VP debate recap: Vance, Walz clash over abortion and immigration, but find common ground on housing

Five out of six voters in Pittsburgh who participated in an NBC News debate watch event told reporter Kate Snow afterwards that they thought Tim Walz won tonight's debate.

— Ece Yildirim

As Vance hit the post-debate spin room to do an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Walz went out for a slice with his wife, Gwen Walz.

The pair went to Justino's Pizzeria, next to the New York City debate site.

In response to a press question about what he felt was the best moment of the debate, Walz replied, "I think the ending sums it up. The democracy issue is important."

— Ece Yildirim

The debate began with a focus on foreign policy, as Walz and Vance were asked about Iran's missile strike on Israel.

But another major U.S. foreign policy interest went unmentioned: Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The issue would have been a timely one to ask about. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky recently met with Trump, a high-stakes encounter in light of the fact that both he and Vance have cast doubt on whether they would continue to back Kyiv's resistance of Russian attacks.

"It's malpractice that not a single question was asked about Ukraine given how a Trump-Vance presidency would abandon Ukraine and how Trump has invited Putin to invade our NATO allies," said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House staffer turned critic of the GOP ticket, on X.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former President Barack Obama chimed in after the face-off, wrote in a post on X, "Tonight's debate is a reminder of what's at stake in this election."

"[Walz] is focused on real solutions for working families and Americans across this country," Obama wrote. "We need leaders like him who will fight for progress."

– Josephine Rozzelle

Vance and Walz both appear to agree on deregulation as a path to build more homes and bring housing prices down, though they diverged on the ultimate cause of high housing prices.

Walz doubled down on Harris' proposal to "cut some of the red tape" to make home construction faster and cheaper.

"All of those things, in the long run, end up saving our money. And that's the thing that I think we should be able to find some common ground in," Walz said.

Vance concurred: "You have a lot of people who would love to build homes who aren't able to build homes. I actually agree with Tim Walz. We should get out of this idea of housing as a commodity."

Walz disagreed, however, with Vance's staunch claim that illegal immigration is the primary driver of high housing costs.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Walz and Vance ended the largely civil debate with a friendly handshake before introducing their wives to each other — a stark contrast to the conclusion of the presidential debate last month.

The two candidates chatted for a bit on the stage after the debate with their wives, Usha Vance and Gwen Walz.

They then walked over to the moderators, Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan, to thank them for the event.

At the end of the presidential debate on Sept. 10, Trump strode off the stage without shaking hands with Harris.

The vice president's husband, Doug Emhoff, then joined her on the stage.

- Dan Mangan

A Walz adviser involved in the Democrat's preparation for tonight's debate told NBC News that Walz was nervous at the beginning of the face-off, and that his remarks on democracy and Jan. 6 at the end were his strongest moments.

The adviser also said that Walz's team expected Vance to be "slick," but they felt the surprisingly substantive debate helped Walz stand out against Vance, who they acknowledged had the upper hand on style.

– Josephine Rozzelle

The vice presidential candidates tonight were surprisingly agreeable with each other.

"I've enjoyed tonight's debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here," Walz said towards the end of the debate, to which Vance responded with "Me too, man."

At least nine distinct times through the night, Walz and Vance said that they agreed with something the other pointed out, from rising housing prices to the need to address school shootings.

— Ece Yildirim

Both Walz and Vance spoke 30 times over the course of tonight's debate, but Walz got slightly more airtime than his Republican opponent.

The Democrat spoke for 40.6 minutes, while Vance spoke for 38.1 minutes, according to an NBC News tally.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Asked how he would solve the childcare crisis, Vance said "we just don't have enough resources going into the multiple people who could be providing family care options."

"Unfortunately, look, we're going to have to spend more money. We're going to have to induce more people to want to provide childcare options for American families," he said. "Because the reason it's so expensive right now is because you've got way too few people providing this very essential service."

Vance's answer is similar to the answer he gave to the same question at a Turning Point Action event on Sept. 4, where he emphasized the need to "empower people to get trained in the skills they need for the 21st century."

He also drew backlash after the event for suggesting that one solution for the childcare crisis might be "grandma and grandpa" helping out "a little bit more."

– Josephine Rozzelle

Walz is arguing that big businesses approve of paid family and medical leave benefits, despite the various battles with corporations he went through to get that legislation passed in Minnesota.

"We're home in Minnesota to some of the largest Fortune 500 companies," Walz said. "They think it's a good thing, but it also keeps their employees healthy."

Passing paid leave, he added, is "how you become a pro-business state."

As Minnesota governor, however, Walz had to take on various corporations who opposed his paid leave proposal due to its associated tax hikes.

