Wednesday, Oct. 30, the William and Mary College Republicans and Young Democrats faced off in a debate, discussing matters of the U.S. economy, immigration, foreign policy and abortion rights.
The “economy” portion focused mostly on Trump’s tariffs and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. There was also disagreement over how immigration and undocumented individuals affect the economy, which transitioned into the next portion. The main point of debate was the amount of crime committed by undocumented immigrants and the issue of mass deportation.
On foreign policy, both sides were asked about their views on the Russia/Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, as well as U.S.-China relations. The College Republicans were also asked to defend Donald Trump despite many of his former military advisers denouncing another Trump term. On abortion rights, the College Republicans attempted to back up their view of every state deciding the law for themselves. There was extensive back and forth between the moderator and the College Republicans on this issue.
This long-awaited debate came after a several year hiatus of the event. The two clubs came together to defend their respective parties’ candidates ahead of the upcoming Nov. 5 presidential election.
James Schilk ’26, a government and public policy major, and Philip Vayntrub ’27, a history major, represented the College Republicans. Frank Herman ’28, a history major, and Phillip Matijevic ’27 stood in for the Young Democrats.
Additionally, Newton Family Professor of Government C. Lawrence Evans from the government department acted as the moderator for the event. Other organizers of the event included Fletcher Nunnelley ’25, a member of the College Republicans, who acted as the decorum officer, and Young Democrats President Brenna Gelormine ’25 was the time keeper.
The debate lasted for roughly two hours, with 30 minutes at the end being allotted for an audience question and answer segment.
Economy
The debate kicked off with Evans asking the two sides why, despite every reliable indicator proving otherwise, Americans still feel as though the economy is doing poorly.
“Unemployment is down 4%. Inflation is down around the same, 4%. Price of gas apparently is going to go nationally, on average, below $3 sometime in the next couple of months or so. Looking at my 401k’s, they’re doing pretty well. The stock market’s humming along. Objectively, the United States economy is doing better than any of our Western counterparts. So the question becomes, why not leave the old guy in charge? Why do we need a new president?” Evans asked.
The Young Democrats approached the question by highlighting President Joe Biden’s actions while in office that have benefited the economy, while criticizing Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign imports.
“What is very important to understand is that in the past four years, the Biden administration has passed a lot of massive investments that take a lot of time to be implemented,” Matijevic said.
He pointed to the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal of 2021. He argued that these bills, signed into law by President Biden, have the potential to have great benefits to the economy, but take time to see outcomes.
At the same time, Matijevic warned of the dangers of Trump’s plan of increasing tariffs on imported goods. If elected, Trump claims he would impose a 10-20% blanket tariff on all imported goods, 60% for goods coming from China, hoping to shift manufacturing jobs to the United States.
Matijevic argued that this plan would only hurt the U.S. economy.
“I mean, every single economist — not every single one — but a large number of them are saying that it’s actually going to cause a GDP decline of 8% and it’s also going to increase inflation,” Matijevic said. “So the real question is why should we take their path?”
When the College Republicans were given the floor to speak, they argued that the Trump tariffs would bring key industries back to the United States.
“China is making our medicine. It’s making our computers. It’s making our cars. Everything that makes life worth living here other than, you know God, you get from China,” Vayntrub said.
Vayntrub also claimed that the current housing crisis is partly contributing to the feelings of financial stress among everyday Americans.
“Home prices have reached 20% and the cost of all goods is up 8.5%. Families are paying $3500 more this year, this is 2022, for basic sets of goods. That’s not good,” he said.
Aside from the general sentiments surrounding the economy, the two sides discussed Medicare and Social Security, raising taxes and the effects of immigration on the economy.
Immigration
The College Republicans attacked the issue of immigration by citing a crisis at the southern border and heightened crime.
On this topic, Vayntrub made a remark which generated jeers from the audience, “But I ask you, what percent of illegal immigrants committed crimes in the United States? Because I’d actually tell you it’s 100%.”
Additionally, Vayntrub argued that the millions undocumented individuals puts a strain on the U.S. welfare system and that Vice President Kamala Harris has not given this issue enough attention during her campaign.
Matijevic, an immigrant himself, described the rhetoric surrounding immigrants coming from the Republican Party as “disgusting.” He also accused Trump himself for contributing to this issue by killing a bipartisan border security bill, which Matijevic claims he did to have a relevant campaign issue.
“Donald Trump killed the bill because he knew that if it was canceled, he would not have an election issue to be reelected,” he said.
Vayntrub described this bill as “a lie.”
