Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz faced backlash on social media after he defended an individual healthcare mandate during a back and forth with his counterpart, Republican Sen. JD Vance, in their first and only debate on Tuesday night. 

“The question about this of young people, whatever, that’s the individual mandate,” Walz said during a conversation on healthcare and the Affordable Care Act at the CBS News debate in New York City. “And Republicans fought tooth and nail saying Americans should be free to do this.”

Vance then interjected, asking, “Tim do you think the individual mandate is a good idea?”

“I think the idea of making sure the risk pool is broad enough to cover everyone — that’s the only way insurance works. When it doesn’t, it collapses. You are asking pre- ACA where we get people out. Look, people know that they need to be on health care. People expect it to be there.”

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN HAS ‘FAILED’ REPEATEDLY ON HEALTH CARE: ANALYSIS

Walz went on to say that the ACA “works” but we can “continue to do better.”

Walz’s comments defending the individual mandate drew criticism on social media, with people pointing out that it was repealed during the Trump administration.

“We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year — forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans,” Trump told an audience during the 2018 State of the Union Address.

“We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare — the individual mandate is now gone,” he added.

7 REASONS TO FEAR KAMALA HARRIS’ RADICAL ‘MEDICARE-FOR-ALL’ SCHEMES

“Tim Walz just endorsed reinstating the Obamacare mandate which was a massive tax penalty for Americans who can’t afford to buy insurance,” GOP Sen. Tom Cotton posted on X. 

“Oh my god, Walz defending the individual mandate,” journalist Josh Barro posted on X. “Does he know there isn’t one anymore?”

“Tim Walz doubles down on his support for Obamacare’s individual mandate tax, by far the least popular part of Obamacare,” Americans for Tax Reform Director Mike Palicz posted on X.

“This would violate Kamala’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400K. Trump Tax Cuts repealed the hated individual mandate tax.”

During the debate, Vance argued, “Donald Trump has said that if we allow states to experiment a little bit on how to cover both the chronically ill, but the non-chronically ill, it’s not just a plan. He actually implemented some of these regulations when he was President of the United States. And I think you can make a really good argument that it salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.”

Fox News Digital reported Monday that Walz has previously voiced his support for single-payer government-run healthcare.

“I think that’s probably the path where we end up,” Walz said in a 2018 debate while running for governor when asked, “Are you for single-payer?”

“And I say that because, be very clear about this, there were no protections for preexisting conditions before the ACA,” Walz continued. “A vote for the ACA was the first time in this nation’s history we had those protections and making sure people have that protection, making sure they were covered, and then making sure we were focused on preventative care, people were finally getting that under the ACA, we started to see health outcomes improve and that’s the real key to driving down insurance premium prices.”

A new Florida law prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside went into effect on Tuesday.

House Bill 1365 prohibits camping on streets, sidewalks and in parks. Local governments are required to offer temporary housing, where individuals will be prohibited from using drugs. They will also be offered substance abuse and mental health treatment.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the law was “absolutely the right balance to strike,” adding: “We want to make sure we put public safety above all else.”

People will also be able to sue counties that do not stop public sleeping. But the law includes a three-month grace period before people can start suing county governments for people sleeping in public.

NEWSOM VETOES BIPARTISAN ACCOUNTABILITY LEGISLATION AIMED AT STATE SPENDING ON HOMELESSNESS CRISIS

The public sleeping ban, however, took effect on Tuesday. Florida estimates it has about 31,000 homeless people.

“To be camping out in public as we are because we can’t find a place to live because the money he makes in his job is not enough for us anymore,” Mildred Forti told CBS News Miami. “This is another stupid law. We will start moving again and looking for a new place.”

Forti said she and her husband have been homeless in Miami for several months.

Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, told CBS News Miami, “We are working feverishly to create more opportunities for shelter and housing.”

“We are looking at setting up a navigation center, which is a step below, if you will, what a normal shelter is,” he said. “We hope to have it operational by the end of the year.”

Book also said his organization plans to move more than 140 people into rental units at the La Quinta Hotel before Dec. 31, 2024, referring to plans to convert the La Quinta Hotel in Cutler Bay into housing for low-income seniors.

“We are building an 8-unit building in Overtown and 190 single-occupancy units for men near Krome,” Book said. “We’ve also identified 80 additional beds for another shelter in the next 30 days.”