— Rebecca Picciotto

In his answer on the role of climate change in exacerbating the devastation by Hurricane Helene, Vance made a claim that the US is "the cleanest economy in the entire world." He then added that he was referring to the amount of carbon emissions per unit of economic output.

This claim is not true. Although the US clean energy sector has been on the rise, the US is far from being "the cleanest".

According to the 2023 edition of Global Carbon Budget's carbon intensity scale, which is a measure of carbon emissions per dollar of GDP, while the US produces less carbon on the dollar than a number of countries including China, it still produces more than a plethora of others. These include the likes of France, Germany, United Kingdom and Brazil.

— Ece Yildirim

Walz pushed back on Vance's attempt to defend Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

"A president's words matter," Walz said during an answer about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Vance replied, "It's really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy." He pointed in part to Democratic complaints about Russian social media interference operations in the 2016 election.

Walz shot back: "January 6 was not Facebook ads."

He asked Vance directly if Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance dodged, saying he is "focused on the future."

Walz said that was a "damning non answer."

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance defended Trump's claim from his debate with Harris that he has "concepts" of a plan to replace the health care law known as Obamacare.

Vance said he and Trump would "of course" cover Americans with preexisting conditions, a key tenet of Obamacare.

He went on, "You know, a lot of people have criticized this concepts of a plan remark."

It's "common sense" that "you're not going to propose a 900-page bill standing on a debate stage," Vance said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former Bill Clinton political adviser Doug Sosnik suggested to Republican megadonors on Tuesday at a private briefing that it may have been better for Harris to select Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a running mate instead of Walz, he told CNBC in an email.

Sosnik spoke in New York to members of the American Opportunity Alliance, a network of Republican donors. The network was founded by the likes of investors Paul Singer and Ken Griffin, who are major funders of the Republican Party. Singer gave $5 million to a pro-Trump super PAC in August but Griffin has yet to publicly endorse Trump.

"I was there today and I did say that I would have picked Governor  Shapiro," Sosnik said in an email to CNBC during the debate between Walz and Vance.

"It was not a reflection of Governor Walz, but rather that I think that Pennsylvania is the most important state in determining the outcome of the election and putting a popular governor on the ticket would have increased her chances of winning the state," Sosnik said.

— Brian Schwartz

Slamming Trump for calling the overturning of Roe v. Wade "a beautiful thing," Walz told the stories of several women threatened by restrictive state abortion laws.

"Amanda Zurawski would disagree with you on it's a beautiful thing," Walz said. "Or in Kentucky, Hadley Duvall, a 12-year-old child raped and impregnated by her stepfather. Those are horrific."

"If you don't know Amanda or a Hadley, you soon will," Walz said. He then warned of proposals in Project 2025, the conservative policy plan linked to Trump and Vance.

"Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies. It's going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access, to infertility treatments."

– Josephine Rozzelle

Vance sympathized with Walz after the Minnesota governor noted that his 17-year-old son had witnessed a shooting in a community center while playing volleyball.

"I didn't know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting," Vance said. "I'm sorry about that, and I appreciate that. Christ have mercy."

The exchange came as moderators asked the candidates about the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.

Vance noted that the majority of such violence is committed with illegally obtained firearms, and blamed Harris for border police that had allowed a "massive influx" of illegal guns from Mexico. He also called for improving security at schools: "We've got to make the windows stronger ... we've got to increase school resource officers."

Walz in response said, "I ask all of you out there, do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?"

"Is that what we have to do when we know there's countries around the world that their children aren't practicing these types of drills? They're being kids," Walz said. "We owe it to them to get a fix."

- Dan Mangan

Walz is defending Harris' proposal to give $25,000 in downpayment assistance to first-time homebuyers, saying it would help people build wealth.

He says the proposal will not push up prices but open up the possibility of homeownership to more people.

"We can make sure the government is there to kickstart it," Walz says.

— Annie Nova

Vance told Walz that Harris has been distancing herself from the same tariffs that Trump first put in place, and that Biden continued after he won the 2020 election.

The comment came as Harris faces tough questions about what, if any, of Biden's tariffs she would alter if she were elected president.

- Brian Schwartz

"I was wrong about Donald Trump," Vance said about calling his running mate unfit for office in 2016 and saying then Trump had the potential to become "America's Hitler."

Vance gave that response when asked why Americans should trust him to give Trump needed advice, "and not just the advice he wants to hear" given those past comments.

"I was wrong first of all because I believe some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record," Vance said.

"But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people, rising wages, rising take-home pay, an economy that works for normal Americans, a secure southern border, a lot of things, frankly, that I didn't think you'd be able to deliver on."

