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Political Mini Crossword: Vice presidential debate
It's time for the vice presidential debate! Think you know the two candidates? Prove it by solving this crossword puzzle.
US Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz takes the stage on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 21, 2024.
Tim Walz introduces himself to America
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had a heavy task before him when he stepped onto the Democratic National Convention stage Wednesday night to formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for vice president. He’s a relatively unknown politician who was tapped to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate — in an election unlike any this country has ever seen — earlier this month. Walz needed to deliver and sell himself as a viable, attractive VP candidate. And he was following some tough acts: former President Bill Clinton, Stevie Wonder, and a little-known talk show host named Oprah Winfrey.
By the time Walz was done speaking, however, the crowd in Chicago’s United Center was roaring with approval.
After walking out to the beat of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” in an allusion to Walz’s Nebraska roots, the Minnesota governor took it upon himself to lay out his life story — he was introducing himself to the country. Walz talked about serving in the military, falling in love with teaching, coaching high school football, and ultimately transitioning into politics.
“It was my students who first inspired me to run for Congress. They saw in me what I hoped to instill in them — a commitment to the common good,” Walz said.
Walz is a progressive, which could be a double-edged sword for Harris. He could help her draw in more left-leaning voters who’ve soured on the Democratic Party in recent years, but he might also turn off centrist voters who are on the fence.
But Walz leaned into his progressive record in his speech, at times contrasting his policies as governor with the culture wars being waged by many Republican governors and politicians. “While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” Walz said at one point, referring to his free school lunch program.
Walz said he would be an advocate for personal freedoms, summing up his view with the phrase: "Mind your own damn business." He also said Harris would "stand up and fight for your freedom to live the life that you want to lead."
Walz laid out what Harris would do for the country as president, including cutting taxes for the middle class, taking on big pharma to lower prescription drug prices, and fighting to make homes more affordable.
He wrapped up with a rallying cry for Democrats. “We’ve only got 76 days to go. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when we’re dead,” Walz said, offering a countdown until Election Day, with the crowd erupting in response.
While Walz’s speech was well-received at the convention, it remains to be seen whether it resonated with a national audience. Democrats are clearly fired up now that Harris is their nominee, but polling shows that she still faces a tight race with former President Donald Trump — and riling up party loyalists is a lot easier than winning over undecideds.
Walz was “very good, but the message seems very targeted toward Democrats,” says Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group’s managing director for the US, adding that the more important speech of the night was likely from Oprah Winfrey, who “was speaking to a broader audience.”
“Democrats like to paint Walz as a normal guy who can appeal to ‘everyday Americans,’ but the fact is that the margins in his two elections were pretty consistent with a D-leaning state that’s divided around 55/45 party lines,” Lieber adds. “He seems like a dedicated public servant, caring teacher and coach, and devoted family man, but I’m just not sure any of that translates into votes.”
Republican U.S. vice presidential nominee JD Vance speaks at VFW Post 92 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, U.S. August 15, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Veep debate date set, Taliban marks Afghan anniversary, North Korea reopens to tourism, Russia sentences American ballerina
3: It’s been exactly three years since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan following the chaotic US withdrawal from the country. The Islamic fundamentalist group’s leader hailed progress in establishing strict Islamic law. Systematic human rights abuses of women and girls have led to huge cuts in foreign aid, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis worsened by a series of natural disasters.
5: Good news for GZERO Daily readers who were forced to put their North Korean vacation plans on hold during the pandemic! The isolated autocracy is reopening to tourism for the first time in five years. The regime is starting by allowing visits to the mountainous northern city of Samjiyon — located near Mount Paektu, a volcano that is sacred in both the Korean and Chinese cultures. As ever, there is a Puppet Regime for this — see you soon on those North Korean beaches!
51.80: A Russian court has sentenced Russian-American amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in prison for high treason. Her crime? Donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity — from her phone in Los Angeles — on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Karelina, who became a US citizen in 2021, was arrested while visiting family in Russia last year.
Trump's pick for VP: JD Vance
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
President Trump has made his VP selection, JD Vance, Senator from Ohio, a 39-year-old who rose to prominence as the author of a book explaining the troubles of the white working class who voted for Trump in 2016, to a much broader population of Americans who were at the time, struggling to understand how Trump pulled off his surprising victory. Vance then reinvented himself as an investor and then a prominent Trump critic, warning about Trump's dangers to America, and saying that he is America's Hitler. And then went on to reinvent himself yet again as a populist champion of the working class, running for Senate in the seat he ended up winning.
