JD Vance faces Tim Walz tonight in New York

In more than an hour of uninterrupted remarks earlier today, Trump revisited his economic promises, rehashed debunked attack lines about his opponent, and even spent several minutes opining on the casting of the film “Full Metal Jacket.”

Yet with the vice presidential debate just a few hours away, Trump made no mention of his running mate or tonight’s face-off.

At the start of his 73-minute campaign speech in Waunakee, Wisconsin, Trump said he would focus on the economy. But he soon began to pinball around to other topics.

He vowed to help survivors of the devastating Hurricane Helene, and thanked Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for responding to his request to bring Starlink internet services to hard-hit areas.

He railed against Harris on foreign policy, the economy, the environment and immigration. In one instance, he falsely claimed she would allow “200 million” undocumented immigrants into the country if she won the election.

At another point, Trump spent about two minutes describing how the late actor and U.S. Marine drill instructor R. Lee Ermey secured his famous role in Stanley Kubrick’s epic Vietnam War film.

“How good was that movie, right? Doesn’t get too much better,” Trump said to some applause.

— Kevin Breuninger

Walz has made free school meals a policy issue in the presidential race — and a topic that could come up at the debate.

For part of the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government offered free school meals to most K-12 students.

But when Congress didn’t extend the policy, Walz, a former teacher, signed a bill in 2023 to provide breakfast and lunch to the Minnesota’s public school students at no charge, regardless of household income.

Seven other states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and Vermont — have also passed laws to create universal free school meal programs, according to the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center.

— Annie Nova

Tonight, Vance might seek to pressure Walz on his running mate Harris’ track record as vice president, Republican National Committee Co-Chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump said today on NBC News Now’s Meet the Press NOW.

“Things like the economy, immigration, those are the top two issues for the American people. I suspect that you are going to hear Tim Walz pressed quite a bit on that again, if not by the moderators, certainly by JD Vance,” Trump said.

Trump added that she’s “sure” that Vance will touch on the recent escalations of the conflict in the Middle East.

Lara Trump went on to tout her father-in-law’s Abraham Accords, which sought to normalize ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations. But Trump’s track record in office on the Middle East isn’t without controversy, especially his decision to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.

— Ece Yildirim

Harris condemned the Iranian missile attack against Israel in brief remarks this afternoon, saying Iran is a “destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East.”

“Today’s attack on Israel only further demonstrates that fact,” she said.

“I fully support President Biden’s order for the U.S. military to shoot down Iranian missiles targeting Israel, just as we did in April. We are still assessing the impact, but initial indications are that Israel, with our assistance, was able to defeat this attack,” Harris said.

“Let us be clear: Iran is not only a threat to Israel,” she said. “Iran is also a threat to American personnel in the region, American interests and innocent civilians across the region who suffer at the hands of Iran-based and -backed terrorist proxies.”

— Josephine Rozzelle

The White House has released a new photo from the Situation Room showing Harris and Biden monitoring the Iranian missile attacks on Israel earlier Tuesday.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance is not a fan of student loan forgiveness.

“Forgiving student debt is a massive windfall to the rich, to the college educated, and most of all to the corrupt university administrators of America,” Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, wrote on X in April 2022.

“Republicans must fight this with every ounce of our energy and power,” Vance wrote.

Vance’s past opposition to the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness proposals could threaten ongoing efforts to reduce or eliminate people’s debts, experts say.

Several of President Joe Biden’s relief measures are currently tied up in court from GOP-led lawsuits, including his redo effort to cancel the loans of tens of millions of Americans and his new affordable repayment plan for borrowers, known as SAVE.

If the Republican ticket wins in November, a Trump-Vance administration is less likely to defend the Biden-era student loan forgiveness plans, experts say.

“Republicans generally oppose student loan forgiveness,” said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. “A Trump-Vance administration is likely to drop the legal defense of the SAVE repayment plan and Plan B for broad student loan forgiveness in the pending court cases.”

— Annie Nova

High-profile Democrats including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will be praising Walz’s performance in the spin room tonight after the debate.

Both Kelly and Pritzker were among those considered for Harris’ VP pick, before the presidential hopeful went with Walz. Kelly, in particular, was a strong contender for the role.

