The vice presidential debate was much calmer and more conventional than the first meeting of the major party presidential nominees, but California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence nevertheless differed mightily on the issues, launched sharp attacks at each other, and, particularly in the case of Pence, stepped on each others’ allotted time.
Harris assailed the Trump administration on the pandemic, while Pence cast the Democratic ticket as far more radical than advertised.
“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris said of President Trump’s coronavirus response in her first answer Wednesday night. “We need to save our country, and Joe Biden is the best leader to do that. And frankly, this administration has forfeited their right to reelection because of this.”
Harris accused the Trump administration of a coronavirus cover-up, citing veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s recent book. “I want to ask you: How calm were you when you were hunting for toilet paper? How calm were you when your children couldn’t see their grandparents because you were afraid they could kill them?” she demanded.
Pence, who leads the administration’s coronavirus task force, quickly defended Trump’s restrictions on travel from China and pointed out that Biden opposed them. “When I look at their plan that talks about advancing testing, creating new PPE, developing a vaccine, it looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about,” he said.
The vice president also seized on Harris’s skepticism of using a hypothetical vaccine based on Trump’s say-so as opposed to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s. “The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable,” Pence declared. “Senator, I just ask you: Stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
Pence portrayed Harris as the “most liberal senator,” further to the left than Bernie Sanders, and hammered Biden’s economic agenda as derivative of the Green New Deal. “Joe Biden will raise taxes on day one,” he said. Tying Harris to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pence said, “You were the first senator to sign on to sponsor the Green New Deal.”
Pence said that Biden would ban fracking, abolish fossil fuels, and abort the post-lockdown economic recovery with new taxes and regulations. He said 11.6 million jobs have been added back to the economy and hailed the $4 trillion economic relief package Trump signed into law.
“Joe Biden will not ban fracking,” Harris shot back. “That is a fact.” She also argued that Biden wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, prompting Pence to point out they had committed to repealing the Trump tax cuts.
Both Pence and Harris were more selective about when they interrupted than Trump and Biden, though they did not always answer the questions as posed. Neither initially answered questions about abortion. Pence used a question about preexisting conditions under Obamacare to demand to know whether Biden would pack the Supreme Court, a position with little support in a new Washington Examiner/YouGov poll. Harris replied to her question by saying President Abraham Lincoln waited until after an election to fill a court vacancy, in reference to Trump’s election-year nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Wednesday’s vice presidential debate took place in Salt Lake City against the backdrop of Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. The candidates were separated by plexiglass, a feature requested by the Democrats that served as a reminder of the pandemic. Since Trump tested positive for the illness, public polling has shown Biden’s lead expanding. Pence’s task was to try to make the campaign more of a binary choice involving the Democratic ticket rather than just a referendum on Trump.
“Lost the trade war with China?” Pence asked incredulously. “Joe Biden never fought it.” He called Harris, the first black major-party vice presidential nominee and a former prosecutor, and Biden a “great insult” to American law enforcement with their claims of systemic racism. “This is a president who cherishes all of the American people,” Pence said of Trump. He later told Harris, “You did nothing for criminal justice reform in California.”
“I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president on what it means to enforce the laws of the United States,” Harris responded. The senator took issue with the failure to bring charges against police officers involved in Breonna Taylor’s death in Kentucky. Pence defended the grand jury in the case. Both condemned the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, with Harris calling for a ban on chokeholds and Pence dinging Democrats for blocking South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott’s police reform bill.
Otherwise, Harris prosecuted the usual case against Trump, talking about everything from the reported Russian bounties on U.S. service members in Afghanistan to Charlottesville to “isolationism.”
The debate closed with a voter question, read by moderator Susan Page, about the ugliness and incivility in politics. Pence hailed the cross-ideological friendship between the late Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a good example. Harris praised Biden as someone who could reach across the aisle, subtly contrasting his empathy with that of Trump. “Joe Biden has known pain,” she said, alluding to the deaths of family members the Democratic presidential nominee has endured. “He has known suffering. And he has also known love.”
A second presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 15.