Vance is obviously extremely smart. He's a Yale law graduate, and what he's going to bring to the Trump campaign is to complement the populist energy that President Trump brings. Vance has been an outspoken critic of aid to Ukraine, he has been somebody who's questioned how much the Republican Party has done over the years for the US corporate community, meaning he's going to bring probably an anti-trade and even potentially a tax-hiking voice into the White House. And he's going to instantly become a target for the campaign of President Joe Biden, who will happily pull out all of Vance's old quotes criticizing Donald Trump, even though Vance now credibly says he's been converted to Trumpism.
They're also going to try to attempt to tie Vance to Project 2025, which is a white paper introduced by the Heritage Foundation that introduces all of Trump's plans that he plans to do as president, many of which will be very closely aligned with the persona that J.D. Vance dug out in the Senate. Now, I should also say that persona has been bipartisan at times, as Vance has teamed up with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on several populist causes, including cracking down on big banks. So, Vance is probably one of the more interesting people in American politics today. He's young enough to be a credible presidential candidate in four years at the end of a second Trump term, and he's going to be a lightning rod for controversy.
Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more on the Republican National Convention this week.
Sen. JD Vance addresses the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2024.
Who is JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick?
Updated July 15: JD Vance will be the Republican nominee for Vice President.
From holler to white collar. That’s the unusual life arc of J.D. Vance, the 39-year-old junior senator from Ohio.
Born into extreme poverty in rural southern Ohio, he grew up in the holler – “the hollow” – surrounded by abuse, addiction, and despair. But he made it out: He joined the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School, and became a successful tech venture capitalist.
He recounted all of this in his bestselling 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which became required reading after Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton spurred interest in the disaffection of white working-class America. In the book, Vance criticized a culture of victimhood and dependency among poor whites while also blasting the establishment’s condescension and neglect.
Initially a fierce critic of Trump – he once called the 45th president “unfit,” and his Indian-American wife criticized Trump’s racist language – he had changed his views by the time he ran for Senate in 2022. Vance broadly supports Trump’s populist challenge to the traditional bipartisan establishment and has said Trump’s legally disproven claims of fraud in the 2020 election had political merit.
What are Vance’s policy views? He wants to slash immigration, raise tariffs, and increase the minimum wage to boost employment, industry, and productivity among the US working class. He is certainly no old-school “limited government, free trade” Republican.
He is socially conservative – he favored a national 15-week abortion ban, although he softened his view when his own constituents voted strongly against it. Echoing Trump, he says he supports access to mifepristone, the “abortion pill.”
On foreign policy, he says he is a “realist,” willing to deal with countries based on American interests. He considers China a bigger threat than Russia and wants to cut support for Ukraine, where he seeks a settlement along current front lines that includes sovereignty, US security assistance, and neutrality for Ukraine.
He has strong support from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which wants to leave the traditional GOP behind.
Why would Trump choose him? “To bolster his standing with persuadable Republicans who dislike Trump’s personality but love his policy,” says Clayton Allen, a US politics expert at Eurasia Group. “And because he’d gamble that Vance’s naked ambition can be held in check long enough not to cause problems.”
What else to read: For a good one-stop look at what J.D. Vance believes, check out this Q&A by the Times’ Ross Douthat on “What J.D. Vance Believes.” And to learn about Trump’s other possible VP picks, check out our Veepstakes series here.Trump's potential VP picks
Wildcards: Could Trump surprise us with his VP running mate?
Donald Trump has been teasing his vice presidential pick for weeks, but with the Republican National Convention kicking off next week, he’s likely to make it official — and soon.
Right now, the front-runners appear to be Sens. Marco Rubio and JD Vance, along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. But what about the contenders who aren’t grabbing headlines yet remain on Trump’s radar? Here is everything you need to know about the dark-horse candidates.
Nikki Haley: We know, we know, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump’s former ambassador to the UN fired shots at the former president as his main opponent in the primary. But just because she once challenged him doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be a valuable running mate.
A major question for Trump’s campaign is how to win back the moderates, independents, and suburban voters who backed Haley and could swing to the Democrats.
How better than to get the woman herself on his side? That being said, although Haley ultimately threw her support behind him, Trump isn’t known for forgiveness — and her team says she wasn’t even invited to the RNC.