Klobuchar previously ran against both Harris and Biden in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election.

Other post-debate surrogates announced so far by the Harris-Walz campaign include Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a first-term lawmaker and rising star among the Democrats for her knack for creating viral moments, Democratic National Convention Chair Jaime Harrison, and Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance’s vision for health care under another Trump administration is cause for concern for proponents of the Affordable Care Act.

“We’re going to actually implement some regulatory reform in the health-care system that allows people to choose a health-care plan that works for them,” Vance said at a September campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Trump administration would likely expand availability of non-ACA compliant plans, experts say. While former President Donald Trump was in office, for example, enrollment in short-term plans spiked.

Fans of these plans say they allow insurers to offer consumers lower monthly premiums because they’re not required to cover as many services. At the same time, the plans are able to reject people with pre-existing conditions or charge them more. 

The Ohio senator said that they’d “allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools.”

That’s a troubling prospect for the future of the ACA, said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

That’s because the non-ACA compliant plans will “siphon away” younger and healthier people from the ACA marketplace, Corlette said.

“The risk is that you’re going to be left with the ACA plans only serving sick people, and that’s not a sustainable insurance market,” she said. “Over time, ACA premiums will go up and up and up.”

— Annie Nova

The debate will take place against the backdrop of a major dockworker strike, as members of the International Longshoremen’s Association walk off the job at ports along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.

The ILA’s first strike in nearly half a century could have a major impact on global supply chains, adding new weight and urgency to some of the election’s top issues: the economy, wages and labor protections.

A former public school teacher, Walz has touted himself as a “dues-paying, card-carrying member of my teachers union.” As Minnesota governor, he has expanded union bargaining protections for Amazon workers, imposed a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers and passed universal paid family and medical leave.

Vance, who postures as more of a right-wing populist than a traditional conservative, has at times shown hostility to corporate power.

In January, he was one of few Republicans to co-sign a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about the mistreatment of workers. In September, he accused Apple of benefiting from “Chinese slave labor,” adding, “that’s pretty sick.”

But as an Ohio senator, Vance has opposed the PRO Act, a sweeping labor reform bill that would strengthen union protections.

So far, the Harris campaign has secured the endorsement of the United Autoworkers and at least five other national union groups. Notably, the Teamsters decided not to endorse a candidate this year, breaking from its traditional Democratic endorsement.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump in a new op-ed vowed to aggressively wield tariffs to punish manufacturers that do not make their products in the United States.

His op-ed in Newsweek dangled a sweet deal for businesses — low taxes, costs and regulations — but “only if you make your products here in America and hire American workers for the job,” he wrote.

“If these companies don’t take the deal, they’ll pay a tariff when they send their products—made in another country—to us,” Trump wrote.

While Trump’s piece was published just hours before the vice presidential debate, it makes no mention of his running mate.

Economists have repeatedly warned that Trump’s sweeping tariff proposals will raise costs on American consumers.

— Kevin Breuninger

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who helped Vance prepare for the debate by roleplaying as Walz, predicts a knockout victory for the Ohio senator.

“I’m very confident JD is going to wipe the floor with him,” Emmer told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday morning, “because he’s going to go back to the economy, the border, crime.”

Emmer said he pored over every debate Walz has done since he entered politics, studying the Minnesota governor’s favorite phrases and mannerisms.

“My job was to make sure that I showed JD what he’s going to do. Tim is going to rely on his folksy personality, this character that he plays. He’s not going to get into substance,” Emmer said.

— Ece Yildirim

Tensions between Israel and Iran appear to be escalating hours before Vance and Walz take the stage, teeing up an urgent backdrop for any debate questions related to foreign policy.

Iran is preparing to launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel, a U.S. official told NBC News, a sign that the war in Gaza is proliferating into an all-out regional conflict in the Middle East.

So far, Vance supports unconditional military support to Israel, staying in line with the GOP position. He has worked to frame Walz as a radical leftist on the issue. In an August Newsmax interview, for example, Vance said Walz represented “the Hamas caucus of the Democrat Party.”

Walz has mainly followed the Harris campaign line, condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and calling for a cease-fire deal.

