US Vice President debate: Mike Pence and Kamala Harris on COVID-19, China and BLM
Mike Pence called Joe Biden a “cheerleader for Communist China” in the vice presidential debate, while Kamala Harris said she would not take a COVID-19 vaccine endorsed by Trump.
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The first and only US vice presidential debate to take place before the November election couldn’t have been more markedly different than what took place last week.
US Vice President Mike Pence, 61, took to the stage alongside his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris, 55, for the debate in Salt Lake City, Utah, where both candidates to be seated and behind plexiglas.
Mr Pence and Senator Harris nodded at each other in welcome, but did not shake hands.
“We want a debate that is lively, but Americans also deserve a discussion that is civil. We can and will have a respectful exchange about the big issues facing our nation,” moderator Susan Page said following last week’s unruly debate between President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden.
COVID-19 MANAGEMENT
The first question of the evening went to Senator Harris about how a Biden-Harris administration would deal with the COVID pandemic.
“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Senator Harris said, adding the Trump administration had “forfeited” its right to re-election.
Mr Pence, who heads the White House COVID response task force, replied that “hundreds of thousands of lives” had been saved by the Trump administration and said the “Biden plan” was very similar to what Republicans had offered, and went so far as to accuse Biden and Harris of plagiarism.
“We are going to have a vaccine in record time. We have five companies in phase three clinical trials. The fact you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine … if it emerges under a Trump administration, I think is unconscionable,” Mr Pence said.
“Senator I just ask you: Stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
As he continued to focus on the virus response despite the debate moving to the next issue, he criticised the Obama administration’s handling of swine flu in 2009.
Senator Harris summed up much of the world’s COVID experience when she said: “So I want to ask the American people – how calm were you when you were panicked about where you were going to get your next roll of toilet paper?”
On the topic of a COVID-19 vaccine, Senator Harris said, “If the public health professionals, if Dr (Anthony) Fauci if the doctors tell us that we should take it, then I’ll be first in line to take it. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it — then I’m not taking it.”
Mr Pence then congratulated Senator Harris on her VP nomination and she smiled and nodded in appreciation.
“I’m just extremely grateful and was more than a little moved by the broad and bipartisan support and Senator, I want to thank you and Joe Biden for your expressions of genuine concern [shown for the President and First Lady following their positive COVID-19 test]. And I also want to congratulate you, as I did on that phone call, on the historic nature of your nomination.”
CLIMATE CHANGE
At the 30-minute mark, both candidates had already explained more clear policy positions than either of their bosses managed in 90 minutes last week. Is it too late to change the order of the names on the ballot paper?
Mr Pence reminded Senator Harris that during the presidential debates she “said on multiple occasions when you were running for President that you would ban fracking (a gas and oil extraction technique). Joe Biden looked his supporters in the eye and pointed and said I guarantee, a guarantee that we will abolish fossil fuels.”
Fracking is a major issue in some swing states.
Senator Harris confirmed a Biden government would recommit the US to the Paris climate accord and repeatedly stated that under a Biden presidency, fracking would not be banned.
When asked if he believed that climate change poses an existential threat, Mr Pence said, “The climate is changing, we will follow the science.”
He then slammed Harris’s earlier support for the left-wing Green New Deal and said it would cost many energy jobs. “We don’t need a massive $2 trillion Green New Deal.”
Senator Harris responded that more jobs had been lost under the Trump presidency than any other and that the Republicans had “lost the trade war with China”.
CHINA AND THE TRADE WAR
“We’re looking at people who are trying to figure out how they’re going to pay rent by the end of the month. Almost half of American renters are worried about whether they’re going to be able to pay rent by the end of the month! This is where the economy is,” Senator Harris said.
The VP responded: “Look, lost the trade war with China? Joe Biden never fought it. Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for Communist China over the last several decades.”
‘SUCKERS AND LOSERS’
Tempers started to fray at the hour mark as they debated allegations the President had made negative remarks about US troops.
“This is about a pattern of Donald Trump’s where he has referred to our men who are serving in our military as ‘suckers and losers’. He went to Arlington cemetery and stood above the graves of our fallen heroes and said, ‘what’s in it for them?”
Mr Pence responded: “The slanders against President Donald Trump regarding the men and women of our armed forces are absurd.”
SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS
When the discussion turned to conservative Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Mr Pence defended his pro-life position.
“I couldn’t be more proud to serve as Vice President to a President who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life. I’m pro-life. I don’t apologise for it. And this is another one of those cases where there is such a dramatic contrast. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support taxpayer-funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth. Late-term abortion. We will continue to stand strong for the right to life.”
Mr Pence urged Senator Harris to state whether a Biden government would “stack” the supreme court – that is, add seats to be able to put in more left-leaning judges.
She refused to answer the question.
“Joe and I are very clear – the American people are voting right now. And it should be their decision about who will serve on this most important body for a lifetime,” she said.
BLACK LIVES MATTER & LAW ENFORCEMENT
The debate then turned to race relations and the killings of African Americans George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Mr Pence said: “This presumption that you hear consistently from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that America’s systematically racist, that as Joe Biden said he believes that law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities is a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement. I want everyone to know who puts on the uniform of law enforcement every day, President Trump and I stand with you.”
