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Ohio senate candidate J.D. Vance joked about the easy questions he was receiving during a forum hosted by Fox News in Columbus on Tuesday.
While Tim Ryan and Vance are both campaigning for the same position, rather than debating one another, they answered questioned from the public and the Fox News moderators for 22 minutes each on national television.
The debate's moderators, Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, rarely questioned Vance to go into further detail following his answers, however. A report on the forum by the Ohio newspaper, Cleveland.com, went as far to suggest that Vance got "kid gloves" during the evening.
In one instance during the debate, Baier appeared to help Vance to better appeal to voters by prompting him to speak about his military service.
During the forum, Vance was asked by an audience member to speak about the most challenging manual labor job he ever had and what he learned from it.
Vance then proceeded to recount his time working for a tile-distribution company after college. He said his experience with this allowed him to see firsthand the idea that those who work manual labor are not smart is incorrect.
He was also able to express his own feelings towards jobs in America. Vance noted that he wanted to push the idea that regardless of where you came from, you get to live a happy and successful life.
After his answer, Baier mentioned that Vance had also served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Iraq war.
Vance then began laughing and joked "You actually gave me a softball," as he gestured towards the woman who asked him the question.
He then said: "What I should have talked about was the Marine Corps."
Speaking on his time in the military, Vance remarked it taught him the importance of unity and that regardless of differences, people can accomplish many things together.
This stance of unity, even political unity and respect despite differing opinions, differed significantly from his stance in the U.S. Senate primary, according to the Cleveland.com report.
The report said he had pledged to aggressively investigate Democrats, including the handling of the January 6 U.S Capitol rioters, and backed the firing of tens of thousands of government employees.
Comparatively, when speaking about the issues of abortion, crime and inflation, both Baier and MacCallum pressed Ryan for significantly more detail.
When speaking about abortion, Ryan was asked by Baier what his limit would be on abortion as Ohio's current law allows an abortion up to 22 weeks into the pregnancy.
Ryan responded by stating that he believed if the pregnancy is later in the term, the only reason for abortion should be a medical emergency.
However, Baier continued to press Ryan to give more details and put a specific number on how late he would allow an abortion.
Ryan responded that Ohio should go back to the rules of Roe v. Wade. MacCallum then chimed in to note that 22 weeks was more than five months and that was a long time to remain pregnant without getting an abortion if one was wanted.
Ryan defended his position by saying in some instances, a woman would not know there are potential medical issues that could arise until later in the pregnancy.
He closed by saying that this was the largest government overreach into the private lives of its citizens and this needed to change.
Newsweek has contacted Fox News and J.D. Vance for comment.
About the writer
Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more