Vance could also use the widening Middle East war as a chance to revive his attacks against Walz’s military record. Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard but was never deployed to a combat zone, which Vance, a Marine veteran, claimed he lied about.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump hopes immigration will be the main focus of the debate, saying he expects Vance will attack Walz aggressively on that key issue.

“I think he will expose what a scam the governor is, and the president is, in terms of the border,” Trump said in a phone interview with NBC News on Tuesday morning.

Trump on the call also reiterated that he has not given Vance any pre-debate advice, saying, “He doesn’t need a lot of advice. He’s a pro.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., will be in the “spin room” after the debate to praise Vance’s performance, a spokesperson for Vance tells NBC News.

Lutnick, one of the Republican ticket’s strongest allies on Wall Street, has also been tapped to help lead Trump’s presidential transition team. Earlier this month, Vance headlined a $10,000-a-plate-minimum breakfast fundraiser in New York City co-hosted by Lutnick, CNBC reported.

Stefanik was one of the front-runners to be Trump’s vice presidential pick before the former president picked Vance in July.

Vance’s other post-debate surrogates will be senior Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Katie Britt of Alabama, and Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, NBC reports.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance and Walz may be debating in Manhattan, but their focus is likely to shift some 600 miles west to Springfield, Ohio, which became the epicenter of a raging political battle after the Republican ticket stoked lies about the city’s influx of Haitian immigrants.

In September, Vance repeatedly amplified unsubstantiated rumors about Haitians stealing and eating Springfield residents’ pets. He later defended spreading the false claims, at one point telling CNN that he was willing to “create stories” in order to get his message across.

Trump also spread the conspiracies online — and then, in a much-mocked moment from his debate with Harris, falsely claimed, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs … they’re eating the cats … they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has repeatedly denounced the claims being spread by Trump and Vance.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance huddled with Republican megadonors at a private dinner in New York on Monday, the eve of his debate with Walz, an invitee to the event tells CNBC.

The senator dined with donors from the America Opportunity Alliance, said the invitee, who was granted anonymity in order to speak about the private event.

The group acts as a network for wealthy Republican financiers and was founded by the likes of longtime investors Paul Singer and Ken Griffin.

Griffin, the billionaire CEO of Citadel, has backed conservative Republican candidates in the 2024 cycle, but he has not publicly endorsed Trump.

The timing of Vance’s meeting is crucial for the GOP ticket, which has struggled to keep up with a fundraising surge for Harris since she entered the race in July.

She outraised Trump in August. The vice president’s campaign brought in more than $189 million over that time period, while Trump raised about $44 million.

— Brian Schwartz

If past is prologue, the Walz-Vance face-off may as well not even happen — at least according to some analysts, who say it’s hard to tell whether vice presidential debates affect the overall race.

But the 2024 cycle has already made confetti of political norms, and there are some genuinely good reasons to think Tuesday’s debate might actually matter.

For one, the showdown might be the final time that the two presidential tickets share a stage before Election Day. Trump and Harris debated just once, and the GOP nominee has repeatedly shut down the possibility of squaring off again.

The nominees have also been less visible: Harris has done few interviews since taking the reins in July, and Trump has done far fewer rallies than in his prior presidential runs.

Trump and Harris, meanwhile, are running neck and neck in most of the swing states that will decide the election, polls show. If the running mates can move the needle at all, they might upend the race.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance is playing for more at tonight’s debate due to his already low approval ratings, Pimco analysts say in a new report.

Typically, the analysts note, VP debates tend to have a negligible effect on presidential races. But given that this election is set to be won “by a matter of inches, not feet,” the running mates’ performances tonight may carry heavier weight than usual.

So far, Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” and debunked claims about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, have put the Trump campaign on several bouts of damage control.

Those blunders and his low approval ratings give Vance “more upside — and potentially more downside as well” in the face-off against Walz, the analysts wrote.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Trump is slightly favored to win the election, even though Harris is ahead in the polls, according to Stifel Financial‘s chief Washington policy strategist.

“Based on election fundamentals and comparisons of past election to the current one, we think Trump is in a better position to win the Electoral College vote than some people realize,” Brian Gardner writes in a new analyst note.

