Colby Hall Warns How Excessive ‘Jerkiness’ Could Backfire for Attack Dogs Walz and Vance in VP Debate Preview

Mediaite Founding Editor Colby Hall previewed Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate and warned how Governor Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance’s past — acting as attack dogs for their respective campaigns —  could backfire.

During a NewsNation segment on Sunday, Hall put the matchup between Walz and Vance into context, saying that the debate will be more about the top of the ticket — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — than the two men debating. That said, there was still a chance for Walz and Vance to make the best case for their potential bosses, and there would still be ways for them to succeed or screw up:

Well, I think people most people want to hear sort of positivity. And these are two Midwestern dudes who are sort of genuinely, sort of mutually respectful, but they both kind of entered the national spotlight being almost like “trolly” of the other side. JD Vance kind of cut his bones on Tucker Carlson appealing to the extremely online right side. Tim Walz, his big break was saying that Trump and his surrogates were “weird.” That was his big thing. If they come out and are super mean to one another, I think there’s a high risk, high reward. That could backfire because people, I think, are tired of jerkiness. So we’ll see how that plays.

When it came to policy, Hall said it might not be what viewers are tuning in to see on Tuesday:

I don’t know that people really care about policy. They want to hear goodwill, they want hear sloganeering as much as we mix that up. So, yeah, I do think that Walz and Vance will attack one another over military record and comments about immigrants. But really, it will become, sort of — if it’s a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration, then I think that’s good for Trump-Vance. If it’s a referendum on the Trump administration and his disrupting rhetoric, that’s what Harris and Walz want.

Watch above via NewsNation.