BLUE STATE COUNTY BUCKS TRENDS ON HANDOUTS – AND HOMELESS POPULATION CRATERS

Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a social media post that “Homelessness is not a crime.”

Under the new law, local governments can offer county-owned land for people to sleep on as long as they keep it clean and free of crime, and as long as the people staying there are provided access to showers and mental health services.

For approval, the county must prove there are not enough beds in homeless shelters to keep up with the local homeless population and that the camp would not hurt the property value or safety and security of other homes or businesses in the county.

A New Jersey Democrat introduced legislation establishing travel advisories informing women of restrictive abortion laws in other states they may be visiting.

The bill, proposed by state Sen. John Burzichelli, would require New Jersey’s health and state departments to launch a website that would list color codes for states depending on how restrictive their abortion laws are, according to NJ Spotlight News.

“If you’re an individual, a woman, traveling across this country for business — or if you’re thinking about going to school in Mississippi [for instance] — it will help you to know what kind of medical services are available to you should you need emergency care of some kind,” Burzichelli told the outlet.

The color codes under the “Reproductive Health Travel Advisory” are blue, yellow and red.

GEORGIA JUDGE OVERTURNS STATE’S SIX-WEEK ‘HEARTBEAT’ ABORTION LAW, CALLS IT ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL’

Blue would mean women can exercise normal caution and access to abortion would be available without fear of civil or criminal prosecution, and yellow would mean women should exercise increased caution as abortion restrictions could result in civil or criminal prosecution. Red would mean women are urged to reconsider travel because abortion access is extremely restricted and could result in medical issues and civil or criminal prosecution.

“Right now, there’s no single place to go to say, ‘OK I have to travel. I have to go to Texas and then move over and go to Tennessee,'” Burzichelli said. “You don’t have that info at your fingertips. You can find it, but it’s a hodge-podge.”

“You, as an American female, do not have equal rights across all 50 states,” he added. “And it’s important for you to know what rights you don’t have when you go somewhere, because something unexpected could happen.”

JUDGE BLOCKS NY AG LETITIA JAMES FROM TRYING TO SILENCE PREGNANCY CENTERS THAT PROMOTE ABORTION PILL REVERSAL

The proposal comes after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, returning the power to make laws on abortion access back to the states.

Following the ruling, a number of Republican-controlled states enacted laws restricting abortion access, with some exceptions such as in cases of medical emergencies, while some Democrat-controlled states have approved advanced protections of abortion access.

“It’s hard to imagine we’re even talking about this in 2024 in America,” Burzichelli said. “To think that we have to think about even doing this just speaks volumes about where we are at the moment,”

New Jersey expanded access to abortion, enacting statutory protection for abortion as a fundamental right, and the state’s highest court ruled the “fundamental right of a woman to control her body and destiny” is protected under the state’s constitution, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The state also welcomes women who travel from other states for an abortion because their own states have bans in place. Additionally, the Garden State protects them from being extradited after the procedure.

Reactions from conservatives on social media poured in during and following the first and only vice presidential debate on Tuesday night with the majority praising JD Vance for his performance.

“This was a massacre,” Outkick founder Clay Travis posted on X. “JD Vance absolutely destroyed Tim Walz.”

“JD Vance just won big,” conservative commentator Charlie Kirk posted on X along with a video montage of facial reactions by the two candidates. “And it wasn’t even close.”

“Tonight’s debate underscored that the Harris-Walz ticket is the most radical in our nation’s history,” Jessica Anderson, President of Sentinel Action Fund, said in a statement. 

WALZ STUNS INTERNET WITH VP DEBATE GAFFE: ‘I’VE BECOME FRIENDS WITH SCHOOL SHOOTERS’

“As Governor, Walz implemented his far-left agenda in Minnesota, with soft-on-crime policies, authoritarian COVID lockdowns, and support for limitless abortion. As Vice President, he will expand his extremism beyond Minnesota as the unapologetic wingman for Kamala Harris.”

“Vance absolutely crushed it tonight and secured a very bright future in the GOP,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling posted on X.

VANCE RIPS WALZ ON ECONOMY, SAYS HE’S FORCED TO ‘PRETEND’ TRUMP DIDN’T LOWER INFLATION’

“Very proud of JD for a stellar performance tonight,” former presidential candidate Vivek Ramasawmy posted on X. “And my condolences to Tim Walz – it was unkind for them to put him in this position.”

