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(CNN) – It was the same debate from last week, but decaf.
In the vice-presidential debate Wednesday night in Utah, Vice President Mike Pence blew up the moderator’s efforts to enforce time limits. But he was more polite about it than President Donald Trump last week.
The debate covered more topics than the Trump-Biden showdown last week. But California Sen. Kamala Harris, the running mate of Democratic candidate Joe Biden, sometimes ignored the questions they asked her. Pence routinely paid even less attention to them.
The two offered no direct answers on whether they had discussed the transfer of power with the top of their ballots – two men vying to be the oldest person ever elected president, amid a pandemic.
Harris, who is known for her tough questioning of Trump’s nominees at Senate committee hearings, often played it safe. Very aware of the racial and gender dynamics present as the first black and South Asian woman to participate in a general electoral debate. She did, however, shoot Pence when he spoke over her.
“Mr. Vice President, I’m talking,” she said when interrupted by Pence in a response about the coronavirus pandemic.
In general, the debate ultimately was about Trump, with Harris offering harsh criticism of the administration’s record on the pandemic and Pence defending the president throughout.
Here are five takeaways from the vice presidential debate:
Pence’s alternate universe
If Pence isn’t exactly known for providing direct answers to questions in interviews or press conferences, his avoidance of answering USA Today moderator Susan Page’s questions on Wednesday seemed to reach new levels of evasion.
At times he seemed to be debating on a different planet, answering questions he wanted to answer rather than those posed. When asked about the president’s health, Pence responded about swine flu. When asked about the Supreme Court, Pence responded about Iranian senior general Qasem Soleimani. When asked about protecting health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, he lashed out at Harris on the idea of increasing the number of judges in court.
“Stop playing politics with people’s lives” is a phrase you’d probably expect during a debate this year, but not from someone who works for Trump. However, Pence made the accusation, saying Harris was undermining confidence in an eventual coronavirus vaccine by saying he would not take it unless it was endorsed by public health experts.
“The fact that it continues to undermine the public’s trust in a vaccine, if a vaccine comes out during the Trump administration, I think that’s inconceivable,” Pence said. “Senator, I only ask that you stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
His attack appeared to ignore Trump’s repeated efforts to explicitly bring politics into the pandemic, including efforts to develop a vaccine.
She also told Harris that she had no right to her own facts, despite the Trump administration’s poor relationship with the facts.
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Harris plays it safe
Harris opened the night with a swift condemnation of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, noting that some 210,000 people have died and more than 7.5 million people have contracted the disease.
“The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris said. He argued that frontline workers had been treated as “sacrificial workers” and that Trump had repeatedly downplayed the severity of the virus, while discouraging people from wearing masks.
Harris played it safe for much of Wednesday night, an available tactic for a ballot that polls have shown leads in double digits nationally and is ahead in every decisive state. A source close to the campaign told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Harris “was aware of the various dynamics and of threading the needle in the balance between being assertive and letting go at some points. Women are judged differently, it is a needle that we all have to thread all the time and of course she has been the only woman and the only black woman in many spaces.
But he called the Trump administration incompetent on what might be the only issue that matters in the 2020 election.
“You respect the American people when you tell them the truth. You respect the American people when you have the courage to be a leader, talking about those things that you may not want people to hear, but they need to hear in order to protect them. But this administration was based on the information if you had, as a parent or as a worker, if you didn’t have enough money saved, you were in a food line due to ineptitude, “Harris said. “They have had to sacrifice too much due to the incompetence of this administration.”
Here you can see how minute by minute went: Vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence.
No answers on health or transfer of power
For the vice presidential candidates running alongside the oldest presidential candidates in history, it seems like a natural and important question: Have you discussed a transfer of power in the event that the boss becomes disabled?
If their answers were a clue, they don’t seem to have discussed it. Neither Pence nor Harris wanted to go in there. Instead, they each provided a response unrelated to the issue and timed out.
For Pence, the subject is delicate. Trump is extremely cautious about his health and sensitive to suggestions that he is unfit for work. Over the weekend, when Trump was hospitalized for coronavirus, he was angered by speculation on television about whether he would transfer power to Pence, according to people familiar with the matter.
Rather than provide information on his conversations with Trump on the issue, Pence delivered a full response on the 2009 swine flu outbreak, using all of his time.
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Later, when pressed on whether a president should be transparent about his health, Pence quickly switched to express his appreciation on behalf of Trump for the great support during his fight against the covid.
Harris also seemed conscious of answering a question that could be construed as a tacit acknowledgment that his running mate might not be four years old. Instead of giving a full answer on whether a president owes Americans to be transparent about his health, he resorted to an attack on Trump, for not disclosing his tax returns.
The responses were perhaps not surprising. Health is a sensitive and personal issue that, whether candidates like it or not, informs voters’ decisions.
But his lack of answers is unsatisfying for Americans who want to know that plans are in place should the oldest president in history, which will be the case for any of the candidates who wins, becomes ill or incapacitated.
Harris dodges Pence’s question about increasing the number of judges in court
For the second debate in a row, Republicans have lobbied their Democratic rivals to address whether they would accept progressives’ push to add Supreme Court seats. And again, the Democrats dodged it.
Pence ignored a question about how the Trump administration would protect people with pre-existing conditions if its lawsuit to end Obamacare protections is successful, and instead raised the issue of court seats. He asked if a Biden administration would seek to add seats to the Supreme Court if the Trump administration approves the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“This is a classic case of, if you can’t win by the rules, you’re going to change the rules,” Pence said, turning to Harris and asking directly if she and Biden “are going to fill the Supreme Court to get their way? ».
Harris did not respond directly, but said that the Senate should not go ahead with the confirmation of Coney Barrett.
“Joe and I are very clear: the American people are voting right now. And it should be your decision about who will serve (in court)… for life, ”he said.
Pence replied, ‘You didn’t answer. Joe Biden didn’t reply. The American people deserve a direct answer, and if they haven’t figured it out yet, the direct answer is that they will fill the Supreme Court. “
Biden and Harris have generally avoided procedural questions about how they would overcome the intransigence of Congressional Republicans.
Progressives are furious that the Republican Party is moving forward with a Supreme Court nomination now, after delaying one for the last 11 months of former President Barack Obama’s term. And they have insisted that ending the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to break filibuster is the only way to enact important Democratic policies.
The Democratic ballot has been willing to take occasional bumps from Republicans on those questions to avoid triggering entire news cycles around their responses to date. It is not clear if that strategy will be sustainable.
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The plexiglass in the debate serves as a reminder of the covid
Harris could have won the debate before she and Pence took their seats Wednesday night in Utah.
The plexiglass barriers erected by the Committee on Presidential Debates served as a visual reminder of the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted nearly every aspect of American life. And every time Harris and Pence were shown in a single camera shot, the barriers were visible.
Political observers said the debate likely did little to change Americans’ votes. And while both candidates may have submitted lines that can be turned into short ad clips, neither said anything surprising.
On social media, the thing that generated more buzz than anything any of the candidates have done was a fly that landed on Pence’s hair.