- Dan Mangan

Walz said he "misspoke" when he claimed he had been in Hong Kong around the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The concession came after multiple news outlets reported that Walz was actually in Nebraska around that time.

Walz's answer initially meandered and did not immediately acknowledge he erred. "I've not been perfect, and I'm a knucklehead at times," he said at one point.

— Kevin Breuninger

CBS muted the microphones of both candidates after Vance began sparring with moderator Margaret Brennan over her fact-checking of his claims about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.

Brennan clarified that Springfield, Ohio is home to a large population of legal Haitian immigrants. Vance interrupted her, demanding time to defend his claim.

"Gentlemen, the audience can't hear you because your mics are cut," Brennan said as both Vance and Walz attempted to interject.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Walz criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from former President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal, which he said paved the way for further Iranian nuclear development.

"Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than they were before because of Donald Trump's fickle leadership," Walz said.

He argued that the United States needs "the steady leadership that Kamala Harris is providing" to navigate the Middle East conflict.

"A nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment," Walz said.

Iran launched almost 200 retaliatory missiles on Israel earlier today, in an act that U.S. officials called "a significant escalation."

The strikes were in response to the recent Israeli military campaign in Lebanon that killed more than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah. There were no fatalities in Israel from the attack, but one Palestinian civilian was killed in the West Bank.

Vance dodged questions on whether he believed Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was a mistake.

Instead, Vance reiterated his claim that Trump delivered "stability" in the region through deterrence, saying that foreign agents "were afraid of stepping out of line."

— Ece Yildirim

Asked about climate change in the context of Hurricane Helene, Walz knocked Trump for calling climate change a "hoax" and more recently suggesting that a rise in sea levels would create more beachfront property.

"Senator Vance has said that there's a climate problem in the past. Donald Trump called it a hoax," Walz said.

Vance, asked to respond to Trump's climate change denial, claimed that what Trump has really said is that Democrats would be trying to boost domestic energy production if they really cared about the climate.

— Kevin Breuninger

Right out of the gate, Walz used Vance's own past criticism of Trump against the Ohio lawmaker.

"The person closest to them… to Donald Trump… said he's unfit for the highest office, that was Senator Vance," Walz said.

As recently as 2020, before Vance ran for Senate or became Trump's running mate, he was a vocal Trump critic.

- Brian Schwartz

Trump is doing a "play-by-play" of tonight's vice presidential debate on Truth Social.

The ex-president's most-used social media platform is operated by Trump Media, the company that Trump is the majority shareholder of.

Within the first minutes of the debate, the ex-president had already put up posts, including one attacking tonight's moderators, CBS's Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Billionaire Elon Musk posted on his X account words of encouragement for people to register to vote in the key states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.

"If you live in Pennsylvania and haven't registered to vote, you only have 20 days left to do so! Please register to vote and ask your friends & family to do so too. This is a very important election," Musk wrote on X, the social media company he owns.

The pro-Trump PAC he's funding, America PAC, is spending millions on canvassing efforts in those same states and elsewhere across the country.

It also marks the latest effort by Musk to use his X account as a tool to try to help Trump become president. Musk has a net worth of over $268 billion, according to Forbes.

- Brian Schwartz

Walz and Vance shook hands after being introduced by CBS News' moderators.

CBS began its broadcast of the debate with the candidates already standing at their respective lecterns, before their handshake.

- Dan Mangan

– Josephine Rozzelle

Walz went on a run in Central Park shortly before the debate — and was barely recognized by anyone there, a New York journalist reported.

"A few hours before the VP debate tonight I saw Tim Walz finishing a jog through Central Park," Crain's New York politics reporter Nick Garber wrote on X.

Walz was "trailed by a few secret service guys but recognized by seemingly no one," Garber wrote.

— Kevin Breuninger

Walz and Harris have aggressively sought to make Trump and Vance synonymous with Project 2025, the lengthy policy document laying out a right-wing vision for a second Trump presidency.

Walz is likely to lean into those efforts during the debate.

The Harris campaign has laid the groundwork for him to do so: In a press release less than an hour before the debate, the campaign warned that Vance seeks to "use Trump's Project 2025 agenda to move America backwards."

Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from the Heritage Foundation's politically unpopular handbook, saying it has nothing to do with his campaign.

But his opponents have argued that many people involved with Project 2025 are linked to Trump. Vance's connections to the document are arguably stronger: He reportedly wrote the foreword to a forthcoming book by the Heritage Foundation's president.

— Kevin Breuninger

The last time there were lecterns for a vice presidential debate, and the Democrat had two decades of age and years of national political experience over the Republican was in 2008, when then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin squared off against a senator from Delaware named Joe Biden.