“JD Vance won big and demonstrated why he was a fantastic pick by President Trump,” Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton posted on X. “He skillfully contrasted Trump’s record of peace and prosperity with Kamala’s record of disaster.”

TIM WALZ SAID HE WENT TO CHINA ‘DOZENS’ OF TIMES, NOW HIS CAMPAIGN SAYS ITS ‘CLOSER TO 15’

The Harris campaign released a statement following the debate expressing why it believes that Walz, not Vance, had the strongest night.

“Tonight, Governor Walz showed exactly why Vice President Harris picked him: he is a leader who cares about the issues that matter most to the American people,” Harris-Walz Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. “In the debate, Americans got to see a real contrast: a straight talker focused on sharing real solutions, and a slick politician who spent the whole night defending Donald Trump’s division and failures.”

“On every single issue – the economy, health care, foreign policy, reproductive freedom, gun violence – Governor Walz won. He spoke passionately about the Vice President’s vision for a new way forward for the country. And in what was the most critical moment of the entire debate, which came in its final exchange, he stood up for our Constitution, while JD Vance admitted he’d put Trump ahead of the country.”

O’Malley Dillon continued, “The choice facing the American people in November was on full display tonight: between charting a new way forward, or going backwards. Vice President Harris believes that the American people deserve to see her and Trump on the debate stage one more time. She will be in Atlanta on October 23 – Donald Trump should step up and face the voters.”

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The Trump campaign said in a statement that Vance “unequivocally won tonight’s debate in dominating fashion” in what was “the best debate performance from any Vice-Presidential candidate in history.”

“Senator Vance spoke the truth, eloquently prosecuted the case against Kamala Harris’ failed record, and effectively held Governor Tim Walz accountable for his lies on behalf of the Harris-Biden Administration,” Trump senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said. “Senator Vance also perfectly articulated the Trump-Vance vision to make America safe again with their plan to launch the largest mass deportation operation in history; to make America strong again with a peace through strength foreign policy agenda; and to make America wealthy again by cutting taxes, unleashing American energy dominance, and ending inflation.”

 “Tonight, Senator Vance proved why President Trump chose him as his running mate. Together, they make the strongest and most dynamic presidential ticket ever, and they are going to win on November 5th.” 

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance took the same stage for their first and only vice presidential debate this election cycle on Tuesday evening, when the pair had a handful of fiery clashes over top voter concerns. 

The CBS News Vice Presidential Debate showcased the two vice presidential candidates’ platforms on issues such as the ongoing war raging in the Middle East, abortion laws and their respective tickets’ economic records. Amid the 90-minute debate, Vance and Walz had a handful of clashes, including moderators turning off Vance’s microphone. 

VANCE, WALZ SPAR OVER ABORTION AND IMMIGRATION IN FIRST AND ONLY VP DEBATE 

The CBS debate’s rules included leaving microphones on for both candidates no matter who was speaking, breaking from the two presidential debates this cycle that muted microphones when a candidate was not speaking. The outlet, however, reserved the right to turn the microphones off if they felt it was warranted. 

Moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell did mute the pair Tuesday when Vance spoke up to complain that the moderators were trying to fact-check him on his remarks regarding illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. 

“The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border. It is a disgrace,” Vance said referring to about immigration issues in a city in his home state.

After Vance and Walz both delivered responses regarding immigration, Brennan told viewers that Springfield “does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status.”

Vance took issues with the on-air “fact-check” before he was muted. 

ABC’S LINSEY DAVIS ADMITS FACT-CHECKING OF TRUMP WAS BECAUSE CNN LET HIS STATEMENTS ‘HANG’ AT FIRST DEBATE

“The rules were that you were not going to fact-check, and since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on,” Vance said. “So there’s an application called the CBP. One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in. Applying for a green card and waiting for ten years.”

Moderators tried to quiet Vance before cutting his and Walz’s mics. 

“Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut,” Margaret Brennan said. “We have so much we want to get to.”

Walz was forced to answer questions regarding his travel to China during Tuesday night’s debate. 

Walz has said he was in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets, however, are now reporting that Walz actually did not travel to China until August of that year. 

CBS News moderator Margaret Brennan asked Walz to explain the discrepancy. 

