Coach Walz’s Trick Play: Did Vance's Fumble Set Up Jack Smith’s Long Bomb?

Are vice-presidential debates really about fiery exchanges, or is there a deeper, strategic game at play? In this episode of the Keystone Reckoning Podcast, we dive into the recent face-off between JD Vance and Tim Walz, where Coach Walz ran the ultimate trick play—choosing calm and civility over aggression. We unpack how Walz’s calculated performance forced Vance to fumble a key question about Trump’s 2020 election loss. Drawing parallels to historic debate moments like Bentsen vs. Quayle, we break down how Walz’s approach wasn’t just smart, but a potential game-changer, resonating with undecided voters looking for leadership over bluster.

But the real kicker? The play didn’t stop there. The very next day, Special Counsel Jack Smith released a bombshell court filing, reinforcing Walz’s debate strategy by spotlighting Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection. We’ll break down how the Harris-Walz campaign timed this maneuver perfectly, amplifying the stakes and driving media coverage. By keeping the focus on democracy and using strategic restraint, the Democrats may have set the stage to capture voters’ attention in a way that could reshape the 2024 election.

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

Chapters

• 0:30 Presidential Debate Analysis and Campaign Updates
• 13:46 Strategic Political Maneuvering for Attention

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:31

maybe, just maybe, the old coach was running a trick play all along. Hi, welcome to the Keystone Recording Podcast. I'm Jesse White. It is Wednesday, october 2nd 2024.

Speaker 1: 0:45

We are now 34 days from the presidential election and, like anybody I think that would be listening to this podcast, you spent last night watching the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walls, and this general consensus coming out of the debate in the media was that Walls didn't do that great of a job. He didn't light the room on fire and that he let JD Vance get away with an awful lot. And he let JD Vance get away with an awful lot. And I think that's true to some extent, mainly because JD Vance, to anybody that's been following this race, is just such a muppet and we just can't stand him right, like we just can't stand him say anything sycophant, who is just a terrible politician but just obviously not a good person. Anybody that'd be willing to do that just isn't a good person. And Tim Walz, by comparison, has been put out there as America's cool neighbor and all the things that we like about him, and I think we were expecting the kind of dressing down and calling JD Vance out on a lot of things and it didn't happen. And I think at first I thought that it had to do with that. That may not just be who Tim Walls is Right that it had to do with that, that may not just be who Tim Walz is right. He is a respectful guy and he's not going to stand there and get into a shouting match with JD Vance because the thought being that the American people want to see something better. They want to see that we can be civil and cordial and there's some bipartisanship to be had yet in our government, to which I would respond I don't know if that's even true at this point. It's certainly not true with anybody that's a trump supporter.

Speaker 1: 2:40

But we have to also remember the debate wasn't for people like me, it wasn't for magna, it was for that very thin sliver of voters that are undecided or persuadable like that's the audience. That's it. Don't do anything that's going to ruin your own base. Do no harm and try to appeal to that very narrow window of voters, which means, almost by default, the hardcore progressives are going to come away from that feeling disappointed, because what progressives are going to want to see might not be, almost certainly won't be, what undecided voters will want to see. They're two different things and, quite frankly, you've already got my vote, you don't need to earn it again. But if you need to go out and get the vote of the person that's undecided to help you win, I'm cool with that because I know where you're at. I get it, no problem there.