Palin and the now-president stood behind lecterns for their debate in 2008.

Every other vice presidential debate since then until tonight saw the Republican and Democratic running mates debate sitting down.

Like Palin, the 40-year-old Vance is the younger, less-experienced politician in the debate, with fewer than two years in the Senate.

Walz, 60, served in the House of Representatives from 2007 until 2019. He was elected governor of Minnesota in November 2018, and again in 2022.

- Dan Mangan

Walz's allies are trying to keep expectations low for his performance ahead of the debate, aiming to set a bar that he can clear easily rather than generating excessive hype that he may be unable to match.

Walz "was not the kid in first grade that said, 'I want to be on the national debate stage.' That's not Tim Walz," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in an MSNBC interview.

Instead, Klobuchar tried to highlight Vance's debating chops, an effort to secure Walz underdog status.

"It's very clear that JD Vance is a lawyer, debater type. And then you have Tim Walz," Klobuchar said.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump has some praise and a few words of advice for his running mate.

"JD, have fun," Trump said during a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump went on to call Vance a "smart guy" who has "been amazing."

"He's been a real warrior, top student at Yale. He was a very brilliant guy in so many different ways," Trump said.

He added that Vance is "not afraid of the media."

"He'd stand here and answer all of your questions. I have a lot of people that wouldn't," said Trump.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance has arrived at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.

Donald Trump Jr., rode to the debate with Vance and posted a photo of the vice presidential nominee minutes before they arrived.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Walz, a former high school teacher and football coach, shared words of thanks and encouragement from his former students ahead of his debate.

"Remember how you always gave us the best pep talks?" one of them said in a video Walz posted on X.

"Now it's our turn to give you a pep talk," said another.

"We're gonna be cheering for you in the exact same way that you were cheering for us," another former student said.

The message followed an ad posted earlier Tuesday by Evangelicals For Harris, in which one of Walz's former students describes how the teacher had protected her from bullies who targeted her Christian faith.

"It was then I knew that he would always have my back," the student, identified in the post as Carly, said.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Vance will head to Michigan, a key swing state where Trump and Harris are neck and neck, for two campaign events tomorrow.

The Republican VP nominee is expected to speak first at Visioneering, an aerospace industry supplier in Auburn Hills. He will then head to Marne to deliver remarks at a racecar track called Berlin Raceway and Entertainment Complex.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Biden gave Walz a pre-debate pep talk in an encouraging post on X.

"Coach, I got your back tonight!" Biden said in the post.

"Tonight, America will see the strong, principled, and effective leader I've known for years—and the contrast you and Kamala provide against the other team," the president said.

– Josephine Rozzelle

Walz and Vance are on their way to the debate.

The 90-minute face-off is taking place at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City.

The last time New York City hosted a presidential or vice presidential debate was in 1960, for John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon's fourth showdown, according to CBS.

— Annie Nova

After tonight's debate, Walz will hit the road for a bus tour through central Pennsylvania with the state's junior senator, Democrat John Fetterman, the Harris campaign says.

The tour will kick off from Middletown on Wednesday afternoon, then head to a campaign rally with Fetterman in York. Walz is scheduled to attend an event with local Latino leaders in Reading later Wednesday afternoon.

The trip marks Walz's fifth visit to Pennsylvania since joining the Harris campaign in August.

— Kevin Breuninger

A sealed court filing in the criminal election case against Trump is threatening to affect the outcome of the election, his defense lawyers argue.

In the sealed filing, Smith's prosecutors have included so-far-secret evidence in their case against Trump, who is charged with crimes related to his attempt to overturn Biden's victory in the 2020 election. Smith's office filed the document to argue that at least some of Trump's conduct was not protected by presidential immunity.

Trump's lawyers accused prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith's office of seeking to make "their politically motivated manifesto to be public ... in the final weeks of the 2024 Presidential election while early voting has begun throughout the United States."

In a new filing today in federal court in Washington, D.C., Trump's lawyers oppose a number of proposed redactions Smith's office has suggested be made so that the prosecution's document can be unsealed.

- Dan Mangan

Trump has pulled out of CBS' "60 Minutes" presidential election special on Oct. 7, the official account of the show announced on X today.

"60 Minutes" says the Trump campaign initially agreed to do the interview, which is part of a long-running tradition wherein the iconic news magazine interviews both presidential nominees in the same episode, ahead of the election.

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung wrote in an X post that no interview was locked in or scheduled beyond initial discussions.

Trump abruptly walked out of his last "60 Minutes" interview on the lead up to the 2020 election, later claiming in an X post that it was a "fake and biased interview."

A Harris interview will be broadcast on Monday at 8 p.m. ET as planned, and "60 Minutes" says the original invitation to Trump still stands.

