It's jd vance versus tim walz, the ohio senator, and the minnesota governor sharing a stage for the first time after weeks of hostility and making the case for their running mates in prime time. I say we get a president who knows what the hell he's doing. I say we get donald j. Trump back in the oval office. We are not satisfied with putting cracks in the glass ceiling. We're pushing president harris through the glass. The vp picks of kamala harris and donald trump are about to be tested as they've never been tested before just five weeks before election day when we fight, we win. It's debate night in america. And cnn's live coverage begins right now political spotlight is on new york city as vice presidential nominees j. D. Vance and tim walz are about to confront one another on the debate stage. We are standing by for the start of what is likely to be a contentious faceoff that could have a unique impact on the 24, 2024 presidential race. It is debate night in america on this special edition of ac360. Welcome. I'm anderson cooper, along with jake tapper in new york. Jake this debate is taking place in the midst obviously, of a new international crisis anderson. Israel is assessing the damage from this major attack by iran with nearly 200 missiles spotting above tel aviv jerusalem and haifa on the west coast of israel. Many of the missiles apparently intercepted by israel, some by the united states. U. S. Officials are monitoring this tense and dangerous conflict. The vice presidential nominees likely have already been briefed on this as well, as they head into their first and only debate. We're soon going to see how ohio republican senator j. D. Vance and minnesota democratic governor tim walz would address the situation in the middle east and other urgent issues as they make the case for themselves and for their running mates. Donald trump and kamala harris this is currently the last agreed to debate of the 2024 presidential campaign, adding to the anticipation tonight with only with election day only five weeks away, five weeks away today, we're going to get some updates from the middle east where our correspondents are standing by with new information. And also here in new york, our anchors, correspondents and analysts are counting down to this debate, which you're going to see live on cnn in less than an hour from now, anderson. And first, this hour, i want to check in with m. J. Lee covering the harriswalz campaign. What more are you hearing about from the walz camp about the governor's strategy tonight well anderson, you know, you'll often hear harris campaign officials saying that j. D. Vance and donald trump have a casual relationship with the truth, that their statements are sometimes unfounded. In reality or facts. And i am told by sources that preparing for potentially false assertions made by vance on the debate stage tonight has been a significant part of walz's debate preparations. Now sources will acknowledge that this is not an easy task. There's certainly no clear playbook on how to navigate this. You know, on the one hand, they feel like some real time fact checking can be really important. But on the other hand, there is a bit of weariness to the governor using his precious time on the debate stage to give unintentionally more oxygen to unfounded claims. And the bottom line, anderson, is that democrats have no idea going into tonight what might end up taking on a life of its own, sort of like the trump's claim after the last debate, that there were haitian migrants in ohio eating people's pets, that obviously ended up becoming a story line of its own, and they simply can't predict what that version of tonight might end up being. Anderson. All right. Now let's go to kristen holmes new reporting on senator vance's strategy. What are you hearing, kristen yeah. Anderson, one of the things that j. D. Vance's team has been preparing him for these potential deflections from governor tim walz, his team, his advisers, believe that of walz's main strengths is disarming his opponent, particularly on the debate stage, using what they call folksy charm that sometimes walz uses this even for deflections in different answers. They were trying to prepare j. D. Vance to deal with that. One of the ways that they did this was by having tom emmer, the house majority whip who played tim walz, who's known him for ten years, study his mannerisms and use them effectively against jd vance during these mock debates to try and disarm him. But i was told by a source earlier today, they believe vance is quote unquote unflappable. Now, as for the former president, i do just want to quickly note that he is getting on his plane shortly to go to texas. He's expected to watch the debate watch vance in real time as he heads down to texas and respond on social media. Anderson. All right, kristen, thanks very much. Over to kaitlan collins now with a look at the rules for tonight's debate. So what are the guidelines that the candidates have agreed to follow yeah anderson, when these two candidates are on stage tonight here in just an hour from now, for the first time in this face to face that they both have spent weeks preparing for. Initially, of course, jd vance thought he would be facing kamala harris on the debate stage, and now he will be facing her vice presidential pick and governor walz. But when they're on this stage tonight expect this to last about 90 minutes. Two commercial breaks that are expected to happen there won't be any cheering from the audience because there will be no audience in the room just like in the last two presidential debates there is not going to be anyone in there watching except for the moderators and a few reporters. Their microphones will not be muted, anderson, but the producers do have the right to to shut them off. If there's too much overlap in the talking to where you can't actually hear what one of the candidates is saying during this debate. The other thing you'll notice is neither one of them is going to bring anything on stage with them. No props are allowed no prewritten notes from either of them on that stage. So they will have a pad and some paper and a pen to write in case they take notes. During that debate but as this gets started, they're going to get straight to the questions. Anderson. There's no opening statements that are expected to happen, but you will see closing statements and because senator vance won a virtual coin toss that cbs news had the other day, he has elected to deliver his closing statement last. So you'll see that back and forth, a very typical debate format where they each have two minutes to answer the question about a minute to respond. We'll see if that actually sticks. Of course, often it gets lost in the shuffle of the actual debate but that is what everyone is going to be watching when the two of these candidates get on stage. They are pretty experienced debaters actually, even though they've never had certainly this level of scrutiny for any of their debates. And, anderson, i will note, i am in what is known as the spin room. This is where surrogates come after a debate happens to spin their socalled and respective candidate's performance. I will tell you, it's more like a storm, a spin closet. It's a very snug in here. So once all of these surrogates are in here, because about each half, five on each side, they'll be in here. One interesting thing to note, anderson senator j. D. Vance himself will be here in the spin room after that debate tonight so we'll hear from him how he thinks he did. Anderson. All right caitlin, thanks very much. Back with the team here in new york. Let's