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J. D. Vance has floundered in the day-to-day “retail politics” aspect of the running-mate gig. (Take, for example, his recent strained interaction with a doughnut-shop employee.) But he nonetheless came across lucid at the lectern during last night’s vice-presidential debate.

About half an hour into last night’s vice-presidential debate, the CBS anchor Margaret Brennan turned to Tim Walz and asked a question that the Minnesota governor had to have known would come. “You said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989,” she said, noting that new reporting suggests Walz didn’t go to Asia until months later.

For the second time in less than half a year, Iran has hurled hundreds of missiles at Israel. Although Iran technically launched more weapons at Israel in April, only 120 of those were ballistic missiles—a smaller salvo than the more than 180 ballistic missiles used this time. The drones and cruise missiles used in April were more easily intercepted and shot down by Israeli, American, and European air defenses, working in cooperation with some of Israel’s Arab partners.

In the lead-up to last night’s vice-presidential debate between J. D. Vance and Tim Walz, CBS’s decision not to have moderators provide live fact-checking became a minor controversy. One pundit argued that this amounted to giving the truth-challenged Vance “license to lie,” and many of the Democratic faithful voiced similar complaints on social media. Mother Jones went so far as to precheck the debate. The X account for the Kamala Harris campaign declared: “JD Vance is going to lie tonight.

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Tim Walz stumbled and struggled on the debate stage in New York last night, while J. D. Vance spoke smoothly and effectively.
I’ve known Vance for 15 years. In that time, I’ve witnessed many reinventions of the Vance story, heard many different retellings of who he is and what he believes. Last night, he debuted one more retelling. His performance of the role was well executed. The script was almost entirely fiction.

For more than 90 minutes, J. D. Vance delivered an impressive performance in the vice-presidential debate. Calm, articulate, and detailed, the Republican parried tricky questions about Donald Trump and put a reasonable face on policies that voters have rejected elsewhere. Vance’s offers were frequently dishonest, but they were smooth.
And then things went off the rails.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Donald Trump has long cast himself as Mr. Economy. The former president has claimed on the campaign trail that his last term saw “the best economy in the history of our country.” (He glosses over the economic crisis of 2020.

In the final moments of the last day, some 2,000 people were on their feet, arms raised and cheering under a big white tent in the grass outside a church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. By then they’d been told that God had chosen them to save America from Kamala Harris and a demonic government trying to “silence the Church.” They’d been told they had “authority” to establish God’s Kingdom, and reminded of their reward in Heaven.