— Ece Yildirim

The rate of violent crimes in Minnesota dropped by 7% and the number of larcenies dropped to their lowest level in a half-century in 2023, when Walz was governor, according to the state's Department of Public Safety.

Total property crimes dropped by 13% in Minnesota last year, the department's statistics show.

The stats were released on Aug. 16, more than a week after hosts on the right-wing media outlet Fox News criticized Walz for an increase in the state's crime rate. Those hosts cited statistics from 2021, which showed a 21% increase in violent crimes in Minnesota.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Minnesota as of 2022 had the 11th lowest rate of deaths by homicide of any state.

- Dan Mangan

Walz's previous claims that he was in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre are under scrutiny, after multiple news outlets reported that the Democratic running mate was in Nebraska around that time.

Walz, a former public school teacher who organized teaching trips in China, has said publicly that he was in Hong Kong both on the day of the June 4, 1989, massacre in Beijing, and in the weeks preceding it.

But newspaper reports from that time place Walz in Nebraska in May 1989, according to reporting from the Washington Free Beacon, CNN and other outlets.

Walz has also overstated the number of trips he took to China, multiple outlets reported. While he has previously claimed to have visited the country around "30 times," a Harris campaign spokesperson told CNN that the true number was "likely closer to 15."

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance is expected to pay a visit to the spin room after tonight's debate, a source familiar with the planning tells NBC News, echoing Trump's decision to do so after his one and only presidential debate.

The sight of a candidate in the political spin room after a debate is rare.

But after the September 10 debate between Trump and Harris, the former president made a brief surprise appearance, where he answered questions from the press and insisted he had won the face-off.

"It was the best debate, personally, that I have ever had," Trump said.

— Ece Yildirim

Voters like Walz more than they like Vance, but relative to vice presidential candidates throughout history, both of them are earning tepid approval ratings.

According to NBC News' September poll of 1,000 registered voters, 40% said they felt positively about Walz versus 32% who said the same of Vance. Notably, Vance had the lowest net favorability in the history of the NBC News poll.

New Gallup data echoes those results, finding both candidates with less than a majority of voters' approval. That's a break with the historical norm.

Between 2000 and 2012, every vice presidential nominee in Gallup polling has received positive marks from a majority of voters after their party conventions.

— Rebecca Picciotto

In more than an hour of uninterrupted remarks earlier today, Trump revisited his economic promises, rehashed debunked attack lines about his opponent, and even spent several minutes opining on the casting of the film "Full Metal Jacket."

Yet with the vice presidential debate just a few hours away, Trump made no mention of his running mate or tonight's face-off.

At the start of his 73-minute campaign speech in Waunakee, Wisconsin, Trump said he would focus on the economy. But he soon began to pinball around to other topics.

He vowed to help survivors of the devastating Hurricane Helene, and thanked Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for responding to his request to bring Starlink internet services to hard-hit areas.

He railed against Harris on foreign policy, the economy, the environment and immigration. In one instance, he falsely claimed she would allow "200 million" undocumented immigrants into the country if she won the election.

At another point, Trump spent about two minutes describing how the late actor and U.S. Marine drill instructor R. Lee Ermey secured his famous role in Stanley Kubrick's epic Vietnam War film.

"How good was that movie, right? Doesn't get too much better," Trump said to some applause.

— Kevin Breuninger

Walz has made free school meals a policy issue in the presidential race — and a topic that could come up at the debate.

For part of the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government offered free school meals to most K-12 students.

But when Congress didn't extend the policy, Walz, a former teacher, signed a bill in 2023 to provide breakfast and lunch to the Minnesota's public school students at no charge, regardless of household income.

Seven other states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and Vermont — have also passed laws to create universal free school meal programs, according to the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center.

— Annie Nova

Tonight, Vance might seek to pressure Walz on his running mate Harris' track record as vice president, Republican National Committee Co-Chair and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump said today on NBC News Now's Meet the Press NOW.

"Things like the economy, immigration, those are the top two issues for the American people. I suspect that you are going to hear Tim Walz pressed quite a bit on that again, if not by the moderators, certainly by JD Vance," Trump said.

Trump added that she's "sure" that Vance will touch on the recent escalations of the conflict in the Middle East.

Lara Trump went on to tout her father-in-law's Abraham Accords, which sought to normalize ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations. But Trump's track record in office on the Middle East isn't without controversy, especially his decision to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.

— Ece Yildirim

Harris condemned the Iranian missile attack against Israel in brief remarks this afternoon, saying Iran is a "destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East."

"Today's attack on Israel only further demonstrates that fact," she said.

