– Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley is confident that Sen. JD Vance of Ohio is ‘absolutely prepared’ for Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate showdown.

Vance, former President Trump’s running mate on the GOP 2024 ticket, will face off in New York City with Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota in the one and only debate between the two running mates.

‘You look at everything he’s done since he was named as the candidate. He’s been preparing, he’s been talking with the press, he’s been out there, he’s been moving around and talking to the American voters. So, he’s very ready to have this conversation,’ Whatley emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview hours ahead of the debate.

A source familiar with Vance’s debate prep told Fox News Digital that over the last month, the senator took part in a series of murder board sessions with his team, where a group of people ask tough questions and have candid discussions to help someone prepare for a difficult examination or test, or in Vance’s case, a vice presidential debate.

According to the source, Vance conducted a mock debate over the past week, with Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the House majority whip, playing the role of Walz. Former Trump administration Treasury Department assistant secretary Monica Crowley played the role of one of the moderators from CBS News, which is hosting the debate in New York City.

Halfway through the mock debate, the power went out, as a strong storm slammed through the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio, where Vance lives and where the prep session was held. But according to the source, who shared the details first with Fox News, Vance and the team continued on, using lanterns for lighting and cellphones for timers.

Heading into the 2024 vice presidential debate, the 40-year-old Vance has been very talkative, sitting for scores of interviews and taking plenty of questions from reporters on the campaign trail. 

Walz, who is 60, has been much more reluctant to speak with the national news media. 

The governor was in debate camp ahead of the showdown to prepare. Walz huddled with advisers and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – who played the role of Vance in mock debates – in Harbor Springs, Michigan, near the northern tip of the state’s lower peninsula.

Also helping out – Walz’s wife – Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz.

Asked on the eve of the showdown with Vance how his wife had been helping him with debate preparation, Walz told reporters, ‘She wins every one.’

With a second face-to-face showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump unlikely – and with a margin-of-error White House race with five weeks until Election Day in November – there will be heightened stakes at the running mate debate, which is traditionally seen as a second-tier event in the presidential campaign.

‘Given that we’re only likely to have one head-to-head match-up between the principal candidates and this is the last meet-up between the two tickets directly before the election, it heightens the importance and significance of this debate,’ longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, told Fox News.

Most political pundits said Harris bested Trump last month in their first and likely only debate. And flash polls of debate watchers agreed. 

So a strong showing by Vance in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate could give Trump a boost. 

And there’s a precedent from 12 years ago.

After a shaky first debate by then-President Barack Obama against 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, then-Vice President Joe Biden’s well-regarded performance in the running mate debate against Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan gave the Democrats’ ticket a big boost.

Whatley, the former RNC general counsel and former North Carolina GOP chair who’s a close ally of Trump, told Fox Digital that Vance’s debate mission is to ‘deliver the message’ to voters across the country.

Whatley argued that ‘if you look at the Democrats, they don’t just have messenger problems, they have message problems. The polices that they’re pushing right now are not popular with the American people…. I think on every single one of these issues, the Republican ticket is the ticket of strength, the ticket of common sense, and I feel really great about where we’re going into tonight.’

The RNC chair also said that when it comes to Vance’s game plan for the debate, ‘I think he’s going to talk about the issues that the voters care about and those are the issues like inflation, like the southern border, like prices at the grocery store and at the gas pump. That’s really what people care about. That’s what we’re going to talk about.’

Part of the Harris campaign’s strategy ahead of the debate is to raise expectations for Walz.

For weeks, they’ve painted Walz as a regular guy who will be facing off with the Ivy League-trained Vance. What they don’t mention is that Walz won six House races and two gubernatorial elections.

The Trump campaign’s playing the same game.

‘Walz is very good in debates. I want to repeat that. Tim Walz is very good in debates. Really good. He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years. He’ll be very well-prepared for tomorrow night,’ Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller told reporters on Monday.