He points to voters’ lingering doubts about the economy and Trump’s enduring, albeit shrinking, advantage on the issue. And while Harris currently holds a roughly 2-point lead in the polls, Gardner says that Trump is in a stronger position now than he was in the 2016 election, when he beat Hillary Clinton.

Gardner cites the RealClearPolitics polling average, which in recent election cycles has faced scrutiny over the data it chooses to aggregate.

The analyst also favors Republicans to flip the Senate — which Democrats currently lead 51-49 — but predicts the GOP is more likely to lose its majority in the House.

— Kevin Breuninger

Vance fired back at MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle this week for fact-checking his claim that his children “eat about 14 eggs every single morning.”

Vance made the statement on Sept. 21 during a campaign stop at a Pennsylvania supermarket, attempting to make a point about high grocery costs under the Biden administration.

Over a week later, Ruhle pointed out in a post on X that eating 14 eggs per day would result in the children eating 98 eggs per week. Vance has three children, ages 6, 4 and 2.

He responded to Ruhle by implying that the egg statement was mere hyperbole, and that the MSNBC anchor was taking the claim too literally.

“One time I said I was so tired I could sleep for days,” Vance wrote in his Monday post. “Stephanie Ruhle: Vance, in fact, only slept for 8 hours.”

— Rebecca Picciotto

Netflix was hit with a surge in cancellations in the five days after its co-founder and chairman, Reed Hastings, endorsed Harris for president in an X post in July, Bloomberg reported. At the time, Hastings also announced in an interview that he donated $7 million to a pro-Harris PAC.

The rate of cancellations nearly tripled in the U.S. in the days following the endorsement, according to data from market research firm Antenna. July 26, four days after the endorsement, was the single worst day for Netflix cancellations this year.

— Ece Yildirim

Walz has a policy record in Minnesota that some progressives might only dream of.

With a Democratic governing trifecta and a nearly $18 billion budget surplus, Walz has been able to strengthen union protections, invest more than $1 billion in housing resources, pass universal paid family and medical leave, make school lunch free for all students, hike corporate taxes and more.

Walz’s policy achievements serve as a proving ground for some of the Harris campaign’s economic platform. But his liberal spending record and at-times tense relationship with corporations could also serve as a line of attack for Vance in tonight’s debate.

Read more CNBC coverage of Walz’s corporate battles and his overall Minnesota track record.

— Rebecca Picciotto

Walz will begin the day in Harbor Springs, Michigan, where he and his team have been since Saturday, preparing for the debate. He will make his way to New York City in the morning.

Like Harris, Walz did his debate prep in a swing state, seizing the opportunity to log a few extra days in a battleground and potentially earn some goodwill among voters there.

Vance flew from Ohio to New York City on Monday afternoon, ahead of tonight’s debate.

While Harris has no scheduled campaign appearances for the day, Trump has two in Wisconsin. The former president will deliver remarks at 2:30 p.m. ET at a manufacturer in Waunakee, followed by remarks at 6 p.m. ET at Discovery World Science & Technology Museum in Milwaukee.

— Ece Yildirim

Vance and Walz will face off tonight in New York City, a fitting backdrop for a sparring match that could focus on the economy and high cost of living, which consistently rank as voters’ top issues.

New York City is plagued by an ongoing affordability crisis.

As of 2022, the median home price in New York City was $724,000, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The median household income that year was $72,000. As a result, nearly 70% of the population rent their homes.

The office market has also suffered in the wake of the pandemic as remote work policies hollowed out office buildings, leaving some sectors within commercial real estate crumbling.

Still, home to Wall Street and a burgeoning tech sector, New York City’s five boroughs comprise the largest economy in the state and one of the largest in the world.

— Rebecca Picciotto

The New York Times editorial board has endorsed Harris for president in an opinion piece, calling her “the only patriotic choice for president.”

“It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump,” the editorial board wrote, arguing that the former president is “morally” and “temperamentally unfit” for the role.

The piece also criticized Trump’s criminal charges and older age compared to Harris, as well as “his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.”

“A second Trump term would be much more damaging and divisive than the first,” the editorial board wrote.

— Ece Yildirim