"I fully support President Biden's order for the U.S. military to shoot down Iranian missiles targeting Israel, just as we did in April. We are still assessing the impact, but initial indications are that Israel, with our assistance, was able to defeat this attack," Harris said.

"Let us be clear: Iran is not only a threat to Israel," she said. "Iran is also a threat to American personnel in the region, American interests and innocent civilians across the region who suffer at the hands of Iran-based and -backed terrorist proxies."

— Josephine Rozzelle

The White House has released a new photo from the Situation Room showing Harris and Biden monitoring the Iranian missile attacks on Israel earlier Tuesday.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance is not a fan of student loan forgiveness.

"Forgiving student debt is a massive windfall to the rich, to the college educated, and most of all to the corrupt university administrators of America," Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, wrote on X in April 2022.

"Republicans must fight this with every ounce of our energy and power," Vance wrote.

Vance's past opposition to the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness proposals could threaten ongoing efforts to reduce or eliminate people's debts, experts say.

Several of President Joe Biden's relief measures are currently tied up in court from GOP-led lawsuits, including his redo effort to cancel the loans of tens of millions of Americans and his new affordable repayment plan for borrowers, known as SAVE.

If the Republican ticket wins in November, a Trump-Vance administration is less likely to defend the Biden-era student loan forgiveness plans, experts say.

"Republicans generally oppose student loan forgiveness," said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. "A Trump-Vance administration is likely to drop the legal defense of the SAVE repayment plan and Plan B for broad student loan forgiveness in the pending court cases."

— Annie Nova

High-profile Democrats including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will be praising Walz's performance in the spin room tonight after the debate.

Both Kelly and Pritzker were among those considered for Harris' VP pick, before the presidential hopeful went with Walz. Kelly, in particular, was a strong contender for the role.

Klobuchar previously ran against both Harris and Biden in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election.

Other post-debate surrogates announced so far by the Harris-Walz campaign include Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a first-term lawmaker and rising star among the Democrats for her knack for creating viral moments, Democratic National Convention Chair Jaime Harrison, and Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance's vision for health care under another Trump administration is cause for concern for proponents of the Affordable Care Act.

"We're going to actually implement some regulatory reform in the health-care system that allows people to choose a health-care plan that works for them," Vance said at a September campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Trump administration would likely expand availability of non-ACA compliant plans, experts say. While former President Donald Trump was in office, for example, enrollment in short-term plans spiked.

Fans of these plans say they allow insurers to offer consumers lower monthly premiums because they're not required to cover as many services. At the same time, the plans are able to reject people with pre-existing conditions or charge them more. 

The Ohio senator said that they'd "allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools."

That's a troubling prospect for the future of the ACA, said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.

That's because the non-ACA compliant plans will "siphon away" younger and healthier people from the ACA marketplace, Corlette said.

"The risk is that you're going to be left with the ACA plans only serving sick people, and that's not a sustainable insurance market," she said. "Over time, ACA premiums will go up and up and up."

— Annie Nova

The debate will take place against the backdrop of a major dockworker strike, as members of the International Longshoremen's Association walk off the job at ports along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.

The ILA's first strike in nearly half a century could have a major impact on global supply chains, adding new weight and urgency to some of the election's top issues: the economy, wages and labor protections.

A former public school teacher, Walz has touted himself as a "dues-paying, card-carrying member of my teachers union." As Minnesota governor, he has expanded union bargaining protections for Amazon workers, imposed a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers and passed universal paid family and medical leave.

Vance, who postures as more of a right-wing populist than a traditional conservative, has at times shown hostility to corporate power.

In January, he was one of few Republicans to co-sign a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about the mistreatment of workers. In September, he accused Apple of benefiting from "Chinese slave labor," adding, "that's pretty sick."

But as an Ohio senator, Vance has opposed the PRO Act, a sweeping labor reform bill that would strengthen union protections.

So far, the Harris campaign has secured the endorsement of the United Autoworkers and at least five other national union groups. Notably, the Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate this year, breaking from its traditional Democratic endorsement.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump in a new op-ed vowed to aggressively wield tariffs to punish manufacturers that do not make their products in the United States.

His op-ed in Newsweek dangled a sweet deal for businesses — low taxes, costs and regulations — but "only if you make your products here in America and hire American workers for the job," he wrote.

"If these companies don't take the deal, they'll pay a tariff when they send their products—made in another country—to us," Trump wrote.

While Trump's piece was published just hours before the vice presidential debate, it makes no mention of his running mate.

Economists have repeatedly warned that Trump's sweeping tariff proposals will raise costs on American consumers.

— Kevin Breuninger

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who helped Vance prepare for the debate by roleplaying as Walz, predicts a knockout victory for the Ohio senator.