But Trump seemed to undercut this campaign’s argument, charging in an interview with Kellyanne Conway’s Fox Nation program ‘Here’s the Deal with Kellyanne’ that Vance is ‘going up against a moron. A total moron, how she picked him is unbelievable.’

Walz comes into the debate with better poll numbers than Vance.

According to the latest Fox News national poll, Walz was slightly above water with a 43% favorable rating and a 40% unfavorable rating.

Vance stood in negative territory, at 38%-50% favorable/unfavorable.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said he traveled to China much less than he had initially highlighted in congressional hearings and media interviews. 

‘I have been to China dozens of times,’ Walz said during a 2016 congressional hearing. ‘I’ve been there about 30 times,’ Walz told an agriculture-focused publication the same year.

However, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson recently acknowledged to Minnesota Public Radio that the number was ‘closer to 15 times.’ 

The revision comes amid growing scrutiny from GOP critics over Walz’s potential ties to the People’s Republic of China and its ruling Communist Party. Earlier this month, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter renewing pressure on the FBI to produce documents related to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities or officials that Walz has purportedly engaged with in the past.

According to Walz’s own testimony, he first went to China in 1989 amid the Tiananmen Square uprising. Walz was part of the first delegation of American teachers to ever go to the communist nation during the trip. He was a participant in Harvard’s WorldTeach program, which gave Walz the opportunity to live and teach young students in China for a year. 

Walz apparently enjoyed his time in China so much that after transitioning his teaching career to the U.S., Walz continued to take annual trips back to China with his students. Walz eventually set up a company with his wife Gwen, called Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., which was dedicated to taking students on trips to China and other international destinations. The two even honeymooned in China on one of their trips in 1993. Walz’s annual trips with students took place between 1993 and the early 2000s, before he began running for public office.  

Walz and his wife dissolved their student-travel company after he won his seat in Congress in 2006. However, Walz’s China experience was a matter of pride for the now-vice presidential candidate when he was trying to join Congress. 

Walz’s campaign website at the time, for instance, highlighted his work as a visiting fellow at Macau Polytechnic University, a university in China with ties to the CCP. 

‘What we need in education, what we need in the military, and what we need when I’m fostering cultural exchanges with China, is real solutions,’ Walz also said when he debated incumbent GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht in 2006, once again highlighting his work in China.  

However, after Walz became Harris’ running mate this year, Minnesota Public Radio began trying to verify the ‘dozens’ of trips he claimed to have gone on. In the end, they could only verify that about 12 of them had actually occurred. 

When the news outlet reached out to the Harris campaign for documentation proving the rest of Walz’s trips did indeed take place, instead of offering such proof they acknowledged that Walz had previously exaggerated the number of trips he took to China, and it was actually ‘closer to 15 times’ not ‘dozens of times.’   

Besides apparently misrepresenting how many times he traveled to China, Walz has also been accused of misrepresenting his rank in the Army National Guard as well.

‘I’m a retired command sergeant major,’ Walz asserted while running for Congress in 2006. However, while Walz did serve briefly with that rank, he retired too early to keep it. Walz’s retirement also prevented him from deploying to the Middle East, another point of criticism against the vice presidential candidate who has suggested that he saw combat. Meanwhile, it has been alleged that Walz and his wife have made false assertions about their use of IVF as well.  

A former national guard veteran who reportedly served with Walz told talk show host Megyn Kelly that they think Walz is a ‘habitual liar.’

‘He’s a habitual liar. He lies about everything. He lies about stuff that doesn’t make sense.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign but did not hear back prior to publication time.

The Pentagon announced on Monday that it is sending a ‘few thousand’ U.S. personnel to the Middle East to support Air Force squadrons a day after President Biden vowed not to send combat troops to the region. 

Speaking at a press gaggle with reporters on Monday, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the U.S. was sending a ‘few thousand’ more troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to defend Israel, if needed.

