Vance and Walz met for the only vice presidential debate, which featured detailed discussion of policy.

JD Vance Says He 'Feels Bad' for Tim Walz After Debate

Vance and Walz met for the only vice presidential debate, which featured detailed discussion of policy.

GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance says he "feels a little bad for" Democrat Tim Walz after the candidates faced off Tuesday night in their first and likely only debate.During a campaign rally Wednesday in Michigan, the Ohio senator shifted tone after a relatively cordial debate by attacking his opponent over a gaffe made onstage, then suggested that he pities the Minnesota governor for being Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate.Vance recalled that former President Donald Trump informed him of a debate moment when Walz accidentally said that he had "become friends with school shooters" while recalling his meetings with parents of Sandy Hook elementary school shooting victims as a member of Congress."I actually didn't notice that Tim Walz had said that on the debate stage," Vance told his supporters. "And I said [to Trump], 'That was probably only the third or fourth dumbest comment that Tim Walz made that night then.'"Look, I've got to be honest, I feel a little bad for Governor Walz," he continued. "And the reason I feel bad for him is because he has to defend the indefensible, and that is the record of Kamala Harris."Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris-Walz campaign via email on Wednesday.While it was clear that Walz misspoke about having friendships with "school shooters" when speaking about friendships with the parents of school shooting victims, Trump and other Republicans quickly seized on the gaffe by suggesting that the governor was endorsing gun violence."Walz made a very big mistake on Gun Shooters. Does anyone think he knows what he said?" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform during the debate. "Will he have a News Conference after the Debate to apologize to the parents and others who were so horribly hurt?"The Trump War Room account on X (formerly Twitter) quickly shared a video clip of the debate gaffe, while the Republican Party's official account shared an image of Walz alongside the out-of-context quote.Well into Wednesday, the Trump campaign and many supporters of the former president continued to claim that Walz was friendly toward school shooters.Anti-gun violence advocate Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed in 2018's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, ripped into Republicans for the rhetoric in an X post on Wednesday morning."Does anyone affiliated with Trump have the ability for truth?" Guttenberg wrote. "The @TrumpWarRoom knows @Tim_Walz misspoke & meant he became friends with families affected by school shooters, people like me. If this level of distortion is all they have from last night, then Tim kicked JD's a**."The rhetoric around gun violence was far less contentious during the debate itself. Vance at one point expressed sympathy for Walz after he mentioned that his 17-year-old son, Gus, witnessed a shooting at a Minnesota community center.