“I mean, it’s mentioned in debates constantly,” Vayntrub said. “And I want to remark on it right here. This bill is a lie. It’s like naming something the Clean Water Act, and then all it does is fund Israel and then let more sewage into the lake. That’s fundamentally what it is.”
The conversation shifted to the issue of deportation. The College Republicans expressed support for mass deportation of all undocumented individuals, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.
This caused a great deal of back and forth between Vayntrub and Schilk and Evans.
“Are you gonna deport all the DACA students and all the DACA folks, all the kids who came here as minors and are still here? Are you going to deport all of them?” Evans said.
“I think that what’s going to happen is that anyone that came with legal permission is gonna be allowed to stay, and any one without legal permission is going to be asked to leave,” Schilk said in response.
The Young Democrats responded again with their strategy of attacking Trump’s actions on immigration while he was in office and dispelled the myth that immigrants commit crimes at a rate higher than citizens.
“If you look at the situation that Donald Trump left us, he claims to have lowered immigration, but the immigration rate rose during his tenure and all he did was lower legal immigration by taking it from 60,000 visas issued to people applying, one down to 1000,” Herman said.
Foreign Policy
The foreign policy portion of the debate included the war between Ukraine and Russia, the conflict in the Middle East, and U.S.-China relations.
The College Republicans took a non-interventionist stance on Ukraine/Russia and the Middle East, while at the same time arguing for the U.S. military capabilities to focus more on China.
“Fundamentally, the war in Russia is a war in Europe that concerns Eastern Europe. It does not benefit us in any material way. It does not benefit our national security in any way,” Vayntrub said.
The College Republicans repeatedly argued that the conflicts that are taking place overseas should be of no concern to the United States. On the other hand, the Young Democrats expressed support for the United States continuing aid, both financially and militarily, of Ukraine.
“It’s vitally important that the United States maintains its alliances for the welfare of American citizens. Ukraine is not some random country with a sovereign nation. It’s an American ally,” Herman said.
There was notable tension among the audience when Evans changed the topic to the conflict and humanitarian conflict in the Middle East. The Young Democrats responded first, supporting Harris despite controversy throughout her campaign on her stance on the issue.
“I do believe Harris will be better on this because unlike Donald Trump, she has been pro ceasefire, whereas Trump has been contacting Benjamin Netanyahu and sabotaging ceasefire talks. There have been Israeli and Palestinian hostages that have not been released because of those two men who wish nothing but to have power,” Matijevic said.
Schilk continued with the College Republicans non-interventionist view.
“The point is that both candidates are very clearly pro-Israel. But I think what I think the difference here is about weakness in strength. And we’ve seen in the Biden-Harris administration, they are completely unable to restrain Israel in any meaningful way. It’s not possible. Joe Biden, all he can do is make a bad phone call and then continue to drop billions of dollars in aid for Israel. Fundamentally, what Trump wants is peace, because our greatest strategic adversary is not Iran but China. China is where our orientation should be focused,” Schilk said.
Evans switched the topic to Trump’s fitness to have such immense power over the United States military. He cited how multiple high level military officials who served under the first Trump term have expressed concern over the possibility of a second one. The College Republicans suggested that this is merely a way for them to avoid coming to justice after “betraying” Trump while he was in office.
“Of course they’re going to be concerned once that man who had then betrayed him is back in office. Of course, they’re gonna be a little scared that the chickens are coming home to roost. And accountability is finally going to be had,” Schilk said.
Vayntrub was also given the opportunity to respond. He emphasized that despite all of Trump’s rhetoric, he still supports his purported strength and assertiveness.
Abortion
The final section of the debate before the audience question and answer period was on reproductive rights. The announcement of the section at the top of the debate was met with outbursts of laughter from the audience as there were no feminine-presenting people participating in the debate. Evans elected to carry out his line of questioning in this section by picking one side and then the other and asking specific probing questions. He started first with the Republicans.
“Now, here’s one question I want to ask,” Evans said. “If you are pro-life, I assume you are thinking this is a fundamental, profoundly important, existential, ethical question about the nature of life, so on and so forth. Why do you want to leave it to the States?
“That’s a really good question. So we are very, very pro-life. And we’re actually a little bit disappointed in Donald Trump that he’s not pro-life enough. He’s extremely moderate on this issue,” Vayntrub said in response.
He then touched on why he wanted to devolve power to the states.
“I want the states to decide because I want the people to decide,” Vayntrub said. “You can’t have this federal tyranny where you essentially force people in different states that have absolutely different views on this to conform. It just doesn’t work. It’s not practicable. It’s not realistic.”
Evans continued this line of question by asking about what exceptions they would put in place.