WALZ FORCED TO CORRECT RECORD ON WHETHER HE WAS IN CHINA FOR THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS

“Look, I grew up in a small rural Nebraska town, a town that you rode your bike with your buddies till the streetlights come on, and I’m proud of that service,” a visibly shaky Walz said. “I joined the National Guard at 17, worked on family farms and then I used the GI bill to become a teacher.” 

“I came back home and then started a program to take young people there. We would take basketball teams. We would take baseball teams. We would take dancers. And we would go back and forth to China,” Walz said, noting the trips were “to try and learn.” 

“Look, my community knows who I am. They saw where I was at. I will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community, and I’ve tried to do the best I can, but I’ve not been perfect,” Walz continued. 

“And I’m a knucklehead at times.”

Brennan pushed back, reminding Walz of the question and again asking him to explain the discrepancy. 

“All I said on this was, as I got there that summer and misspoke on this,” Walz said. “So, I will just — that’s what I’ve said. So, I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests, went in and, from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in in governance.” 

OB-GYNS DECRY THE ‘FEARMONGERING’ ABOUT GEORGIA’S ABORTION LAWS: ‘THE LIES ARE HURTING WOMEN’

Walz claimed during the debate that a woman in Georgia likely died due to the state’s “restrictive” abortion laws after Roe v. Wade was overturned, sparking a clash with Vance. 

“There’s a young woman named Amber Thurman. She happened to be in Georgia, a restrictive state. Because of that, she had to travel a long distance to North Carolina to try and get her care. Amber Thurmond died in that journey back and forth. The fact of the matter is, how can we as a nation say that your life and your rights, as basic as the right to control your own body, is determined on geography,” Walz said during the debate while sparring with Vance on abortion laws. 

“There’s a very real chance that if Amber Thurman lived in Minnesota, she would be alive today. That’s why the restoration of Roe v. Wade,” he said. 

Walz’s remarks come after ProPublica published an article last month blaming the deaths of two Georgia women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the state’s new abortion limits after the women received chemically induced abortions in 2022. 

GEORGIA DOCTORS SPEAK OUT TO CHALLENGE MISINFORMATION ON STATE’S ABORTION LAW, DEATH OF AMBER THURMAN

Georgia’s heartbeat law states that “no abortion shall be performed if the unborn child has a detectable human heartbeat except in the event of a medical emergency or medically futile pregnancy.”

Vance shot back that a Minnesota abortion law does not require doctors to save a baby who survives an abortion.

“First of all, governor, I agree with you, Amber Thurman should still be alive, and there are a lot of people who should still be alive. And I certainly wish that she was. And maybe you’re free to disagree with me on this and explain this to me. But as I read the Minnesota law that you signed into law, the statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late term abortion,” he said. 

VANCE, WALZ SPAR ON IMMIGRATION DURING VP DEBATE: BEEN TO THE BORDER ‘MORE THAN OUR BORDER CZAR’

“That’s not true,” Walz said. 

“Choice or not option that is fundamentally barbaric,” Vance continued. 

The pair also sparred over immigration a handful of times throughout the debate, including Vance slamming Vice President Kamala Harris for her handling of immigration. 

“First of all, the gross majority of what we need to do to the southern border is just empowering law enforcement to do their job,” Vance said during a discussion on the Haitian migrant surge in Springfield, Ohio, and immigration overall. 

“I’ve been to the southern border more than our ‘border czar’ Kamala Harris has been. And it’s actually heartbreaking because the Border Patrol agents, they just want to be empowered to do their job.”

Vance continued by saying that, “of course, additional resources would help,” but that the issue is mostly about the Biden administration not empowering law enforcement to say “if you try to come across the border illegally, you’ve got to stay in Mexico” and “go back through proper channels.”

VANCE RIPS WALZ ON ECONOMY, SAYS HE’S FORCED TO ‘PRETEND’ TRUMP DIDN’T LOWER INFLATION

“Now, Gov. Walz brought up the community of Springfield, and he’s very worried about the things that I’ve said in Springfield,” Vance said. “Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed. You’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed. You’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.

Walz repeatedly argued Trump shut down a Senate immigration bill earlier this year that he believes would have made strengthened border security.

“It is law enforcement that asked for the bill,” Walz said. “They helped craft it. They’re the ones that supported it. It was because they know we need to do this. Look, this issue of continuing to bring this up, of not dealing with it, of blaming migrants for everything.

