VANCE CRUSHES WALZ, DEBATE WAS OVER IN FIRST MINUTE. New York — “I guess we now know the story about Walz being nervous and a bad debater wasn’t an expectation-lowering exercise — it was a leak,” said one top Republican leaving the just-concluded vice presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) late Tuesday night. Indeed, when the debate began at 9 p.m., it was clear from its first moments that Walz was just what the stories had said — nervous and a bad debater. It was also clear that Vance was going to win the debate decisively.

Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of the Trump campaign, said he could tell what was happening almost immediately. When I asked what the key moment of the debate was, LaCivita quickly answered, “The first 20 seconds.” Why was that? “Because the first question out of the gate is dealing with leadership on the world stage, everything going on in the Middle East, and Tim Walz comes up onstage and he’s completely rattled. He does not project the image of the type of leadership that you want in the White House. So right then and there framed the whole thing.”