Speaker 1: 3:36

There was a lot of hand-wringing, though, about the fact that jd vance was able to kind of just lie and roll over so many things and really kind of soften his image, and that was the thing that you know, jd vance is just not a good person, and it allowed he. He was able to humanize himself and make him a little himself, a little more personal. I mean, bar was very low, but that was where it's at. But then I had two thoughts. My first thought was this morning and I'm 46 years old I've watched every presidential and vice-presidential debate that I can remember, going all the way back, and I can specifically remember in terms of a vice-presidential debate. I can only think of one moment in one vice presidential debate that I could ever recall being a moment that transcended that debate, that anybody remembered after the debate was over, and that, of course, was the infamous Lloyd Benson-Dan Quayle debate in 1988. And, by the way, do you think, like, is there any chance in hell that Donald Trump would even know who, like Lloyd Benson was Just the name, right? Would he even have a prayer of knowing who? That was Just curious, I mean, it's a bit of a deep cut, but it just struck me as funny. But Dan Quayle, who shared, like he was kind of like a prototype of JD Vance in a way. He was an empty suit, right, dan Quayle wasn't evil like JD Vance is, but he was an empty suit.

Speaker 1: 5:08

And you know, senator from Indiana, and he stood there and the question was would you be ready to assume the presidency if need be, or something like that? And it was basically, are you experienced enough for the job? And he's. His answer, which against most other opponents would have probably worked, was words, words, words. And then he came back and said, to try to make this comparison, I'm as experienced in government as Jack Kennedy was when he won the presidency. And I would imagine just using calling him Jack Kennedy, if you weren't like a friend of his, probably would piss you off anyway. So he gave his answer and Lloyd Benson did, who was a cabinet secretary, I believe.

Speaker 1: 5:54

I even don't know really what exactly. I who was a cabinet secretary. I believe I even don't know really what exactly. I believe he was a cabinet secretary, I'm almost certain of it, and he was an older guy and he had like the kind of big old guy glasses and everything and he stood there real quiet for a minute and he said and I'm going to paraphrase but before they even got to the question, he looks at Quayle and he says, senator, I knew Jack Kennedy, I served with Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was my friend. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy. Boom, boom, great line.

Speaker 1: 6:28

And unless Quayle had used that line somewhere else on the campaign trail and his team got it which I don't know, I'm sure before social media was a lot harder to keep track of what was being said out there If it wasn't a line that Benson knew Quayle was going to use, then that's one of the best pure political, like quick strike responses you'll ever hear in a debate. I mean that was just fantastic. But the point being, it transcended the debate. Obviously. You know Bush and quayle won the election and but he kind of set the wisdom. That damn quayle was a lightweight uh, there was, you know. Then he went like attack, like murphy brown and there's a whole thing about how he misspelled potato, whatever like. Those were simpler days when, like, not being able to spell potato was considered disqualifying. I mean, jesus, that's God. I wouldn't give that back Anyhow.

Speaker 1: 7:17

The point being, to break through in a vice presidential debate is incredibly difficult and Tim Walz, it felt like for the majority of the night, was not going to have that moment, but then he did and you know at this point, if you've watched the debate, you know what I'm talking about. It was the moment where he went on the offense to press JD Vance to acknowledge whether or not Trump lost the 2020 election and JD Vance just absolutely fumbled it. He could not have done it any better in terms of giving Democrats what they wanted in terms of response. He just would not answer it. And Walls, who had been very, again, kind of timid isn't the right word, but deferential almost the entire night was right there with the response. He said that's a damning, non-response response. You know he said that's a that's a damning non-response.

Speaker 1: 8:15

And you know, in a world where these debates are just words, words, words, words and so many words, everybody's talking all over each other. It was one of those rare times where it didn't take much to get the point across and it was definitely a less is more moment. And obviously the harris campaign, you know they were chopping that up, that was, that was the soundbite, that was what they were running with, and rightfully so, and it was a quantity versus quality thing. I would say. I think jd vance scored more glancing blows and accomplished more of what he set out to accomplish and I think he did a very good job of it, quite frankly. But he's slick. I mean, he could do that. But I think if you had it all, when it's all said and done, and you had a choice, would you have rather had the night JD Vance had or the night that Tim Walls had. At the end of the debate I would have maybe said it was a toss-up. I think that as the morning came about, I think you would have said probably leaning Tim Walz.