talk about the vulnerabilities of each of these people. First of all, jd vance, he's obviously gotten a lot of childless cat ladies got a lot of attention for the cat comments. I just want to take a look at some of those comments he's made about haitians these false stories he's been spreading about haitians in springfield, ohio, and how it sort of evolved over the weeks. Let's take a look i don't know which. What are the full spate of animals that that are being consumed there in springfield? but i know that geese are certainly among them. And we've heard reports from a number of constituents on the ground that they have had pets abducted by some of the immigrants the american media totally ignored this stuff until donald trump and i started talking about cat memes if i have to. But it wasn't just a meme. Create stories so that the american media actually pays attention to the suffering of the american people, then that's what i'm going to do dana bash i mean, david, is this still a vulnerability for him? i mean, obviously, he thinks this works. Do you think it'll be brought up tonight? you know, i think that they think this is a incendiary thing that will arouse the base. That is not participating right now. They're doing better among voters who are on the sidelines and haven't committed to voting i think this is a strategy. I think it also risks driving people away and one of my questions about this debate is, does waltz use that quality of his that sort of, you know neighborly quality of his to have what, you know, sort of a joseph welch moment? welch was the embarrassed joseph mccarthy in the 50s. And it really started mccarthy's descent and and he said to mccarthy at long last, sir, have you no decency? he wouldn't say it quite that way, but does he challenge vance on what they've inflicted on this town in ohio? well, one thing we've heard from early on particularly was the whole weird idea. Let's play some of that dude. These guys are just weird. These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell. These ideas that they're putting out there they are weird as hell. It's an observation, and i didn't come up with it this is a tool. I'm a teacher and you're trying to get things in. This is the emperor's wearing no clothes obviously, the danger of him using it tonight is something that j. D. Vance can obviously prepare for. Well, right. And i think it's something that actually is super effective on the campaign stump. And it works at, you know, kind of a rally environment. It debates a very different format. I think you'd actually be much better off to litigate the substance of like the haitian migrants eating pets talking about how that's damaging to a community that's there legally, talking about the actual issues and kind of elevating it that's much better for this format but i'm thinking about the fact that donald trump is going to be live truth social ing this, and watching it in real time. J. D. Vance knows he has an audience of one. And so the question is, is he going to play to the general election voters that they actually need to bring over, which means probably not making donald trump the happiest on truth social or play to the truth social viewer watching him look the most important thing that you do in the campaign is you pick who your vice president is going to be and so you can tell a lot about who the president is by the vp, donald trump has picked somebody who's been a flop somebody who's been an embarrassment, someone who is the least popular vice president and maybe the least popular politician in america, and who has no character, who has no decency, who has no integrity, who has destroyed the lives of haitian children, who are being ridiculed, who are whose lives have been negatively impacted by his shenanigans here and so i think coach walz has a responsibility tonight to come out and do exactly what david said this is not acceptable behavior on the part of anybody in our american life. And i'm very glad that you have someone like coach walz who has stood up for underdogs, who stood up for gay kids. He he is used to standing on decency and standing up to bullies. And he's got to do it tonight. David, what do you expect? yeah. So, look, i think at the end of the day, the winner or loser will be determined on who represents their principle. The best. Right. Because nobody's voting for a gentleman. Right? at the end of the day, they're here to defend kamala harris's record and her positions. And donald trump's record in his positions. So nobody cares about the individuals there i mean, they'll, you know, they'll get into the character there will be some attacks, i'm sure, on whether you know, with waltz was in tiananmen square at the time when this went down and not an army supply closet, you know, and and the guard duty, there will be some of those things will come up. The cats and dogs will come up. But at the end of the day, americans want to hear right about those those big bigger issues, the kitchen table issues where immigration, the economy the big things that they care about at home, that's what they want to hear litigated tonight. They don't want to hear the personalities. They'll see a little bit of it. But that's what i think. I'm sure you're right that that's what americans want to hear. But cats and dogs actually was something that donald trump said on a debate stage. And it really speaks to that issue of immigration and trying to inflame people with false narratives and conspiracy theories. And it had an ancillary damage to human beings. The governor of ohio, mike dewine who's i applaud him for this he stood up for the republican governor, stood up for the city of springfield, spent time there. The mayor, republican, stood up for the city. And they don't care. And that that is an issue that is an issue and look, there's a lot of better ways to talk about it, right i'd rather talk about the ice report that just was released on on, you know, the the getaways. There are real issues that we could talk about on immigration. Hopefully we focus on those. There are a lot of bad folks wandering around this country. We don't know where they are right right now. And i think, you know, we should we should talk about that. We should have a debate on those kind of substances. And by the way, they say, one thing we haven't talked about is donald trump's the oldest candidate for president in modern history, and this is one of the least qualified vice presidential candidates. J. D. Vance is a junior senator who's been in the senate just a couple of years. And while i think we're all saying don't underestimate him because he's genuinely a smart guy, this is not somebody who has long credentials, even in the private sector, much less the public sector. So he needs to show up and convince people that a 78 year old president, god forbid, on day one, he could step in and himself be the president of the united states. That's a tall order. You know, those talking points, dave, just just i know another i know another senator who wasn't there too long. Just four years. Both candidates will handle the dramatic escalation in the middle east as iran launches about 200 missiles into israel. Stay with cnn for tonight's debate. We'll be right back hey, mom, how many should i decorate of each? half red, half blue. Ooh that's a really tough call. Who are you? if you look at the latest data you're probably going to need a lot of those purple sprinkles. How this guy really knows his stuff stuff's perfect for fall, right? yep. It fits you all. Now to strengthen roots all winter for a better lawn next spring. How do you know all this? s