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WASHINGTON – Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris met for the first and only vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night (October 7) in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The night unfolded in a civilized fashion, with hardly any of the interruptions and rampant rancor that had characterized the first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last week.
Below are some conclusions from Wednesday’s debate.
1. The coronavirus is Trump’s weak point
The Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 7.5 million Americans and killed more than 210,000 of them, fueled the harshest criticism of the night from Democrats.
One in five businesses closed, frontline workers were “treated like sacrificed workers,” and 30 million people had to file for unemployment in recent months, Ms. Harris said.
He called the Trump administration’s response “the greatest failure of any administration in our country’s history,” accusing it of covering up the pandemic and arguing that it did not yet have a plan.
“They knew what was happening and they didn’t tell you,” Harris said, citing investigative journalist Bob Woodward’s findings that as early as January 28, Trump knew the virus was deadly, airborne, and affected children. .
Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force, was asked why the death toll in the United States as a percentage of its population was higher than in almost every other rich country.
He responded that Trump’s ban on travelers from China allowed time for a national mobilization of resources to combat the outbreak, without which even more lives would have been lost.
The initial focus on the pandemic would not have been good for the Trump administration. Polls, like the one released by Monmouth University on Tuesday, consistently show that voters trust Biden more than Trump when it comes to handling the pandemic.
2. China used repeatedly as a bogeyman
The Trump campaign has repeatedly tried to paint Biden as soft on China, and Wednesday was no exception.
Pence repeatedly called Biden a “cheerleader for China” and said the Democrat would repeal tariffs on Chinese goods if elected.
“Biden wants to return to economic surrender to China,” Pence said.
Harris said Trump had lost his trade war with China, while Pence replied that Biden never fought it.
The exchange was an example of not only how China remains a bogeyman who used to intimidate the other party, but also how foreign policy is not a top electoral concern for many voters: neither Pence nor Harris were willing to speak. United States-China Relations too deep.
When asked how he would describe America’s fundamental relationship with China, Pence said that China was to blame for the coronavirus.
When asked the same question, Harris took a turn to argue that America’s position in the world had declined under Trump’s presidency, adding that Biden wanted to restore American leadership and alliances.
“The leaders of all of our former allied countries have now decided that they hold Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, in higher esteem and respect than Donald Trump,” Harris said, citing a Pew Research Center poll. . “This is where we are today due to a leadership failure.”
3. A momentary return to a pre-Trump democracy
There were minimal interruptions in the debate on Wednesday. Pence and Harris almost always let themselves finish their sentences. They engaged in most of the moderator’s questions, even if they didn’t answer them, and had real discussions about policy proposals and background.
That made the debate a far cry from last week’s verbal fight between Trump and Biden. Political observers noted that it felt like a brief return to norms of civility mocked by Trump and, to a lesser extent, by his political opponents.
Pence’s calmer demeanor, in contrast to that of his running mate, could very well calm voters who are spooked by Trump’s temper.
The vice president also denounced white supremacists more strongly than Trump did last week, although, like his boss, he did not explicitly commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event they lost the election.
4. What was not said
The points each candidate insisted on insisting and the questions they dodged throughout the night were revealing.
Pence repeatedly insisted that Biden would ban fracking (drilling into the land for oil or natural gas) and raise taxes, forcing Harris to emphasize more than once that he wouldn’t.
Belief among voters that Biden would outlaw fracking, which is a major industry in the swing state of Pennsylvania, may affect his chances of victory there.
Harris, for his part, evaded a question about whether Democrats would fill the Supreme Court – that is, increase the number of seats from the current nine – in an attempt to dilute the expected conservative majority.
Biden hasn’t said if he will. Republicans are expected to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court in the coming weeks before the election, which could set back liberals on issues like abortion rights for decades to come.
Said Mr. Pence: “Again, he didn’t answer, Joe Biden didn’t answer … if he hasn’t figured it out yet, the direct answer is that they will fill the Supreme Court if they somehow win this election.
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