Ryan, Vance debate inflation, abortion, immigration; Early voting begins
By: Reese Thompson
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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WOUB) — With the Midterm election less than a month away, Tim Ryan and JD Vance battled in Youngstown, Ohio for their last debate.
The candidates were asked a variety of tough questions regarding inflation, immigration, and abortion. The night started off with inflation. Both candidates agreed it is a difficult subject for families but disagree on how to fix it.
“I’ve been calling for a tax cut in the short-term to put money in people’s pockets,” Ryan said.
“We need to stop spending money we don’t have,” Vance countered. “Runaway spending is one of the reasons why we have inflation,”
The candidates moved on to the subject of abortion, and Ryan outright wants to stop the national abortion ban.
“We’ve seen how difficult this has been here in Ohio,” Ryan said. “We see a couple of stories every week where women are in difficult circumstances and Ohio healthcare workers won’t take care of them.”
Vance said in a previous debate a 10-year-old girl who was raped, should have a right to an abortion and tied the issue to immigration.
“That little girl was raped by an illegal immigrant, and both the media and Tim Ryan, need to be honest about the fact that she would never have been raped in the first place if Tim Ryan had done his job on border security,” he said.
Vance wants to tighten the borders and believes immigrants are invading the country.
“Your introduction to this country should not be by breaking its laws,” he said. “You should come through by the proper channels.”
With Ryan running on a more moderate platform and claiming he stood up against Nancy Pelosi, Vance wanted to deny this by saying he voted with her 100 percent of the time.
“This guy goes on national TV saying, ‘I love Nancy Pelosi’ and has the audacity of accusing me of kissing anyone’s rear end is pretty rich,”
While Ryan claims Vance is a part of the extremist right wing who believes in the great replacement theory.
“I think it is grounded in the most racial, divisive writings in the history of the world, and this is who he’s running around with,” he said.
The debate closed with personal attacks after Vance accused Ryan of being the reason for negative comments toward his family.
“You’re so desperate not to have a real job, that you’ll slander me and slander my family,” he said. “It’s disgraceful.”
Ryan said that’s not the case.
“I would never talk about your family,” he said, “so don’t try to spin this because you don’t want to talk about the fact that you’re with the extremists.”
At the end of the night despite all the bickering, the candidates met in the middle to shake hands.
Early voting is currently happening through the Athens County Board of Elections.