The coronavirus pandemic dominated the first questions and remarks in the U.S. vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night as Republican Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris squared off in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The candidates were separated by plastic barriers in an auditorium where any guest who refuses to wear a face mask will be removed, an extraordinary backdrop for the only vice-presidential debate of 2020.
Harris condemned President Donald Trump’s leadership during the worst public health crisis in a century as “the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.” She also declared she would not take a vaccine if Trump endorsed it without the backing of medical professionals.
Pence refused to shift the conversation to the role of the vice-president and returned to how the Trump administration has handled the outbreak.
“Stop playing politics with people’s lives,” he said to Harris, stating with certainty there will be a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of the year.
Candidates typically show up with a quiver of prepared one-liners, and Pence loosed one early.
He accused Biden of copying the Trump administration’s plan to fight the coronavirus, dredging up charges of plagiarism that helped sink Biden’s first presidential run in 1988.
“It looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about,” he said.
The conversation then shifted to Trump’s taxes, energy policy, hurricanes and wildfire management.
The vice-presidential debate normally does not attract as much attention as the presidential one. In 2016, the match-up between Tim Kaine and Pence drew 37 million people, less than half of the viewers who watched Donald Trump face off against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump defeated Clinton in the election.
After Trump tested positive for the COVID-19 last week, however, the two people who would be next in line for the presidency have taken on outsized significance.
For those reasons and more, the debate may be the most meaningful vice-presidential debate in recent memory.
It comes at a precarious moment for the Republicans in particular, with growing concern that Trump’s position is weakening as more than a dozen senior officials across the White House, the Pentagon and inside his campaign are infected with the virus or in quarantine.
Trailing in the polls, Trump and Pence have no time to lose; election day is less than four weeks away, and millions of Americans are already casting ballots.
Harris made history by becoming the first Black woman to stand on a vice-presidential debate stage. The night offers her a prime opportunity to energize would-be voters who have shown only modest excitement about Biden, a lifelong politician with a mixed record on race and criminal justice, particularly in his early years in the Senate.
Harris, 55, is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor whose pointed questioning of Trump’s appointees and court nominees helped make her a Democratic star.
Pence is a 61-year-old former Indiana governor and ex-radio host, an evangelical Christian known for his folksy charm and unwavering loyalty to Trump. And while he is Trump’s biggest public defender, the vice-president does not share the president’s brash tone or undisciplined style.
Just eight days ago, Trump set the tone for the opening presidential debate, which was perhaps the ugliest in modern history. Wednesday’s affair lived up to expectations, with the candidates adopting more measured and respectful tones.
Focus on Trump
Harris’ advisers say she does not plan to constantly fact-check Pence on stage and will instead spend her time making the case directly to the American people about what a Biden-Harris administration would offer.
“She’s not there to eviscerate Mike Pence,” said Symone Sanders, an adviser who has been in Harris’s debate prep. “She is there to really talk to people at home.”
Harris’ team predicted she would focus on Trump’s yearlong efforts to downplay the pandemic, the fact that many schools are still closed and Trump’s declaration this week that he would end talks on a fresh coronavirus economic relief package until after the election.
Harris will also have the chance to explain her views on law enforcement, an area in which she’s irked some progressives, given her past as a prosecutor.
‘Radical left’
Meanwhile, Pence aims to highlight the administration’s economic record and attempt to portray the Democratic ticket as beholden to the “radical left,” former Republican governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who is helping the vice-president prepare for the debate, said on Fox & Friends.
Just as Harris will likely speak directly to Trump at times, Pence is likely to speak at Biden and progressives, who have called for a government run health-care system known as “Medicare for All” and sweeping environmental reforms to combat climate change called the “Green New Deal.” Biden opposes both plans in favour of more moderate steps that would still be among the most significant changes for health care and environmental policy in the modern era.
WATCH | Why the vice-presidential debate matters:
Even with opposing styles and politics, the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris is seen by some as a chance to reset the tone of the campaigns after a chaotic presidential debate. 5:31
Pence was joined in the debate hall by several guests, including the parents of Kayla Mueller, a humanitarian aid worker who was killed in 2015 by Islamic State militants. Their presence is intended to highlight Trump’s record on national security, including the killing of the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
While the debate will cover a range of topics, the virus will be at the forefront.
Pence serves as chair of the president’s coronavirus task force, which has failed to implement a comprehensive national strategy even as Trump himself recovers from the disease and the national death toll surges past 210,000 with no end in sight.
Precautions in place
The candidates will appear on stage 3.7 metres apart and separated by Plexiglas barriers. Both candidates released updated coronavirus test results ahead of the debate proving they were negative as of Tuesday.
Critics suggested that Pence should not be at the debate at all.
The vice-president attended an event last week at the White House with Trump and others who have since tested positive, but Pence’s staff and doctors insist he does not need to quarantine under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
The CDC defines risky “close contact” as being within 1.8 metres of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before the onset of symptoms or a positive test.
While some Democrats have set high expectations for the debate, Harris and her allies have been trying to keep them low.
“We know that Vice-President Pence is formidable debater, and we know that tonight is a challenge,” said Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey. “But all those who know and love Kamala just have a lot of confidence in her.”