Biden gave a firm ‘no’ when asked Sunday if he planned to deploy additional combat troops to the Middle East.

This increased presence is to include multiple warplane squadrons, complimenting the F-15s, F-16s, A-10s and F-22s already stationed in the region. 

The planes were initially supposed to rotate in and replace the squadrons stationed there. Instead, both the current and new squadrons are to remain in place to double the available airpower because of increased tensions in the region and concern that Iran might respond to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s leader last week in Lebanon.

Singh said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ‘increased the readiness of additional U.S. forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies. And DOD (Department of Defense) maintains robust and integrated air-defense capabilities across the Middle East, ensuring the protection of U.S. forces operating in the region.’

The few thousand additional personnel are not combat troops but rather maintenance crews and those who can help with the air defense mission and refueling. The additional forces would raise the total number of U.S. personnel in the region to as many as 43,000.

The Pentagon’s announcement follows word that Israel has already launched limited raids across its northern border into Lebanon amid an anticipated wider ground invasion.

It also follows recent Israeli strikes into Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization and proxy of Iran. Israel is also engaged in an ongoing war in the south against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian terrorist group sparked the conflict with its bloody incursion into southern Israel in October 2023.

Austin announced Sunday he was temporarily extending the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and its embarked air wing in the region. A U.S. official said the extension would be for about a month. 

A second U.S. carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, sailed from Virginia last week and is en route to Europe. It will head to the Mediterranean Sea and again provide a two-carrier presence in the broader region. It’s not expected to arrive for at least another week.

Biden told reporters on Monday, ‘I’m more aware than you might know’ about reports that Israel is planning a limited ground campaign in Lebanon after nearly a year of trading attacks with Hezbollah in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, and he said he wants an immediate cease-fire.

When asked about the reports, Biden said he was ‘comfortable with them stopping’ and that ‘We should have a cease-fire now.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

It’s doubtful that this week’s debate between Vice Presidential nominees Tim Walz and JD Vance will command quite the same attention as the debate between the nominees: Vice President Harris and former President Trump. But historically, tilts between the running mates are often more pugilistic. A lot feistier. More fun to watch. And sometimes, more memorable.

It’s hard to say why the undercard can be more intriguing than the main event. But first round playoff games in hockey are often better matches than the Stanley Cup Finals. I’ve long asserted that the American League and National League Championship Series is generally more competitive baseball than what you experience during the World Series.

Perhaps it has something to do with the vice presidential candidates introducing themselves to the audience. They simply aren’t as well known.

‘Who am I? Why am I here?,’ quipped late Rear Admiral James Stockdale when independent Presidential candidate Ross Perot tapped him as his 1992 running mate.

Stockdale’s folksy line immediately drew laughter and applause from the crowd gathered that night in Atlanta.

‘I’m not a politician. Everybody knows that. So don’t expect me to use the language of the Washington insider,’ said Stockdale from his lectern wedged between future President Clinton’s running mate, then-Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., and Vice President Dan Quayle.

While Gore and Quayle quarreled, their verbal fusillades caromed back and forth in front of Stockdale. He was mostly a mute bystander. At one point, trying to get in a word edgewise, Stockdale abruptly blurted that he felt like he was in the ‘middle of a Ping-Pong’ match.

Later in the debate, moderator Hal Bruno of ABC News asked if mudslinging tactics were ‘necessary’ in the campaign. Stockdale replied he didn’t hear the question.

‘I didn’t have my hearing aid turned on. Tell me again,’ Stockdale requested of Bruno, again triggering howls from the audience.

Sometimes the VP candidates must feel each other out.

‘The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight,’ said then-Vice President Dick Cheney to former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., then John Kerry’s running mate at the 2004 VP debate.

Running mates sometimes try to appear more down-to-Earth than those at the top of the ticket.

‘Nice to meet ya,’ declared former Alaska Governor and 2008 VP nominee Sarah Palin (R) as she shook the hand of then-Senator Biden on stage in St. Louis. ‘Can I call you Joe?’