Speaker 1: 9:26

But then later today happened, and the thing that happened today, just a few hours ago, was Jack Smith released his brief, or the pleading. Well, the court released it. He had filed it under seal. The judge in this is the DC election interference case, the January 6th case, and the argument, the reason the document was filed was, ironically, because of the Supreme Court ruling saying Trump had immunity. It got kicked back down to the judge. The lower court judge said OK, well, make your argument as to why the immunity here doesn't apply. There's, obviously, it's a broad immunity that the Supreme Court has given to Trump. But there's, there's, there was room. And now you get to make the argument as to why. Well, in a way, that kind of really opened it up for Jack Smith because he was then able to do kind of a data dump. It was necessary, he didn't have a choice, but he filed this 165-page document that laid it all out, including evidence that had not been previously released, and the judge had it.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Trump's side had a chance to respond via pleadings. The pleadings were basically it was from the like the Jim Carrey in the movie Liar Liar, and you know he can't tell a lie and he's a lawyer and he objects. And the judge says why are you objecting? And he says because that is devastating to my client. Right, that's what this was. They were like you can't release this because it's going to hurt him in the election. Really, all they had. So the judge released, allowed it to be published into anything wrong by releasing it. It was. You know, it was a docket and it's heavily redacted in in certain things, but there's like an 80 page rundown of kind of what happened on january 6th and all the evidence and it is unbelievably damning and it's really filling in the the coloring book page of what most of us kind of already knew or suspected to be true.

Speaker 1: 11:21

But on January 6th Trump's staffers and advisors came to him and said look, it's over, there's nothing here. They found out that Mike Pence was not going to step in and go with the fake elector strategy, so we're like right up against it now. We're getting right there time-wise and all hell breaks loose. This is after Trump gives his speech. All hell's breaking loose at the Capitol. Trump sits down, is watching TV and his people around and they said you know, mr President, there's a riot going on. This is getting out of hand. I forget the exact words hey, this is for real. Or this is getting out of hand. I forget the exact words hey, yo, this is for real. And they're watching it. And the one advisor says let them riot. Do it Now to be clear that Trump, that is not attributed to Trump and some of the social media and everything are saying that Trump said that he didn't.

Speaker 1: 12:23

No one's claiming that he did, let's be fair but he certainly didn't say no, that's no, that's not cool, right like he was definitely in on it. And it goes to show, maybe more deeply than we've ever seen, just how absolutely brazen and complicit not even complicit how much trump was driving what happened. So obviously that's a major news story and you've got. You know, trump is like unhinged posting on true social like. Even for him, and this clearly you know this is his worst nightmare. That this all comes out before the election, because he knows it's true. Of what would he rather not see would be like real January 6th evidence or like the alleged pee tape. I think he'd have to think about it.

Speaker 1: 13:03

But this is obviously a major issue and anything that they and I think that a lot of we talked about the fake outrage machine and everything that's going on Clearly a lot of it is designed to distract from the real issue. As crazy as it sounds like eating dogs and cats at Springfields, actually they'd rather talk about that than January 6th, because at least they can turn it. You know, it's that thing where if you're at a circus, you better be the ringmaster. Politically, you need to be in control of the narrative. As insane as the narrative might be, if you're controlling it you're doing something. And they've also kind of numbed all of us to this insanity and kind of normalized it all.

Speaker 1: 13:47

But if you think about it, the Harris campaign knew that this had been filed. I mean, it was public knowledge. It was filed a few days ago and the judge had to make a determination on what she was going to put on her seal. Again. The Trump legal team hadn't responded. There were no like gotcha things. Trump's team knew every step of the way. Everybody knew it was coming. Now the Harris campaign I'm sure didn't know verbatim what was in it, but I'm sure didn't know verbatim what was in it. But I'm also sure that you know, as the sitting vice president, forget the campaign. She is privy to quite a bit about what actually happened on January 6th that she can't even talk about. I don't know how she couldn't be, quite frankly, and what I'm sure is coming to them through the campaign and everything else through back channels. I don't think there was a lot of question as to what exactly was going to be in that filing, or maybe about what exactly it would be, but it was a matter of degrees. They knew the broad strokes.

