CHRIS CRUCIAL: Is JD Vance a really bad VP pick?

PLUS: The debate debate!

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1. The Vance question

The announcement of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as Donald Trump’s vice presidential choice was remarkably under-covered.

And for good reason!

The Vance pick came just two days after an attempted assassination attempt had left Trump bloodied on a Pennsylvania stage. And talk of whether leading Democrats could force Joe Biden off the ballot was at or near its height.

There was, in short, a lot of other stuff to pay attention to!

But now, with Trump mostly recovered and Biden replaced by Kamala Harris as the de facto Democratic nominee, there appears to be a re-examination of and a reckoning around whether the Vance pick actually made sense for Trump.

This, from CNN, speaks to those rising doubts:

Now Vance, chosen by Trump as an heir to his MAGA movement as much as a running mate, is navigating an assignment that seems to be changing on the fly. And he does so with the knowledge that his new boss pays close attention to how his allies and staff perform on television and in public appearances. Trump nearly picked Doug Burgum over Vance in some measure because he thought the North Dakota governor looked the part.

And this from Axios:

Vance's nomination at the GOP convention came at the peak of the party's confidence about the 2024 election, which polls suggested was shaping up to be a potential landslide.

But less than a week later, Biden was out and Harris was in — scrambling the polls and detonating the Trump campaign's assumptions about the electoral playing field.

“The road got a lot harder. He was the only pick that wasn't the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that,” one House Republican told Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his party's VP nominee.

Jamie Dettmer, writing in Politico Europe, was even more blunt:

Presumably, Trump chose Vance as his VP candidate largely to fire up the MAGA base and boost the Republican ticket in Rust Belt states. But that was a choice made when Biden was still heading the Democratic ticket. Now that he’s not, Vance may well become a liability.

Vance’s strict anti-abortion positions of the past, and a string of highly contentious statements he’s made about divorce, implying that women trapped in abusive marriages should remain married for the sake of the kids, aren’t likely to be forgotten. In 2021, he suggested ending marriages that were “maybe even violent” as selfish. “This is one of the great tricks that the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace,” he said. “Making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear.”

What worried me about Vance as a VP pick before Trump decided on him was that he was a media personality for YEARS before he ran for office in 2022. And while much of the media chatter in the run-up to Vance’s selection as VP was that he had once been a critic of Trump, I thought the FAR more worrisome thing — as it related to Vance’s impact on the ticket — was all the other stuff he has said during his long career as a public provocateur of sorts.

Consider the latest controversy surrounding Vance — his previously-unnoticed comment in 2021 that Harris was part of a brand of Democrat he labeled derisively as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable.” (The comment came in an interview with then Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.)

The reaction to that dismissiveness toward Harris, who has two step children but no biological kids, has been swift. Or should I say Swift.

On Wednesday, actress Jennifer Aniston blasted Vance’s comments. “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States,” she wrote on Instagram. “All I can say is…Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”

This is, um, not a narrative that Donald Trump wants out there. He has done everything he can to run away from things like a national abortion ban and he and his team are well aware that women, especially suburban women, may well be the deciding factor in the presidential race.

Now, let me say this before I go any further: Vice presidential nominees VERY rarely make any significant difference in who wins the White House. Yes, Sarah Palin was a terrible VP pick for John McCain in 2008. But is there someone you can imagine McCain picking that would have led to him beating Barack Obama? No way.

At best, VPs help at the margins. (Like, say, how Josh Shapiro could help Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania.) At worst, VPs hurt at the margins.

But, like, this election is likely to be very, very close. Which means the margins just might matter!

Then there’s this: There are only 103 days between today and Election Day. Which means every news cycle matters. (That fact, by the way, is why Biden’s dithering over whether or not to drop his candidacy was seen as so problematic by Democrats.)

And Vance, right now, is making a lot more bad headlines than good ones. And, also some just plain weird headlines:

(The AP, for what it’s worth, retracted the couch sex fact check — can’t believe I just wrote that — because “this story did not go through our standard editing process.” Uh, ok.)

To be clear: Trump is not going to get rid of Vance. The delegates voted on the ticket. Barring some sort of health catastrophe, Vance is the VP nominee. There’s no take-backs when it comes to veep picks.

And Vance could still be additive if he can help make undecided voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin vote for Trump.

This is not, however, how Trump and his team envisioned the first week of Vance’s VP candidacy going. Not even close.

2. The debate debate

Here’s what Kamala Harris and Donald Trump agree on: They are going to debate.

Here’s what they don’t agree on: The when, where and how of the debate.

On Thursday, Harris pushed for Trump to honor the agreement he struck earlier this summer with President Joe Biden to debate on September 10 on ABC.

“He agreed to that previously,” Harris told reporters. “Now, here he is backpedaling and I’m ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Trump and his top aides have insisted previously that he plans to debate Harris — maybe more than once — but have hedged on the ABC debate next month.

“I’m not thrilled with ABC,” Trump said on a conference call with reporters earlier this week. “I guess they committed but I have at least equal say, and I don’t like the idea of ABC.”

On Thursday, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign told Axios this:

“Not only will there be another debate, but there should be multiple debates. We do think there should be some diversification in the outlets for who hosts a debate, but I think the public would be sold short if we only did one debate against Kamala Harris in the general election.”

Earlier this week, Fox News Channel sent letters to the campaigns of both Trump and Harris proposing a general election debate on September 17 in Pennsylvania — moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

My sense is that some sort of debate WILL happen.

Trump believes he can beat Harris in a debate setting (he thinks he can beat anyone!) and that seeing him on stage with her will be a contrast that works for him.

The Harris campaign knows that lots of undecided voters haven’t made up their minds about Harris yet — and that the best way to make sure they know what they would be getting is to stand toe-to-toe with Trump on the debate stage.

The when and what network will be a fight. If I had to guess, I think we get two more debates — one on Fox News and one on broadcast TV. But it’s just a guess!

3. Me and TK

I woke up early this morning to be on “The Tony Kornheiser Show” podcast — my first appearance in the last month or so. We talked about my trip to Cooperstown and my attempt to drink a gallon of milk in an hour. (Yes, I really did try to do that.)

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“In this election we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?” — Vice President Kamala Harris in her first general election TV ad

ONE GOOD CHART

Age has become a MAJOR issue in American politics. Which is why I loved this chart — via Reddit — on how old every governor in the country is.

SONG OF THE DAY

On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan shocked the music world by going electric for the 2nd half of his set at the Newport Folk Festival. Epic.

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