WAUKESHA, Wis. \u2014 Many Republicans who watched the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night would say Donald Trump\u2019s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, had the best of his opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.<\/p>\n
But in this crucial county in the swing state of Wisconsin, one moment in particular had a Young Republicans-hosted watch party in the backroom of a local burger bar buzzing with resentment \u2014 and excitement.<\/p>\n
Dozens of Wisconsin Republicans congregated here to watch the debate, and anyone watching could see that Vance won over the crowd when he went back and forth with CBS News anchor and moderator Margaret Brennan as she fact-checked his comments on immigration.<\/p>\n
Even in a debate full of tense exchanges over fraught subjects \u2014 Israel and Iran, health care and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol among them \u2014 nothing got these Republicans quite as fired up as when Vance went after the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status \u2026 temporary protected status,\u201d Brennan said, after Walz and Vance sparred over false claims that Trump and Vance have amplified that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are eating pets and are in the country illegally.<\/p>\n
Some Republicans at the watch party groaned. Others shook their heads. They were angry to see Brennan fact-checking Vance when CBS News had said the moderators wouldn\u2019t. And although the majority of Haitian immigrants have legal status, President Joe Biden has changed policy to allow more of them to come in, so they shouldn\u2019t be here, some attendees said.<\/p>\n
Then Vance pushed back, stopping the moderators from moving onto the next topic, and the room filled with cheers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMargaret, the rules were that you guys weren\u2019t going to fact check,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd since you\u2019re fact checking me, I think it\u2019s important to say what\u2019s actually going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes!\u201d one person yelled as Vance went on about the process for seeking asylum.<\/p>\n
Then Brennan stopped Vance and said the candidates\u2019 mics had been cut off, and the assembled Republicans yelled with frustration.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my god!\u201d one man said, lifting his arms up before letting out a deep sigh.<\/p>\n
Frustration with the media firing up the Republican base is on-brand in the Trump era: The former president has long attacked the media for its coverage of his political career, rhetoric and actions. He often charges that credible reporting is \u201cfake news,\u201d and disparages reporters during his rallies \u2014 going so far as to call journalists \u201cthe enemy of the people.\u201d And in recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly criticized ABC News\u2019s handling of his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris after they fact-checked him multiple times. He argued it was \u201chighly partisan\u201d and that the moderators were ganging up on him.<\/p>\n
Polls showed that most Americans thought Harris won her debate with Trump. The public saw no clear winner in Vance\u2019s clash with Walz, according to a CNN Instant Poll. But Trump still complained about the moderators.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother repeat with the Fake News being unfair to the Republican Candidate, and trying to get the pathetic Democrat across the finish line. But it doesn\u2019t matter, the Public sees it for what it is \u2013 FAKE NEWS!\u2019 Trump posted on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
Cindie Zehnder and Cherie Boldt, both sporting pink Trump hats, agreed with the former president\u2019s assessment, and they pointed to Vance\u2019s exchange with Brennan over immigration as the clearest moment of him effectively pushing back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was him against three,\u201d said Zehnder, 64, who is retired. \u201cHe didn\u2019t become aggressive but he just stuck to the facts. He didn\u2019t let the lies go unchecked \u2026 The moderators were awful. They were terrible. They cut him off when they shouldn\u2019t, when he really got on point of telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boldt, who owns a public relations and marketing firm, agreed that the moderators were \u201cnot being fair at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir questions were very biased with the woke agenda,\u201d she said, pointing to Brennan also fact-checking Vance on the issue of climate change, which is real. \u201cThey were presenting it as if it were indeed a fact, and it is not a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Schroeder, chairman of the Wisconsin Young Republicans, said he felt Vance\u2019s handling of the moderators in that moment \u2014 and his broader comments on the need to secure the U.S. southern border \u2014 showed he is a strong leader, especially in contrast to the \u201coverall fumbling and bumbling\u201d that came from Walz.<\/p>\n
\u201cJD Vance showed leadership, and that\u2019s what we get with Trump and Vance,\u201d Schroeder, 28, said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve just seen failures \u2026 She had an opportunity as the border czar to lead this country to be safer, and she just hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Trump, Vance and other Republicans have repeatedly, and falsely, characterized Harris as Biden\u2019s \u201cborder czar,\u201d but Harris was never in charge of border policy. She was in charge of tackling the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.)<\/p>\n
Only 11 percent of Republicans trust the media a \u201cgreat deal\u201d or a \u201cfair amount,\u201d according to a 2023 Gallup poll on the subject. That compares to 58 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Independents.<\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s complaints about fact-checking during his debate with Harris, CBS had said its moderators would not aggressively fact-check Vance and Walz, instead setting up opportunities for them to respond to each other\u2019s claims. So their intervention Tuesday night had many Republicans fuming.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course the Fake News hacks at @CBSNews are only \u201cfact checking\u201d JD Vance, even after they publicly promised they wouldn\u2019t engage in their BS fact checks,\u201d Donald Trump Jr., the former president\u2019s son, complained on X.<\/p>\n
The Washington Post\u2019s Fact Checker, which reviewed claims by both candidates in the debate, found more than a dozen false or misleading statements. Most were by Vance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
WAUKESHA, Wis. \u2014 Many Republicans who watched the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night would say Donald Trump\u2019s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, had the best of his opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. But in this crucial county in the swing state of Wisconsin, one moment in particular had a Young Republicans-hosted watch party in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}