Vance or Walz: who won the VP debate? Our panel responds | Panelists

Walz was solid but underwhelming, while Vance nimbly reset his public image

The first question the vice-presidential candidates were asked in their debate was, frankly speaking, bonkers: Would you support or oppose a pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran?" The vast majority of the globe is waiting for the United States to exercise real global leadership and bring, at a bare minimum, temporary calm to the eastern Mediterranean region. But CBS apparently felt it wiser to ask the candidates whether they supported escalating the war now or escalating the war later.

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC

Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities

LaTosha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter