JD Vance's Mic Gets Cut During Immigration Question At Vice Presidential Debate

Debate moderators cut off the candidates’ microphones during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate as Republican JD Vance tried to get in a last word about immigration.

Shortly before the cutoff, Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, complained that a debate moderator corrected him when he suggested Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were there illegally.

“The rules that you guys weren’t going to fact check,” Vance said.

It was one of the most chaotic moments during an otherwise civil and polite debate in which both candidates said they believed the other was sincere about solving the country’s problems.

The exchange started when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, called out Vance for repeating false stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating people’s pets. Walz noted that the immigrants had arrived in Springfield legally and that the smears had resulted in terroristic threats against the city and its schools.

“There’s consequences for this. There’s consequences,” Walz said. “I believe Sen. Vance wants to solve this, but by standing with Donald Trump and not working together to find a solution, it becomes a talking point, and when it becomes a talking point like this, we dehumanize and villainize other human beings.”

Rather than recant the smear against the Haitians, the Ohio senator suggested he was making a bigger point about immigration’s effect on towns across the country.

“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