The showdown between Walz and Vance remained notably cordial throughout the evening, despite their ideological differences. Sanders-Townsend, who previously served as chief spokesperson and senior adviser for Vice President Kamala Harris before joining MSNBC in 2022, remarked that if Walz and Vance share so much in common, it’s puzzling why voters wouldn’t support the Republican ticket, Fox News noted.

“Debates are about performance, and they are about policy. And why this debate was very important is that there are many Americans out there, not just moderate Republicans, there are base Democratic voters that are saying they want to and need to hear more,” Sanders-Townsend said.

“Now, I think it is very fair for people to want to criticize those base Democratic voters who say, ‘Well, what more do you need?’ You can do that. But that is their lived reality, and so if you are trying to win their votes, you have to meet them where they are,” she added. “There were so many niceties on that debate stage tonight, I am just kind of like, well, if you agree so much with J.D. Vance, why should they vote for you?”

She then claimed that both candidates were strategically being dishonest with viewers.

“I fully believe that Gov. Walz went out there tonight and did what was practiced in debate prep, did what the strategy was that the team put together. That was not the Gov. Walz that we — that I had seen out on the campaign trail. That’s not the Gov.Walz that I had seen during the veepstakes, right?” she said.

“That was not the J.D. Vance that I know to be true. I mean, goodness! J.D. Vance was on that stage, he was sorry about Amber Thurman, he was — he was sorry about —a lot of stuff. He said, ‘We get things wrong.’ But do you agree with the policy?” the far-left host added.

Sanders-Townsend, who also hosts a weekend show on MSNBC, ripped CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margret Brennan.

“That’s not the Margaret and Norah that I know! Margaret don’t do that on Sunday morning,” she said.

Following the debate, Walz was roundly critiqued for appearing nervous.

“I think JD Vance strategically went in to do ‘Midwestern nice’ to disarm Tim Walz. And Tim Walz kind of took the bait so he wasn’t in fighting mode. There were some fact checks he could have done that he dropped the ball on,” “The View” host Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former Trump administration official, said, Fox noted.

“Vance was far nimbler than the nervous Tim Walz, especially in the first half of the debate. But as the debate went on, Vance stumbled on two issues — abortion and the 2020 election — where his rhetorical skill could not salvage the very unappealing material he was working with,” Josh Barro, author of the newsletter Very Serious, observed.

CNN dropped a bombshell report about Walz just hours before his highly anticipated debate against Vance on Tuesday.

Walz is under renewed scrutiny for repeatedly and inaccurately claiming that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, according to the outlet. CNN’s K-File investigative team, led by Andy Kaczynski, uncovered audio recordings and prior statements in which Walz referenced being in China during the protests—a claim that has now been shown to be false.