Senator Harris said Mr Trump had refused to condemn white supremacy during last week’s debate.
“This is a part of a pattern of Donald Trump’s, he called Mexicans rapists and criminals. He implemented a Muslim ban. America, you deserve better. Joe Biden will be a president who brings our country together.”
During last week’s debate both Joe Biden and debate moderator Chris Wallace called on Mr Trump to condemn white supremicst groups including Proud Boys. Mr Trump refused, and instead told Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” which was seen by many as a coded dog whistle to the extremist group.
But Mr Pence said the media and his rivals “selectively edit” the President to paint him in a bad light.
“After the President made comments about people on either side of the debate over monuments, he condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and has done so repeatedly. Your concern that he doesn’t condemn neo-Nazis, President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. This is a President who respects and cherishes all of the American people.”
TRANSFER OF POWER
Asked what a winning Biden-Harris team would do if Mr Trump refused to make a peaceful transfer of power, which he has consistently dodged questions over, Senator Harris replied: “If we use our vote and we use our voice, we will win. We will not let anyone subvert our democracy.”
Mr Pence said Mr Trump would win the election, despite the Democrats spending the past three and a half years trying to challenge the 2016 result.
“While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris rattle off a long litany of the establishment in Washington, DC and establishment that Joe Biden has been part of for 47 years, President Donald Trump launched a movement of every day Americans from every walk of life.
“And I have every confidence that the same Americans who delivered the historic victory in 2016, they see the record where we rebuild the military, revive the economy through tax cuts, rolling back regulation, unleashing American energy.”
Finally, both candidates were asked to respond to a viewer question that came from an 8th grade student saying all she saw on the news was fighting between the Republicans and Democrats.
“In America, we believe in a free and open exchange of debate. We celebrate that. It is how we have created literally the freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world,” Mr Pence said.
Senator Harris said, “one of the reasons, at least, Joe decided to run for president is after Charlottesville, which we talked about earlier. It so troubled and upset him, like it did all of us, there was that kind of hate and division. What propelled Joe to run for president was to see that over the course of the last four years.”
She later said, “You have to know Joe’s story to know Joe has known pain, has known suffering, and he has known love. And so when you think about the future, I do believe the future is bright.”
Early reviews in the US say Mr Pence had a very strong night, while Senator Harris was also praised for fighting hard.
The Vice Presidential debate is usually of curiosity value only, a sideshow to the main event, however with the two oldest presidential candidates in US history, there is strong interest in America to see the quality of their alternatives.
Mr Pence has already spent four years as Mr Trump’s VP, while Ms Harris will almost certainly serve only one term on the reserves bench, given Mr Biden will be 81 years old by the time of the next election.
Polls show many Americans believe that Senator Harris will be handed the Presidency before the end of Mr Biden’s first term, if he wins.
Senator Harris and Mr Pence both tested negative to the virus before the debate went ahead.
Unlike last week’s debate, where no members of the Trump family wore masks, everyone in this week’s head-to-head was required to wear a face mask. Just three days after the first of three debates, the President, the First Lady, and a huge number of senior staff and aides who travelled to the debate tested positive for COVID-19.
The Salt Lake City setting was also vastly different to last week’s chaotic presidential debate in Cleveland. On Wednesday (local time), candidates were seated more than four metres apart and separated by a plexiglas barrier.
TRUMP TELLS BIDEN TO ‘QUIT THE RACE’ OVER TREASON CLAIMS
Donald Trump has said Joe Biden must “drop out of the race” after claims “he, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton led a ‘treasonous plot.’”
“Wow!!! NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!!” the President fumed on Twitter.
Wow!!! NOW DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!! https://t.co/hf7zjqZYQ4
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020
“BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN – GOT CAUGHT!!!””
Mr Trump made the comments while retweeting a video claiming that the Democrats were trying to “subvert his election win with fake intelligence and a fake investigation.”
The tweet that the president shared was initially posted in January 2018.
Trump’s comments came one day after he called for Hillary Clinton to be charged and blasted her as a “con artist” after declassifying documents on her email scandal.
The Sun reported that after the news broke that the president had declassified the relevant documents, he started taking direct hits at the former Secretary of State.
Retweeting an article claiming that Clinton “allegedly approved Russiagate falsehood as distraction from email scandal,” Trump insinuated that she should be charged.
“A Disgraceful Con Arist! Charges anyone?” he wrote.
Where are all of the arrests? Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful! https://t.co/w2s8LdiRu0
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020
Trump confirmed the declassification on social media last night, writing: “I have fully authorised the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax.
“Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”
The president was responding to a tweet from conservative journalist Paul Sperry.
Sperry’s tweet read: “When all the documents are finally declassified, and all the redactions removed from reports, the nation will see that the FBI and CIA not only knew the Russia ‘collusion’ allegations against Trump were a political dirty trick, but that they were in on the trick.”
A new letter from Donald Trump’s intel chief said Clinton allegedly planned to “stir up a scandal” against Trump in 2016 – connecting him with Vladimir Putin and Russia.
An email scandal has plagued former Secretary of State Clinton in 2016.