“On housing, we could talk a little bit about Wall Street speculators buying up housing and making them less affordable, but it becomes a blame. Look, this bill also gives the money necessary to adjudicate. I agree it should not take seven years for an asylum claim to be done.”

“This bill gets it done in 90 days. Then, you start to make a difference in this, and you start to adhere to what we know, American principles. I don’t talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 25:40 talks about to the least amongst us, you do unto me. I think that’s true of most Americans. They simply want order to it. This bill does it. It’s funded. It’s supported by the people who do it, and it lets us keep our dignity about how we treat other people.”

The pair of vice presidential candidates also sparred over the threat of censorship on Tuesday, as Walz pressed Vance on the 2020 election and Jan. 6, 2021. 

“It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country. We are going to shake hands after this debate and after this election,” Vance said after Walz cited Jan. 6, when Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol. 

“We have to remember that for years in this country, Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought like $500,000 worth of Facebook ads. This has been going on for a long time, and if we want to say that we need to respect the results of the election, I’m on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had, I don’t buy that, governor,” Vance continued. 

TIM WALZ SAID HE WENT TO CHINA ‘DOZENS’ OF TIMES, NOW HIS CAMPAIGN SAYS ITS ‘CLOSER TO 15’

Walz countered that “Jan. 6 was not Facebook ads.”

“This idea that there’s censorship to stop people from doing, threatening to kill someone, threatening to do something, that’s not that’s not censorship. Censorship is book banning. We’ve seen that. We’ve seen that brought up,” he continued. 

Walz continued that Trump has repeatedly claimed he won the 2020 presidential election. 

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance of Trump during the last election cycle. 

“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance replied. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said. “I’m pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate, it’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.”

“It’s a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship,” Vance shot back. 

The debate was the first and only debate between the pair and was held exactly five weeks before Election Day. 

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller, Brooke Singman, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. 

Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., met face to face on Tuesday night in New York City for the only vice presidential debate before the election. 

The event covered a variety of subjects ranging from immigration to climate change to abortion as the two lesser known politicians sought to make their introductions to American voters before election day. 

Here are the top moments from the debate: 

VANCE, WALZ SPAR OVER ABORTION AND IMMIGRATION IN FIRST AND ONLY VP DEBATE

After CBS News’ Margaret Brennan offered an impromptu fact-check in response to Vance describing cities being overwhelmed by illegal immigration, noting that many Haitians in Springfield, Ohio have been granted a legal status, Vance hit back at her for violating the terms of the debate. 

“Margaret, the rules were that you are not going to fact-check. And since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on,” he said. “So there’s an application called the CBP one app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”

WALZ REPEATS GEORGIA ABORTION DEATH FALSEHOOD DECRIED BY DOCTORS AS ‘FEARMONGERING’

Vance told Walz that he was sorry to hear that his son had been witness to a shooting, in a moment of civility that was particularly frequent during the vice presidential debate. This civility has also been less and less common during presidential debates, which have proven contentious in recent election cycles. 

“I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed a shooting, and I’m sorry about that,” the senator told Walz. 

“I appreciate it,” Walz said. 

“Christ have mercy,” Vance remarked. 

JD VANCE REMINDS CBS MODERATORS OF DEBATE RULES AFTER THEY TRY TO FACT-CHECK HIM

“The American citizens have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’s open border. It is a disgrace, Tim,” Vance said during the debate.

“And I actually think I agree with you,” the Ohio senator said, adding, “I think you want to solve this problem.”

“But I don’t think that Kamala Harris does.” 

Walz claimed there would be “a registry of pregnancies” under what he said was Trump and Vance’s Project 2025. The Project 2025 is an endeavor of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.

“It’s going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, to get contraception and limit access, if not eliminate access, to infertility treatments,” he said. 

But Vance denied this claim. “No, certainly we won’t,” he pushed back at the statement. 

WALZ FORCED TO CORRECT RECORD ON WHETHER HE WAS IN CHINA FOR THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS

Walz referred back to his notes in one answer on Tuesday night, after frequently scribbling down observations during the debate. 

“I made a note of this,” he said. 

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“Economists can’t be trusted. Science can’t be trusted. National security folks can’t be trusted,” he listed, referencing Vance’s skepticism of those heralded as experts. “Look, if you’re going to be president, you don’t have all the answers. Donald Trump believes he does.”

