The running mate of former President Donald Trump explained his goal for the debate was to discuss “substance” with U.S. voters and to explain how the country’s current leadership has failed them. When asked if he believed Walz looked nervous at all, Vance said he did not notice since he was nervous himself and was focused on what his opponent was saying.

“To be fair to Tim Walz, he had a very tough job and that is to defend the policies of Kamala Harris,” Vance said in his first post-debate interview on Fox News’s Hannity. “He does, and look, Kamala Harris has done this. Her policy failures have made food, housing, energy unaffordable. We just need a change in this country; we need to get back to the common sense leadership of Donald Trump. I’m not surprised that Tim couldn’t defend that record. Who could?”

Vance added that if he were tasked with defending Harris’s leadership, he would “melt into a puddle” due to how “there’s no defending” the record of the vice president.

In regards to Harris, Trump’s running mate claimed that the vice president mostly avoiding the press is “the most scandalous part of her entire campaign,” which she is running “from a basement.” He also said that people running for office need to earn their position, which includes getting out and talking to voters.

Vance has generally been complimented over his performance at the vice presidential debate, with commentator Bill O’Reilly arguing that the Ohio senator achieved what Trump has so far failed to do and “made himself human.” Regarding Walz, O’Reilly thought Harris’s running mate “wasn’t bad” in his performance, joking he would invite the Minnesota governor to Thanksgiving “but he wouldn’t get dessert.”

CNN’s Abby Phillip has also contended that Vance was able to “land a bunch of punches” on his opponent. She added that Walz suffered from a “lack of preparation” for the debate, arguing that he allowed Vance to dodge some questions.