“How much danger does it have to be to a woman’s health before they are willing to allow her to terminate that pregnancy?” Evans posed.
The Republicans responded, “As far as Roe v. Wade goes, I think there should be discussions in the second trimester but the third is clearly evil.”
Evans then turned to the Young Democrats and asked, “Are there any restrictions on reproductive rights or is it open season basically all nine months?”
Herman responded for the Young Democrats.
He started with the fact that five men should not be on stage having a discussion about reproductive rights.
“If you care about children, provide universal pre-K. Provide food and clothing to impoverished families. Abortion is health care. In this country, women are equal citizens to men, and men can make their own health care decisions. Why can’t women? And I’d also like to say I think women should be making these decisions, not politicians,” Herman said.
When given the opportunity to rebut the Young Democrats, Vayntrub stated. “ I mean, I’d love to argue for the cause of pro-life because it’s one of the most prolific of our generation but today I’m arguing for Donald Trump’s platform, which is unfortunately a little different. Donald Trump wants to leave it to the states, whereas the Harris campaign wants to not have any religious exemptions whatsoever, as they would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions or else be shut down. They want extreme abortion. And at the end of the third trimester. That’s not something that Donald Trump wants to tackle. He wants to leave it to be discussed, to be debated.”
When responding to Herman’s claim that abortion is healthcare, Vayntrub again defended Trump’s stance.
“You don’t have a right to murder someone and you can’t just say ‘health care’ and use that as a euphemism to blanket away a vile moral crime. But again, that’s not Donald Trump’s platform. He’s extremely moderate on this,” Vayntrub said.
The Democrats closed out the section on reproductive rights with their rebuttal stating that “if Republicans really believed in the concept of life at conception, there would be no exceptions. Abortion would be equal across the board. But they just wanted to have a political issue.”
They concluded with the belief of the right to choice.
“You can’t force your beliefs to dictate the rights of other people. It’s just a fundamental concept,” the side closed.
Question and Answer and Reactions
The debate concluded with a question and answer portion.
One audience member lined up on the Democratic side of the aisle touched on one question the debate had yet to cover: if the College Republicans condemned the events of January 6 and believed Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 election.
“I mean, it depends. I don’t think it was an insurrection. I think it was a riot that definitely got out of hand. I just don’t buy the idea that a bunch of rednecks tried to take over the government and not bring any guns. That’s totally ridiculous. Like, yes, we totally condemn any violation of the law and so on. But you have to look at it in the context of a summer of riots where people were locked in their homes,” Vayntrub said in response.
Vayntrub accepted Biden as president.
“Now, as for the election, I mean, Joe Biden clearly is the president. He clearly won because he’s sitting in the White House,” Vayntrub said.
He then responded to claims of ballot fraud.
“I don’t think there was huge ballot fraud. I don’t believe in that. What I would say is that if you look at the censorship on Twitter, where you could say it’s a nonsensical story or it doesn’t matter to you, but the objective fact is that the Hunter Biden case was censored. You could say it doesn’t matter but it was so I think that it [the election] actually could have been done a lot more fairly, Vayntrub said.”
After the debate, in an interview with the Flat Hat, Schilk and Vayntrub expressed their satisfaction with the outcome of the debate.
“In general, I think it went great. I think that was amazingly productive. We were way more able to get our position out there than I really, honestly thought,” Schilk said.
The representatives from the Young Democrats were also happy with the debate, but ultimately believed they came out on top.
“I think it went great. I think that they were definitely very calm and collected. But I think ultimately, we had better points. We responded better,” Herman said.
Multiple people, both in the audience and the debaters themselves, saw Evans as a partial moderator throughout the debate.
“Would I say he was fair, not necessarily, but he was also upfront about the fact of where his own political, personal, political opinions lied,” Finley Cochran ’26 said, a member of the audience.
Cochran also expressed disappointment in the lack of gender diversity among the speakers. With the moderator, debaters, decorum officer all being men, there was only one woman directly involved with the logistics during the actual event itself.
“An election cycle where abortion and women’s rights are really the hot button issue, it was just really disappointing that neither side had a woman up there,” Cochran said.
Vayntrub of the College Republicans also noticed Evans perceived bias.
“We had a lot more hard-hitting questions pointed at us, as opposed to the Democratic side. And again, that’s totally fine. We went into this expecting that,” Vayntrub said.
Evans shared his thoughts on the debate with the Flat Hat after the debate, specifically regarding his impartiality and fairness as a moderator.
“I mean, I hope so,” Evans said. “I bent over backwards to be fair. Obviously, I’ve got my own views, you know. But I did bend over backwards to be balanced. And I hope that’s the impression people got.”
