‘I let her down’: Tim Walz admits he fumbled the JD Vance debate by being too nice

The vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz on Oct. 1, 2024 was a highly anticipated showdown. Both Walz and Vance had been pugilistic campaigners, with Walz rapidly gaining popularity with Democrats by describing Vance as “weird” (a characterization that’s proved entirely correct).

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign dismissed Walz as Tampon Tim for his policy of providing free menstrual products to children in public schools (wow truly history’s greatest monster). As such, we expected fireworks when the two went head-to-head.

The reality? A polite and friction-free debate in which both men kept their cool and didn’t interrupt each other. Vance was clearly on his best behavior, even expressing concern for Walz’s son after a shooting.

Beyond that, Vance effectively pressured Walz over a previous claim he’d been in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (Walz’s response, “I’m a knucklehead”). Walz then stumbled into a gaffe, misspeaking and saying he was “friends with school shooters”. Soon after the pair left the stage, most concluded Vance had won.

And now, a year later, that night is clearly haunting Walz. At a recent event, Walz was quizzed about his performance. His answers are surprisingly candid:

🚨NEW: Tim Walz on his debate against JD Vance:

"I think [Kamala Harris] has every right to be critical. I do think I let her down on a couple things."

"I warned them my Minnesota nice thing is if somebody's being nice to me, I'll be nice to them."

"We did not prepare for him… pic.twitter.com/kZxXBkQVJ4

— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) October 1, 2025

Walz admits “I think [Kamala Harris] has every right to be critical. I do think I let her down on a couple things” and explained: “I warned them my Minnesota nice thing is if somebody’s being nice to me, I’ll be nice to them”, confessing that they hadn’t prepared for a “cordial” JD Vance.

“Mortified”

Kamala Harris’ memoir revealed her thoughts on Walz’s performance, saying she was “mortified” while watching it and cringed at him falling into Vance’s “mild-mannered aw-shucks” trap, saying “you must be ready to brawl. You’re not here to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”

Harris’ verdict is difficult to argue with. On that night, Democrats needed the punchy, aggressive Tim Walz, who dismissed Vance as weird and wasn’t afraid to take him to the mat. What we got was an amiable grandpa that Vance found easy to manipulate. It’s correct that the vice-presidential debate didn’t have an enormous impact on the overall election result but, let’s face it, it certainly didn’t help!