WAUKESHA, Wis. — Many Republicans who watched the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night would say Donald Trump’s 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 the backroom of a local burger bar buzzing with resentment — and excitement.
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.
Even in a debate full of tense exchanges over fraught subjects — Israel and Iran, health care and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol among them — nothing got these Republicans quite as fired up as when Vance went after the media.
“And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status … temporary protected status,” 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.
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’t. 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’t be here, some attendees said.
Then Vance pushed back, stopping the moderators from moving onto the next topic, and the room filled with cheers.
“Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check,” he said. “And since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.”
“Yes!” one person yelled as Vance went on about the process for seeking asylum.
Then Brennan stopped Vance and said the candidates’ mics had been cut off, and the assembled Republicans yelled with frustration.
“Oh my god!” one man said, lifting his arms up before letting out a deep sigh.
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 “fake news,” and disparages reporters during his rallies — going so far as to call journalists “the enemy of the people.” And in recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly criticized ABC News’s handling of his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris after they fact-checked him multiple times. He argued it was “highly partisan” and that the moderators were ganging up on him.
Polls showed that most Americans thought Harris won her debate with Trump. The public saw no clear winner in Vance’s clash with Walz, according to a CNN Instant Poll. But Trump still complained about the moderators.
“Another 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’t matter, the Public sees it for what it is – FAKE NEWS!’ Trump posted on Truth Social.
Cindie Zehnder and Cherie Boldt, both sporting pink Trump hats, agreed with the former president’s assessment, and they pointed to Vance’s exchange with Brennan over immigration as the clearest moment of him effectively pushing back.
“It was him against three,” said Zehnder, 64, who is retired. “He didn’t become aggressive but he just stuck to the facts. He didn’t let the lies go unchecked … The moderators were awful. They were terrible. They cut him off when they shouldn’t, when he really got on point of telling the truth.”
Boldt, who owns a public relations and marketing firm, agreed that the moderators were “not being fair at all.”
“Their questions were very biased with the woke agenda,” she said, pointing to Brennan also fact-checking Vance on the issue of climate change, which is real. “They were presenting it as if it were indeed a fact, and it is not a fact.”
Kyle Schroeder, chairman of the Wisconsin Young Republicans, said he felt Vance’s handling of the moderators in that moment — and his broader comments on the need to secure the U.S. southern border — showed he is a strong leader, especially in contrast to the “overall fumbling and bumbling” that came from Walz.
“JD Vance showed leadership, and that’s what we get with Trump and Vance,” Schroeder, 28, said. “And we’ve just seen failures … She had an opportunity as the border czar to lead this country to be safer, and she just hasn’t.”
(Trump, Vance and other Republicans have repeatedly, and falsely, characterized Harris as Biden’s “border czar,” 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.)
Only 11 percent of Republicans trust the media a “great deal” or a “fair amount,” according to a 2023 Gallup poll on the subject. That compares to 58 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Independents.
After Trump’s 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’s claims. So their intervention Tuesday night had many Republicans fuming.
“Of course the Fake News hacks at @CBSNews are only “fact checking” JD Vance, even after they publicly promised they wouldn’t engage in their BS fact checks,” Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, complained on X.
The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, which reviewed claims by both candidates in the debate, found more than a dozen false or misleading statements. Most were by Vance.
