Moderators: Welcome to the first and only vice-presidential debate of 2024. We won’t fact-check you, but we will ask pointedly whether your opponent wants to do a follow-up in a way that will feel emotionally close to a fact check. One time we will be unable to stop ourselves from saying something.

JD Vance: I think over the course of this evening, Tim, we’ll find that, actually, we’re not so different, you and I. You’re wearing a tie. I’m wearing a tie. You have a flag pin. I have a flag pin. You think that when it comes to abortion, women should have more options. I do, too.

Tim Walz: Freedom and bodily autonomy. Let women and their doctors make the choices. That’s the core of what Vice President Kamala Harris and I believe. But I thought ...

Vance: Exactly, Tim! I just want women to have choices. I know a woman who chose to have an abortion because she felt she didn’t have any options. But she should have had more options. Currently, women only have the option of being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term in a few states. I want them to have that option in every state. Imagine getting to choose from all 50 states where you would get to carry your unwanted pregnancy to term, rather than just Texas or Mississippi.

Walz: Wait a second ...

Vance: I remembered another thing we have in common! We both think that there is a housing crisis.

Walz: Sure.

Vance: And that the solution is making millions more homes available to people.

Walz: Yes!

Vance: Via mass deportations. Because we both believe in the American Dream of homeownership. There’s almost no daylight between us.

Walz: Now hold on. Can we go back to the part where you said that the solution to the housing crisis was mass deportations? Because I don’t think I agreed with that.

Vance: Tim! We both agree that millions more units of housing should be made available to people. We are just disagreeing on how. Semantics...

Moderator: Sen. Vance, you keep saying that the Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are there illegally. But they are not.

Vance: Excuse me! I was told there would be no fact-checking! Wow! I object. You are wrong to say that they were there legally. They were there through a legal process that I disagreed with.

Moderator: That’s what I just said. Gov. Walz, you have said things in the past that you regret, such as that you were in China for the Tiananmen Square protests. Sen. Vance, you, too, said things in the past that you now regret, such as that Donald Trump could be America’s Hitler. Explain?

Walz: I misspoke. I was there that summer. I wish Trump had come with me. I think he’d have learned some things about democracy.

Vance: I also misspoke. I meant to say, “America’s Hitler, but in a good way.” Boy, I put my foot in my mouth!

Moderator: What do you think should be done in response to mass shootings?

Walz: I think we have to do things about guns. My son actually witnessed a shooting at a community center.

Vance: I’m so sorry. Christ have mercy. I hope your son is doing OK.

Walz: Thank you for saying that.

Vance: That’s why I think we need to make school doors lock better. So your son and everyone’s son can be safe from guns, which are unfortunately an inevitable part of American life, like being electrocuted by sharks, or given cancer by a wind turbine, or Trump’s eventual kingship. Because we want our children to be safe from guns. Because we love our children.

Walz: I do love my children. But I think, actually, we can do things about guns.

Moderators: Lastly, what do you think about Jan. 6?

Walz: I think the winner of the election should get to take office and the loser should accept the results peacefully.

Vance: Why, so do I, Tim! My friend, once again, we are in perfect agreement! That’s all Trump and his friends wanted on Jan. 6, 2021. That’s why they were so disappointed in my predecessor, whom I shan’t name lest people remember that it’s a little weird that he’s been replaced.

Walz: The reason Mike Pence is no longer ...

Vance: Listen, I just think we should be free to debate things! What really happened in a presidential election? What options are good for women to have? How fortlike should a school be, given that we must have guns? All these things should be up for discussion between two guys like us. Just two equally normal guys on equally normal tickets with equally normal things to offer the American people. Don’t you agree, Tim?

Walz: I’m beginning to think I don’t.

Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist.