Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance are set to appear in their first and only televised debate in the 2024 election campaign.
Walz is the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee and sitting Vice-President Kamala Harris; Vance is the Republican candidate for vice-president, running with former president Donald Trump.
The debate is set to begin at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Tuesday. You can watch the live stream right here on CBCNews.ca, CBC News Network and Gem.
CBC News coverage starts at 7 p.m. ET on CBC News Network and CBC Gem, with a pre-debate show on Canada Tonight with Travis Dhanraj, followed by chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault at 8:30 p.m. ET.
After the debate, join The National for analysis on CBCNews.ca, the CBC News App, CBC Television, CBC News Network and YouTube.
CBS News will host the 90-minute debate from its New York City broadcast centre, with CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan serving as moderators.
Fun fact: the debate will take place in the same studio that was once home to the long-running children’s program Captain Kangaroo and the talk show Geraldo.
There will be no live audience in the studio when the candidates meet, as was the case in the presidential debates in this election cycle, but their microphones will not be automatically muted while one of them is responding.
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That’s a change from the Harris-Trump debate and the June 27 debate between Trump and current President Joe Biden, who bowed out of the race in July.
CBS News said in a press release that moderators will reserve the right to turn off a candidate’s mic.
Unlike last month’s ABC News presidential debate between Harris and Trump, the moderators will not be fact-checking either candidate and will instead put the onus on Vance and Walz to challenge one another’s statements.
CBS News said on Friday the moderators “will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal periods.
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During ABC’s presidential debate, network moderators pointed out inaccurate statements by Trump on four occasions — including an unfounded claim about Haitian migrants were eating people’s pets. Vance has also shared that claim.
Trump and his supporters accused ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis of treating him unfairly because there did not interject with corrections for any of Harris’s statements.
CBS News held a virtual coin toss on Sept. 26 to determine the order in which the candidates will give their closing remarks. Vance won and opted to speak second, giving him the last word in the debate.
While this will be an opportunity for U.S. voters to get a better understanding of Walz’s and Vance’s positions on a range of issues, vice-presidential debates are not as widely watched as the presidential match-ups.
The 2020 face-off between Harris and former vice-president Mike Pence drew the second-highest viewership for a vice-presidential debate, according to the television and streaming ratings monitor Nielsen.
The most-watched vice-presidential debate in history happened in 2008 when Biden, who was then Barack Obama’s Democratic running mate, debated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential pick of Republican Sen. John McCain in his unsuccessful presidential bid.
It’s unclear if there will be another presidential debate before voters head to the polls on Nov. 5.
Harris’s campaign said she agreed to an Oct. 23 match-up on CNN.
But Trump rejected the possibility of another debate with her before election day, arguing that “it’s just too late” and that advance voting has already started.