Abby Phillip’s Brutal Take On Tim Walz’s Debate Performance Focuses On 1 Problem

CNN anchor Abby Phillip pounced on Democrat Tim Walz’s “clear lack of preparation” for his vice presidential debate against Republican JD Vance on Tuesday. (Watch the video below.)

Phillip said the mostly civil showdown was punctuated by Ohio Sen. Vance connecting on his blows, which Minnesota Gov. Walz allowed, she said.

“JD Vance came to this debate to land a bunch of punches, and he did,” she said. “He landed a lot of punches in between all the niceties and all of that. And the thing that really stood out to me was that Tim Walz did not seem prepared for it.”

“He didn’t respond to a lot of the criticisms and attacks that Vance put on the table,” she continued. “He allowed some clear falsehoods to just go completely unanswered. He allowed JD Vance essentially to dodge on a whole host of issues. On climate change. On the issue of his flip-flopping on Donald Trump. He allowed Vance initially to claim that Tump salvaged the Affordable Care Act. It took him several sentences to get to the part of his answer .. where he actually responded to that.”

“I think there was a clear lack of preparation and execution here on Walz’s part,” she concluded.

Vance’s non-Trump behavior may thrown Walz, who was “too nice” and “missed opportunities” to attack his opponent, HuffPost wrote.

Meanwhile, Vance “showed himself to be a smoother and more policy-focused version of Trump,” making his points “without Trump’s seething rage, his divisive and racist language and his uncontrollable narcissism,” HuffPost reported. “At the same time, he lied just as much as Trump.”

Walz did confront Vance on refusing to answer whether Trump lost the 2020 election, but that was not enough for many.

Nearly all of the 13 New York Times columnists and contributors who were asked to analyze the debate gave Vance the victory, with one echoing Phillip’s sentiment. “Vance seemed smoother and more practiced,” Jane Coaston wrote.