"I'm very confident JD is going to wipe the floor with him," Emmer told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday morning, "because he's going to go back to the economy, the border, crime."

Emmer said he pored over every debate Walz has done since he entered politics, studying the Minnesota governor's favorite phrases and mannerisms.

"My job was to make sure that I showed JD what he's going to do. Tim is going to rely on his folksy personality, this character that he plays. He's not going to get into substance," Emmer said.

— Ece Yildirim

Tensions between Israel and Iran appear to be escalating hours before Vance and Walz take the stage, teeing up an urgent backdrop for any debate questions related to foreign policy.

Iran is preparing to launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel, a U.S. official told NBC News, a sign that the war in Gaza is proliferating into an all-out regional conflict in the Middle East.

So far, Vance supports unconditional military support to Israel, staying in line with the GOP position. He has worked to frame Walz as a radical leftist on the issue. In an August Newsmax interview, for example, Vance said Walz represented "the Hamas caucus of the Democrat Party."

Walz has mainly followed the Harris campaign line, condemning Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel and calling for a cease-fire deal.

Vance could also use the widening Middle East war as a chance to revive his attacks against Walz's military record. Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard but was never deployed to a combat zone, which Vance, a Marine veteran, claimed he lied about.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump hopes immigration will be the main focus of the debate, saying he expects Vance will attack Walz aggressively on that key issue.

"I think he will expose what a scam the governor is, and the president is, in terms of the border," Trump said in a phone interview with NBC News on Tuesday morning.

Trump on the call also reiterated that he has not given Vance any pre-debate advice, saying, "He doesn't need a lot of advice. He's a pro."

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., will be in the "spin room" after the debate to praise Vance's performance, a spokesperson for Vance tells NBC News.

Lutnick, one of the Republican ticket's strongest allies on Wall Street, has also been tapped to help lead Trump's presidential transition team. Earlier this month, Vance headlined a $10,000-a-plate-minimum breakfast fundraiser in New York City co-hosted by Lutnick, CNBC reported.

Stefanik was one of the front-runners to be Trump's vice presidential pick before the former president picked Vance in July.

Vance's other post-debate surrogates will be senior Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Katie Britt of Alabama, and Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, NBC reports.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance and Walz may be debating in Manhattan, but their focus is likely to shift some 600 miles west to Springfield, Ohio, which became the epicenter of a raging political battle after the Republican ticket stoked lies about the city's influx of Haitian immigrants.

In September, Vance repeatedly amplified unsubstantiated rumors about Haitians stealing and eating Springfield residents' pets. He later defended spreading the false claims, at one point telling CNN that he was willing to "create stories" in order to get his message across.

Trump also spread the conspiracies online — and then, in a much-mocked moment from his debate with Harris, falsely claimed, "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs ... they're eating the cats ... they're eating the pets of the people that live there."

Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has repeatedly denounced the claims being spread by Trump and Vance.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance huddled with Republican megadonors at a private dinner in New York on Monday, the eve of his debate with Walz, an invitee to the event tells CNBC.

The senator dined with donors from the America Opportunity Alliance, said the invitee, who was granted anonymity in order to speak about the private event.

The group acts as a network for wealthy Republican financiers and was founded by the likes of longtime investors Paul Singer and Ken Griffin.

Griffin, the billionaire CEO of Citadel, has backed conservative Republican candidates in the 2024 cycle, but he has not publicly endorsed Trump.

The timing of Vance's meeting is crucial for the GOP ticket, which has struggled to keep up with a fundraising surge for Harris since she entered the race in July.

She outraised Trump in August. The vice president's campaign brought in more than $189 million over that time period, while Trump raised about $44 million.

— Brian Schwartz

If past is prologue, the Walz-Vance face-off may as well not even happen — at least according to some analysts, who say it's hard to tell whether vice presidential debates affect the overall race.

But the 2024 cycle has already made confetti of political norms, and there are some genuinely good reasons to think Tuesday's debate might actually matter.

For one, the showdown might be the final time that the two presidential tickets share a stage before Election Day. Trump and Harris debated just once, and the GOP nominee has repeatedly shut down the possibility of squaring off again.

The nominees have also been less visible: Harris has done few interviews since taking the reins in July, and Trump has done far fewer rallies than in his prior presidential runs.

Trump and Harris, meanwhile, are running neck and neck in most of the swing states that will decide the election, polls show. If the running mates can move the needle at all, they might upend the race.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance is playing for more at tonight's debate due to his already low approval ratings, Pimco analysts say in a new report.

