On Wednesday, several NBC hosts complained about Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) coming across as “likable” during Tuesday night’s debate — with one host revealing that she received “panicked” texts from Democrats about Vance winning the debate.
During an appearance on the “Today” show, “Meet The Press” host Kristen Welker revealed that she had received several text messages from Democrats who were shocked by Vance’s performance against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) on Tuesday night. After months of the Democrats desperately trying to smear Vance as “weird” and a “threat to democracy” — but all of those efforts were erased thanks to Vance’s stellar performance in the debate.
“Vance knew his challenge was to deal with the likability factor,” Welker said. “The fact that in our poll, he’s the second-most disliked running mate in history. And so I was getting texts from Democrats — panicked, quite frankly — who were saying, ‘Wow, he’s really moderating himself on a lot of these issues. He’s the most likable he’s ever been.’”
She went on to highlight one of the only potential attack vectors for Democrats that came out of the debate: Vance’s comment that he wanted to focus on the future rather than dwell on the 2020 election. This allows Democrats to continue screeching “January 6,” with Welker stating that the comments could be used as a “flash point” by turning it into a political ad.
“They believe that is going to be a way to really try to appeal to that very small sliver that is still undecided, but moderate, independent suburban voters,” she said.
NBC “Today” show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie chimed in to try to defend Walz’s poor performance, claiming that it “wasn’t a disaster, but it certainly wasn’t a tour-de-force.”
NBC News senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson also joined the conversation, stating that she believes the reason that Democrats “are frustrated” is because “he wasn’t a little bit more the Tim Walz that Kamala Harris picked to be vice presidential nominee because he is great on television in the eyes of the campaign” — which made little sense considering Walz has followed Harris’ lead in trying to avoid unscripted appearances. She then claimed that Democrats saw promise in the “moment” that Walz attacked Vance over the January 6 Capitol protests.
NBC's Kristen Welker says she "was getting texts from Democrats PANICKED" last night over @JDVance's beatdown of Tampon Tim Walz on the debate stage pic.twitter.com/qwyTelOafB
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 2, 2024
While many people stated ahead of the event that a vice-presidential debate will do little to sway undecided voters, as the majority of Americans are far more concerned about the presidential nominee than their VP, it was clear that Vance’s stellar performance changed the minds of at least a few voters.
.@kleavittnh: "There were a plethora of polls that came out last night showing that undecided voters and the American people definitely thought Senator Vance performed better than Governor Walz, and they trust Senator Vance and President Trump to lead on the issues that matter to… pic.twitter.com/CV0hVW4jKV
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 2, 2024