Speaker 1: 14:46

So let me just drop that theory on somebody that this was going to be dropping shortly after the debate, by the nature of when it was all done, and you knew that this is the one issue Trump doesn't want to talk about, is it crazy? Is it crazy to basically tell Tim Walz to go in there and say you know what? Rope it open. Go in there, let him get his little smug comments. Let him lie about his childhood. Let him lie about this. Let him lie about that. Let him get a little overconfident himself.

Speaker 1: 15:30

You need to come out of this debate with exactly one thing Is you need to get him to talk about January 6th and whether or not trump won the election, because that's, that's part one. Get jd vance to get on the record right then and there bring kind of bring it back up to the forefront. That'll tee it up and then when the, when the pleading becomes public, that will absolutely it will destroy any credibility that JD Vance had, despite anything he might have said, and because there weren't a lot of crazy things that came out of the VP debate, the news cycle on. It was going to be shorter, right, if Tim wasn't going in there and start talking about Springfield and eating dogs and cats. That brings that all back up again. If he goes in there and really starts attacking JD Vance and Trump on some of these crazy things, it stirs up that tempest in a teapot again, and then that's what the media will talk about. That's what everybody will be distracted by.

Speaker 1: 16:30

But if Tim Walz went in there and was cordial and civil and didn't throw a tantrum and kind of put everybody to sleep, including his opponent in the debate, because he only needed to come out of there with exactly one thing Maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, but if I knew that filing was about to come out and it would be damning I'd want exactly two things to happen to maximize the attention that it would get. This is due. This is important. I'm not saying other things aren't important, but this is super important Politically and more just for me, making people understand what the hell is going on. The first thing I would want would be some sort of recency to the campaign so they can't act like it happened a million years ago, and JD Vance was clearly ready for that right. We are focused on moving forward. Okay, well, that doesn't change whether or not that happened.

Speaker 1: 17:33

And Vance actually screwed up. He could have said Trump has acknowledged he lost the election recently. I think he could have easily said something like you know, president Trump himself has acknowledged the outcome of the election. I think at this point it's a matter of public record. There wasn't a whole lot you could come back with, but he needs to please daddy so much that he couldn't possibly go against him and imply that he lost the election. So that's the first thing you needed that recency of his own vice president speaking up there on behalf of the campaign. If the one takeaway you're going to get from JD Vance is now that he's a sick of it, right, he is a true believer for Trump or a true disbeliever.

Speaker 1: 18:23

The second thing you would want is and I'll use another sports analogy here is you would want the field cleared right From a narrative and from a media point of view. You wouldn't want a bunch of little non-stories or minor stories to be out there like the low-hanging fruit. What you would want would be everybody all geared up for the fallout from this raucous vice presidential debate that was not at all raucous, and now everybody's standing around with their microphones saying, well, hell, now what do we do? Boom, filing drops, that's it. That is now the news cycle, because now you've got that, now they can go back to what JD Vance just said last night. Then you've got Trump going ballistic over it and what have you done? You've taken the single most important issue of the campaign preserving democracy the single most important campaign issue to undecided voters or people that are on the fence. You have put it front and center and you have now had the top two people on the ticket in Donald Trump and JD Vance. Go in there and reinforce it and validate it, validate their position. That's beautiful, that's a masterstroke. Obviously, no one will ever come out and admit it, and maybe this was just all a series of happy coincidences, and I know they did the bit where they said oh, tim Walz is nervous about debating, but that's typical lower expectation stuff. I mean, yeah, that's all games and shit. I just have to wonder. I was watching last night, couldn't quite figure it all out, and then watching what happened today gives a lot more context and I think that maybe, just maybe a little. Coach Tim may have pulled a play from very, very deep in the playbook, and it's one that may help them ultimately win the game.

Speaker 1: 20:40

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