Opinion | Hes Most Authentic When Hes Nasty: Four Columnists Brace for the Vance-Walz Debate
Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with the Times Opinion columnists David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Pamela Paul about Tuesday’s debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.Patrick Healy: Heading into tonight’s vice-presidential debate, what are you most curious about? What do you want to hear or see from the candidates?David Brooks: Policy! Here are some questions I’d love to see answered: Do you support Israel’s attack on Hezbollah? How can we best confront China? How can the government make parenting easier? Does industrial policy work?Ross Douthat: I’ll see David’s wonkery and raise it.JD Vance should get a very specific question about why he and his running mate disagree with the consensus of economists about the likely effects of their plan for a big new tax on foreign goods.
He should also get a broader question about how he thinks a Trump-Vance administration can pursue populist policies under conditions of increasing fiscal constraint without bringing inflation back — especially the expensive list of policy promises that Donald Trump himself has been making in the waning weeks of the campaign.Healy: Anything you’d pose to Walz, Ross?Douthat: A lot of foreign policy questions — because that’s the area where a Harris administration would have the most freedom of action and face the most substantial challenges.How long can the Ukraine war go on if Ukraine keeps losing territory? What is the U.S.
plan to contain China across the next 10 years? Are we equipped to face a coordinated challenge from Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang — and if not, will a Harris administration support a big increase in defense spending?Healy: You guys are proposing questions I’d like to hear at a second Trump-Harris debate.But we’ll get to that later.
Pamela, Tressie, what do you want from tonight’s debate?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your brows...