“Haley is Trump’s best chance at expanding the field beyond the 312 electoral votes Trump could take from the currently competitive states,” says Eurasia Groups US managing director Jon Lieber. “He won’t pick her, but if he did, it’s a chance to say this is a New Trump with an establishment Republican serving alongside him.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: The governor of Arkansas gained Trump’s trust when she served as his second White House press secretary, unwaveringly defending the former president’s decisions in the Oval Office. But at 41 and newly ascendant to political office, Sanders falls short in governing experience.
Byron Donalds: Donalds is a representative from Florida and a vocal supporter of Trump. He’s also a key surrogate in Trump’s efforts to reach Black voters. That being said, Donalds doesn’t have much of a national profile, and his MAGA politics — including outspoken support for abortion restrictions and denial of the 2020 election — could turn off independent voters.
Ivanka Trump: There have been murmurs that Trump has considered keeping it in the family and choosing his daughter Ivanka as his VP running mate. But this is likely just a rumor as Ivanka has said she won't be back for round two.
Tulsi Gabbard: Gabbard is a 41-year-old former House member from Hawaii, a veteran, and — gasp— a former Democratic congresswoman. She endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016, mounted her own long-shot presidential campaign in 2020, and then left the Democratic Party to become an independent in 2022.
She has drawn the attention of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.and Donald Trump. Her magic is that she could attract young voters, independents, and maybe even some disenchanted Democrats to the ticket. But she is relatively unknown nationally and has a record of voting against Trump in the House.
Kristi Noem: The governor of South Dakota and former House member, came to Congress in the 2010 tea party wave. She gained notoriety in conservative circles when she refused to close South Dakota businesses during the pandemic and is tight with Trump. But her hard-line opposition to abortion could cost Trump on the campaign trail. Plus, she comes with baggage — namely, her bizarre description in her memoir of having killed her dog and a goat.
“Noem ended her national ambitions with a story in her book about killing a puppy,” says Lieber. “If there’s one thing that doesn’t play well in national politics, it’s puppy killing.”
Vivek Ramaswamy: Ramaswamy gained national attention with his campaign for president this election cycle. He is a wealthy founder of a drug investment company, which could help fund a general election campaign operation. Plus, he would bring youth to the ticket and be an energetic surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail.
But his lack of political experience — and lack of appeal to moderate voters — makes it more likely that he would be considered for a cabinet position.
The Veepstakes: Who will Donald Trump pick as his running mate?
With Donald Trump set to announce his vice presidential running mate in the coming days, we explore the possible contenders — and their viability.
- Tim Scott: Will he become Trump's No. 2
- Elise Stefanik: Once the new face of the GOP, she's now a full-blown MAGA Republican and Trump ally
- JD Vance: Started from the bottom, now he’s here
- Marco Rubio: Could he become the first Latino VP?
- Doug Burgum: Could he be a biz-savvy VP pick for Trump?
- Wildcards: Could Trump surprise us with his VP running mate?
Will Tim Scott become Trump’s No. 2?
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who withdrew from the race for the Republican nomination last November, has been campaigning hard for Donald Trump – and he has his eye on becoming vice president. But will the GOP’s only Black senator get Trump’s VP nod?
Raised by a single mom in Charleston, South Carolina, Scott became the first Black Republican elected to any office in the Palmetto State since the 19th century when he won his 1995 Charleston city council race. In 2008, he won a seat in the statehouse and went on to the House of Representatives in 2010. After one term, then-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley appointed him to fill a vacant Senate seat, and he has easily won reelection three times. He is arguably the most recognizable elected Black Republican in office today.
Trump recently said Scott was a “better surrogate” than a candidate thanks to the latter’s enthusiastic efforts to whip up excitement for the former president’s campaign. If Scott detected any damnation by faint praise in the remark, he certainly didn’t let it on, saying Trump was “right” when asked about the remarks on Fox.
Eurasia Group’s Jon Lieber says Scott “has a great personal story, he’s a telegenic presence, he’s inoffensive, and he has a good reputation in the Senate that comes along with relationships and domestic policy chops.” That said, Lieber isn’t convinced Scott can help Trump consolidate support with voters who aren’t sold on the former president.
Scott recently launched a $14 million campaign to help Trump make inroads with minority voters in seven swing states, which could ease concerns like Lieber’s if successful. We’re watching how it plays out, and whether Scott’s affability helps temper Trump’s hard edge with voters.
To learn about Trump’s other possible VP picks, check out our Veepstakes series here.