‘You can call me Joe,’ responded the future president with a smile.

Mr. Biden tried to exude an ‘aw, shucks,’ lunchpail personae in the 2012 VP debate. He deployed lay language when trading barbs with GOP VP nominee and future House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

‘When we look weak, our adversaries are more willing to test us. They’re more brazen in their attacks,’ said Ryan.

‘With all due respect, that’s a bunch of a malarkey,’ countered the future President.

Palin tried the same thing, using phrases like ‘doggone it’ and winking at the audience not once, but four times, to punctuate her responses.

Vice Presidential debates are often stocked with wry humor.

‘If you won’t use any football stories, I won’t tell any of my warm and humorous stories about chlorofluorocarbon abatement,’ promised then-Vice President Gore during his debate with GOP VP nominee Jack Kemp in 1996.

Gore was known for his views on global warming and environmental policy. A former congressman and Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Kemp also starred at quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills in the American Football League before it merged with the NFL.

A lot of people would pay to be a fly on the wall during some of the debate prep. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., has been playing Walz during the sessions with Vance. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has portrayed Vance during his rehearsals with Walz.

But you don’t even have to be a fly on the wall for these debates. Sometimes a fly just shows up – and lands on the head of former Vice President Mike Pence. Such was the case when Pence debated Vice President Harris four years ago in Salt Lake City.

But Vice Presidential debates do grow testy.

Besides the fly, many best remember the 2020 Harris/Pence debate for the Vice President repeatedly declaring ‘I’m speaking,’ beseeching Pence to wait his turn.

Viewers also remember Pence and Democratic VP nominee and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., talking all over one another during their 2016 debate.

In the first televised VP debate in Houston in 1976, GOP Vice Presidential nominee and future Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., depicted World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam were ‘Democrat wars.’ He then added that ‘the pardon of Richard Nixon is behind us. Watergate’s behind us.’

‘I think Sen. Dole has richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man tonight,’ responded future Vice President and then-Sen. Walter Mondale, D-Minn.

And future President George H.W. Bush drew the ire of female voters when he appeared to speak condescendingly to 1984 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-N.Y., – the first woman to ever appear on a major party ticket.

‘Let me help you Miss Ferraro about the difference between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon,’ said Bush.

‘Let me just say, first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy,’ shot back Ferraro.

The congresswoman noted she had served nearly six years in the House by that point.

But one zinger from a Vice Presidential debate is without question one of the best lines in the history of American politics.

During the 1988 campaign, the press corps and some in the public jeered at Quayle as Bush 41’s running mate. His youthful looks and frequent verbal faux pas made Quayle seem unprepared for the job. Quayle was 41 years old at the time. But he had already served nearly eight years in the Senate and four in the House. To compensate, Quayle often spun his youth in the same way that late President ‘Jack Kennedy’ captured the imagination of Americans.

Compared to Quayle, 1988 Vice Presidential nominee and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Tex., presented himself as poised, stately and steady. Bentsen and his handlers were well aware of Quayle’s ‘Jack Kennedy’ comparisons. And so during the debate in Omaha, Neb., Bentsen waited for Quayle to bait his own trap.

‘I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of Vice President of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency,’ said Quayle.

Bentsen pounced.

‘I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,’ said Bentsen.

The auditorium erupted into hales of applause and shouts.

Quayle stewed, staring daggers at his Senate colleague.

‘That was really uncalled for, Senator,’ fumed Quayle.

Bentsen’s line has echoed for decades, lampooned on everything from Saturday Night Live to 30 Rock.

Just one historic footnote. JFK and Bentsen never served together in the Senate. But they were members of the House during the same period in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Running mates have two responsibilities. They must demonstrate that they’re ready to step into the main job. And they aren’t supposed to overshadow the actual nominee. Yet with vice presidential debates, the one-liners often do just that.