- Democrat, Republican disagree on policies amid light personal attacks.
- Walz attacks Trump for pressure to abandon bipartisan border security bill.
- Vance says why Harris had not done more to address inflation, immigration.
NEW YORK: Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance clashed over immigration, taxes, abortion, climate change and the economy on Tuesday at a vice presidential debate that was heavy on policy disagreements but light on personal attacks.
The two rivals, who have savaged each other on the campaign trail, struck a cordial tone, instead saving their fire for the candidates at the top of their tickets, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.
Vance questioned why Harris had not done more to address inflation, immigration and the economy while serving in President Joe Biden's administration, mounting a consistent attack line that Trump often failed to deliver while debating Harris last month.
"If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle-class problems, then she ought to do them now - not when asking for promotion, but in the job the American people gave her 3-1/2 years ago," Vance said.
Walz described Trump as an unstable leader who had prioritised billionaires and turned Vance's criticism on its head on the issue of immigration, attacking Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to abandon a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
"Most of us want to solve this," Walz said of immigration. "Donald Trump had four years to do this, and he promised you, Americans, how easy it will be."
The debate at the CBS Broadcast Centre in New York began with the escalating crisis in the Middle East, after Israel continued its assault on southern Lebanon on Tuesday and Iran mounted retaliatory missiles strikes against Israel.
Walz said Trump is too "fickle" and sympathetic to strongmen to be trusted to handle the growing conflict, while Vance asserted that Trump had made the world more secure during his term.
Walz, 60, the liberal governor of Minnesota and a former high school teacher, and Vance, 40, a bestselling author and conservative firebrand US senator from Ohio, have portrayed themselves as two sons of America's Midwestern heartland with deeply opposing views on the issues gripping the country.
Trump, watching on television, was posting furiously during the debate, sometimes twice a minute, on his Truth Social site.