Even Trump poked fun at the noticeable amount of notes that the Minnesota governor was taking, writing on Truth Social, “Walz is taking so many notes – Never seen a Candidate take more! He needs the notes to keep his brain intact.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Television news, with few exceptions, completely botched the unimaginable devastation that struck western North Carolina over the weekend.

Once Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and headed inland, officials assumed it would lose strength. Instead, cities like Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, were hit with an almost biblical level of flooding, leaving a trail of impassable roads and collapsed bridges.

Why was this not the lead story everywhere?

To be candid, North Carolina is just a blip on the radar of the coastal media elites, dismissed as fly-over country. Most news organizations don’t have a single reporter based there.

NORTH CAROLINA REELING FROM DEVASTATING HELENE AS DEATH TOLL CLIMBS: ‘NEVER SEEN ANYTHING QUITE LIKE THIS’

President Biden just put out statements over the weekend, adding to the sense that this wasn’t a Katrina-level crisis. I went to New Orleans eight months after that 2005 storm and was stunned to see mile after mile and after mile of uninhabited suburban homes damaged by the flooding.

Imagine if the same level of flooding hit northern New Jersey, right across from Manhattan. There would have been 500 times as much coverage. In fact, we had a real-life example in Superstorm Sandy, which rightly drew enormous media attention.

Many shows had their B teams in, with few taking charge and ordering a full-scale mobilization on the story.

I was just realizing the magnitude of the destruction on my show when leadoff guest Mary Katharine Ham, who’s from North Carolina, texted me an hour before airtime and pushed to cover the story that was being largely ignored. It was a packed program, but I gave her a couple of minutes to talk about it on “Media Buzz.” 

By Monday, perhaps realizing that they looked terrible, TV outlets shifted gears and started constant coverage of the plight of North Carolina, interviewing local officials and survivors. But their journalists faced the challenge of getting to a mountainous region that was isolated and in some towns all but wiped out.

And yet the New York Times and Washington Post did a terrific job of getting their reporters to produce one front-page story after another from the city of Asheville, an artsy town partially submerged by the monster flooding. 

KAMALA HARRIS’ SOFT MEDIA INTERVIEWS ARE A ‘BETRAYAL OF JOURNALISM’: MARY KATHARINE HAM

As the Times put it, the storm left “at least 37 people dead in the region and communities struggling to cope without water, food, power, gasoline and cellphone service.”

The Washington Post, from Canton, N.C.: “Doris Towers awoke to the beeping of her husband’s dialysis machine early Friday morning, meaning it had lost power. Her neighbor’s Christmas lights, still up from last year, had gone out. Those were early hints of Helene’s destruction to come. She hadn’t known a storm was on the way.

“Across the mountains in Swannanoa, Joe Dancy and Jenna Shaw got up before dawn to walk their dog and saw floodwaters creeping toward their house. An hour later, they were climbing out a window with the help of a National Guard soldier.”

Biden, who will visit North Carolina today – Kamala Harris is also planning a visit–addressed the nation on Monday morning with his trademark empathy: “I’m here to tell every single survivor in these impacted areas that we will be there with you as long as it takes.”

But the president, who kept coughing because of a cold, should have given that speech on Sunday. That would have spurred the journalists into action, because they often follow the White House, and instead left the impression that no one was in charge. 

Donald Trump, meanwhile, visited a shelter in Valdosta, Ga., and said, reading from notes: 

TRUMP LAUNCHES GOFUNDME TO HELP HURRICANE HELENE VICTIMS, RAISES MORE THAN $1M

“As you know, our country is in the final weeks of a hard-fought national election. At a time like this when a crisis hits, when our fellow citizens cry out in need, none of that matters. We’re not talking about politics now. We have to all get together and get this solved.”

The important thing is that Trump, working with Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy, who heads a Christian relief group, brought plenty of supplies.

But the former president didn’t stay on that high road for long. He posted that Biden and Harris “have left Americans to drown in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South.”

FEMA officials have been working furiously – more than 3,300 federal agents are on the ground–and Harris, canceling several events, returned to Washington for a briefing from agency chief Deanne Criswell, and addressed officials there about the “heartbreaking” losses.

Trump also claimed that GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had not been able to reach Biden. But Kemp told reporters he did talk to Biden and the president “offered that if there are other things that we need just to call him directly, which – I appreciated that.”