Typically, the analysts note, VP debates tend to have a negligible effect on presidential races. But given that this election is set to be won "by a matter of inches, not feet," the running mates' performances tonight may carry heavier weight than usual.

So far, Vance's comments about "childless cat ladies" and debunked claims about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, have put the Trump campaign on several bouts of damage control.

Those blunders and his low approval ratings give Vance "more upside — and potentially more downside as well" in the face-off against Walz, the analysts wrote.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump is slightly favored to win the election, even though Harris is ahead in the polls, according to Stifel Financial's chief Washington policy strategist.

"Based on election fundamentals and comparisons of past election to the current one, we think Trump is in a better position to win the Electoral College vote than some people realize," Brian Gardner writes in a new analyst note.

He points to voters' lingering doubts about the economy and Trump's enduring, albeit shrinking, advantage on the issue. And while Harris currently holds a roughly 2-point lead in the polls, Gardner says that Trump is in a stronger position now than he was in the 2016 election, when he beat Hillary Clinton.

Gardner cites the RealClearPolitics polling average, which in recent election cycles has faced scrutiny over the data it chooses to aggregate.

The analyst also favors Republicans to flip the Senate — which Democrats currently lead 51-49 — but predicts the GOP is more likely to lose its majority in the House.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance fired back at MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle this week for fact-checking his claim that his children "eat about 14 eggs every single morning."

Vance made the statement on Sept. 21 during a campaign stop at a Pennsylvania supermarket, attempting to make a point about high grocery costs under the Biden administration.

Over a week later, Ruhle pointed out in a post on X that eating 14 eggs per day would result in the children eating 98 eggs per week. Vance has three children, ages 6, 4 and 2.

He responded to Ruhle by implying that the egg statement was mere hyperbole, and that the MSNBC anchor was taking the claim too literally.

"One time I said I was so tired I could sleep for days," Vance wrote in his Monday post. "Stephanie Ruhle: Vance, in fact, only slept for 8 hours."

— Rebecca Picciotto

Netflix was hit with a surge in cancellations in the five days after its co-founder and chairman, Reed Hastings, endorsed Harris for president in an X post in July, Bloomberg reported. At the time, Hastings also announced in an interview that he donated $7 million to a pro-Harris PAC.

The rate of cancellations nearly tripled in the U.S. in the days following the endorsement, according to data from market research firm Antenna. July 26, four days after the endorsement, was the single worst day for Netflix cancellations this year.

— Ece Yildirim

Walz has a policy record in Minnesota that some progressives might only dream of.

With a Democratic governing trifecta and a nearly $18 billion budget surplus, Walz has been able to strengthen union protections, invest more than $1 billion in housing resources, pass universal paid family and medical leave, make school lunch free for all students, hike corporate taxes and more.

Walz's policy achievements serve as a proving ground for some of the Harris campaign's economic platform. But his liberal spending record and at-times tense relationship with corporations could also serve as a line of attack for Vance in tonight's debate.

Read more CNBC coverage of Walz's corporate battles and his overall Minnesota track record.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Walz will begin the day in Harbor Springs, Michigan, where he and his team have been since Saturday, preparing for the debate. He will make his way to New York City in the morning.

Like Harris, Walz did his debate prep in a swing state, seizing the opportunity to log a few extra days in a battleground and potentially earn some goodwill among voters there.

Vance flew from Ohio to New York City on Monday afternoon, ahead of tonight's debate.

While Harris has no scheduled campaign appearances for the day, Trump has two in Wisconsin. The former president will deliver remarks at 2:30 p.m. ET at a manufacturer in Waunakee, followed by remarks at 6 p.m. ET at Discovery World Science & Technology Museum in Milwaukee.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance and Walz will face off tonight in New York City, a fitting backdrop for a sparring match that could focus on the economy and high cost of living, which consistently rank as voters' top issues.

New York City is plagued by an ongoing affordability crisis.

As of 2022, the median home price in New York City was $724,000, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The median household income that year was $72,000. As a result, nearly 70% of the population rent their homes.

The office market has also suffered in the wake of the pandemic as remote work policies hollowed out office buildings, leaving some sectors within commercial real estate crumbling.

Still, home to Wall Street and a burgeoning tech sector, New York City's five boroughs comprise the largest economy in the state and one of the largest in the world.

— Rebecca Picciotto

The New York Times editorial board has endorsed Harris for president in an opinion piece, calling her "the only patriotic choice for president."

"It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump," the editorial board wrote, arguing that the former president is "morally" and "temperamentally unfit" for the role.

The piece also criticized Trump's criminal charges and older age compared to Harris, as well as "his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates."

"A second Trump term would be much more damaging and divisive than the first," the editorial board wrote.

— Ece Yildirim