey, guys, are you would you right now?
00:13:48.500Should there be more sanctions or should they be enforcing the sanctions or even the question?
00:13:53.940Hey, why is your running mate Kamala Harris not doing more to enforce the sanctions?
00:13:58.340Or to stop Iran from murdering Donald Trump?
00:14:01.280And that didn't come up tonight, which I was also shocked by because we talked about this again in Monday's pod.
00:14:06.740You have you have Iran that's funding and recruiting assassins to take out Donald Trump and other former leaders in our government.
00:14:16.600And as they're doing that, no one asked that question tonight.
00:14:19.980Yeah, look, it now I will say a point that Janie made on this that was very effective is when he looked at the camera and he asked the American people, he said, think back in your lifetime.
00:14:31.420What president has not had a major military conflict during his presidency?
00:14:38.200And he said, I'm 40 years old and there's only one president that you could answer yes to.
00:14:45.620Yeah, that was a very effective point.
00:14:47.800And I think it probably made it made some people think.
00:14:50.140And Waltz had no response to that other than, well, well, but, you know, I don't like Trump and other people don't like Trump either.
00:14:56.660But but the simple point that we had peace when Trump was president and we now have war, not just in Israel, but in Ukraine, when you have a weakened and effective commander in chief, that contrast was was pretty stark.
00:15:11.140I also thought there was another narrative tonight that really got blown up, and that was the obsession by the media to label J.D. Vance is strange or weird.
00:16:08.120And both of them, neither of them had even a single really nasty line, which is a little surprising.
00:16:16.800If you'd asked me to bet beforehand, I would have bet it's more likely that they each had a dozen nasty lines at each other than zero.
00:16:25.600And in fact, both of them more than once praised the other one, which was an interesting, I don't know if that, how much of that was genuine, how much of that was strategic, how much of the campaign said, look, your job is to be likable and relatable.
00:16:45.200And if it was, it was a great strategy.
00:16:46.980Yeah, and both did so multiple times, said, said, you know, look, when when Tim Waltz described how his son had witnessed a shooting and which which I didn't know either.
00:17:52.140If you think back to VP debates about the only time I'm willing to guess you can only remember one moment, two moments from VP debates, you probably remember the fly landing on Mike Pence's head.
00:18:07.420And that will be seared into my brain forever.
00:18:13.920But the only line I bet you you can quote, and you're about as much of a political junkie as anyone is, the only line I bet you you can quote is Lloyd Benson to Dan Quayle saying, I knew Jack Kennedy.
00:19:10.540Well, and, and, and the reason it was prepared is because Quayle had been using as a talking point, you know, I'm the same age Jack Kennedy was.
00:19:50.300And in fact, one of the better moments, and I want you to play this clip is, is where JD said, said to Tim Waltz said, you've got a really tough job.
00:19:58.920I feel bad for how tough a job you have.
00:20:01.040And it was sort of, it was damning him with faint praise because it was a backhanded shot at Kamala.
00:20:22.120You pick your calibers, you set your budget, and you select a shipping trigger, and that's it.
00:20:27.440Now, during COVID, you remember, you couldn't find ammo.
00:20:29.700And when you could find it, it was 3, 4, 5, 6x more than it usually is.
00:20:34.360Well, you don't ever have to worry about having an ammo shortage when you are buying with Ammo Squared because your ammo grows slowly over time.
00:21:11.740You can trade it in for a different caliber.
00:21:15.100It's budget-friendly and customizable.
00:21:17.280You can buy as little as a few dollars a month and use dollar-cost averaging to your advantage.
00:21:23.400Everything is managed online using a custom web app.
00:21:27.640So forget about moving heavy case of ammunition in your garage or trying to sell ammo online.
00:21:32.620You can exchange your Ammo Squared inventory from one caliber to another or sell it back if prices go through the roof, and you can make a big profit.
00:21:57.800That's AmmoSquared.com slash Ben, and get free ammo in your account today.
00:22:02.320All right, take a listen to this clip.
00:22:04.080It is actually a really funny one, where you have J.D. saying it's tough having your job having to defend Kamala Harris.
00:22:13.040Governor Walz just did, as he said, first of all, Donald Trump has to listen to the experts.
00:22:17.400And then when he acknowledged that the experts screwed up, he said, well, Donald Trump didn't do nearly as good of a job as the statistics show that he did.
00:22:23.520So what Tim Walz is doing, and I honestly, Tim, I think you've got a tough job here, because you've got to play whack-a-mole.
00:22:29.780You've got to pretend that Donald Trump didn't deliver rising take-home pay, which, of course, he did.
00:22:34.400You've got to pretend that Donald Trump didn't deliver lower inflation, which, of course, he did.
00:22:38.880And then you've simultaneously got to defend Kamala Harris's atrocious economic record, which has made gas, groceries, and housing unaffordable for American citizens.
00:22:47.940I was raised by a woman who would sometimes go into medical debt so that she could put food on the table in our household.
00:22:55.340I know what it's like to not be able to afford the things that you need to afford.
00:23:55.620I also – I would have lost a bet if you had given me the odds on whether the word cat would be said in the debate.
00:24:01.420I would have bet yes, and I would have lost that bet.
00:24:03.520So that – the moderators did not say that, nor did Tim Waltz.
00:24:08.120But J.D. rightly said, look, this massive influx of illegal aliens is putting an enormous burden on the residents of Springfield and every other city in Ohio and every other city in the country.
00:24:17.400And the moderators chimed in to correct him.
00:24:27.180So, look, we have a legal immigration system.
00:24:31.160And what has happened is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have abused our immigration law.
00:24:35.380So, the 300,000-plus Haitians and Nicaraguans and Cubans and Venezuelans they've flown in, they've flown in under programs where they say, well, these guys are all now legal just because we've decided to open the doors and call everyone we let in legal.
00:24:49.580That is not legal in any ordinary sense.
00:24:52.820And in particular, J.D. rightly talks about the app CBP1, which we've talked about on this podcast before, an app for illegal immigrants to apply online for Kamala Harris to let them in our open border.
00:25:05.000And they did not like him saying this because it was fact-checking them.
00:25:13.080And then they cut off his mic right when Tim Waltz was saying, well, well, you know, this has been around for years.
00:25:20.000CBP1 was just created by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
00:25:22.680Here, play the clip when they cut off his mic because it really is revealing of the enormous bias and the factual just mendacity of the CBS moderators.
00:25:36.740Margaret, I think it's important because the rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check.
00:25:42.640And since you're fact-checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on.
00:25:46.500So there's an application called the CBP1 app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.
00:26:01.000That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years.
00:26:05.260That is the facilitation of a legal immigration, Margaret, by our own leadership.
00:26:09.020Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process.
00:37:46.000Yeah, look, I think J.D. came across as real and relatable.
00:37:50.660He did a good job of telling his own family story and his own background.
00:37:55.920I mean, his, you know, he wrote a bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy.
00:37:59.760It was made into a movie, a very good movie, a movie that's terrific to watch.
00:38:04.940But yet a lot of people don't know that story.
00:38:08.220He's been a caricature just like Trump has.
00:38:12.340And I think tonight made real progress, making him seem like a real person, seem like a husband and a father.
00:38:19.960And, you know, someone who has journeyed from very humble beginnings to right now being the nominee to be vice president of the United States.