“He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said. “I don’t know why he does this. I don’t care what he says about me. I care about what he communicates to people that are in need. He implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are.”

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Trump also suggested, without evidence, that the Biden-Harris administration is deliberately not helping Republicans in red counties. 

Perhaps it was inevitable that partisan politics would hijack a crisis that has devastated many southern states. And I’m glad that cable news, having largely snoozed through the weekend, is now all in on the coverage.

Voters in Fox News Digital’s debate dial group had mixed reactions in real time to VP Harris’ runningmate, Gov. Tim Walz’s argument in favor of abortion during the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate against Sen. JD Vance.

When Walz was asked whether he supports abortion up until the ninth month supported as Minnesota is one of the least restrictive states for abortion, he responded, “That’s not what the bill says.”

While Republican voters dipped significantly as Walz spoke, independent and Democratic voters stayed mostly in the approval zone.

WALZ REPEATS GEORGIA ABORTION DEATH FALSEHOOD DECRIED BY DOCTORS AS ‘FEARMONGERING’

“What we did is restore Roe v. Wade, we made sure that we put women in charge of their healthcare,” Walz said.

Independents dipped slightly in approval while Democratic voters shot up during his statement. The two eventually evened out and stayed in the approval zone. 

A VISIBLY SHAKY WALZ SAYS THE WORLD NEEDS ‘STEADY LEADERSHIP’

“This is a basic human right,” he later said.

The independent voters stayed slightly under the Democratic approval line, as Republicans significantly disapproved.

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Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s argument that the U.S. needed to “stop the bleeding” at the border during Tuesday’s debate elicited a mixed response from voters,

“Before we talk about deportations, we have to stop the bleeding,” Vance argued during Tuesday’s debate. “We have a historic immigration crisis because Kamala Harris started and said that she wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies.”

According to Fox News debate dials, which measure how Republican, Democrat, and Independent voters are responding to particular answers by candidates during the debate, the response by Vance received mixed responses.

WALZ REPEATS GEORGIA ABORTION DEATH FALSEHOOD DECRIED BY DOCTORS AS ‘FEARMONGERING’

While Republican views of Vance’s answers had an immediate positive response, Democratic viewers of the debate went in an opposite direction, the dials showed. Independents, meanwhile, hovered around 50% approval with Vance’s answer.

Voters began to see Vance’s response in a more positive light when he touched on former President Donald Trump’s border policies, arguing that the next administration should return to handling the border similar to how Trump did during his four years in office.

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“You’ve gotta reimplement Donald Trump’s border policies, build the wall, reimplement deportations,” Vance said, garnering an improved response from independent voters and a very positive response from Republicans. Meanwhile, Democratic voters remained sour on the Ohio Senator’s answer.

Voters also responded well to Vance’s remarks on deportation, where the Ohio Senator argued in favor of focusing on those who have committed crimes in addition to crossing the border illegally.

“We start with the criminal migrants,” Vance said on deportations, gaining a strongly positive response from Republicans, a mostly positive response from independents, and an improved response among Democratic voters. “About a million of those people have committed some form of crime in addition to crossing the border illegally, I think you start for deportations on those folks.”

A focus group of Republicans, Democrats and independents reacted to former President Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance’s microphone being cut off during the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate on Tuesday night.

Independent and Republican voters disapproved of the interjection, but independent voters dipped significantly when Vance began explaining his stance.

Despite CBS announcing that it would not allow live fact-checking during the debate, moderator Margaret Brennan interjected to correct Vance after he suggested that illegal immigrants are overwhelming public resources in Springfield, Ohio.

JD VANCE REMINDS CBS MODERATORS OF DEBATE RULES AFTER THEY TRY TO FACT-CHECK HIM

ABC DEBATE MODERATORS SPARK FURY FOR AGGRESSIVE FACT-CHECKING OF TRUMP, EASY TREATMENT OF HARRIS

“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.

“The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check,” Vance reminded them. “And since you are fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.”

When Walz tried interjecting, independent approval also decreased for a brief moment. 

While explaining the process of obtaining legal status and tying it to a Harris-backed immigration policy, the moderators again spoke over Vance, thanking him for “describing the legal process” before they cut off his microphone as Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz attempted to argue with him.

When the microphones were cut off, the independent voter dial line can be seen moving in the approval direction as Republican approval decreased slightly. 

Fox News Digital’s Yael Halon contributed to this report.