Pence and Harris in Fierce U.S. Vice-Presidential Debate
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Millions of Americans and many more worldwide watched U.S. Republican Vice- President Mike Pence and Democratic challenger Kamala Harris facing off in one of the most meaningful vice presidential debates in recent memory.
Their fierce exchange debate at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City came as the coronavirus swept through the upper reaches of government, with U.S. President Donald Trump and many other administration officials being infected by COVID-19.
Separated by plexiglass and social distancing despite objections from the White House, Pence and Harris desperately made their case for votes on November 3.
Any guest who refused to wear a face mask would be removed, which was seen as an extraordinary backdrop for the only vice presidential debate of 2020.
Ultimately, the prime-time meeting was a chance for voters to decide whether Pence or Harris, a U.S. senator from California, was ready to assume the duties of the presidency before the end of the next term.
That was not a theoretical question, with commentators citing President Trump, 74, recovering from the coronavirus. While 77-year-old Joe Biden has not been infected, he would be the oldest president ever, and there have been concerns among critics about him sometimes appearing frail and with incoherent sentences.
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Harris tried to convince viewers that Trump hadn’t taken the coronavirus pandemic seriously, and Biden would be a strong leader. She said Trump had called the coronavirus “a hoax.”
That wasn’t right. In fact, in February, President Trump accused Democrats of “politicizing the coronavirus.” He then mentioned the impeachment process against him, calling that a “hoax” and criticism of his handling of Covid-19 “their new hoax.”
And touting Trump’s leadership in this crisis, Vice-President Pence said that his boss “did what no other president had ever done – suspended all travel from China, the second-largest economy in the world.” The vice-president claimed this saved at least hundreds of thousands of lives.
He also recalled that under Vice-President Biden’s watch in 2009, some 60 million Americans were infected with the ‘Swine Flu’ or H1N1 virus, many times more than the current coronavirus infections.
Pence stressed that if the Swine Flu had been the same deadly as the coronavirus today, more than two million Americans would have died. Currently, more than 200,000 Americans reportedly died of COVID-19, though critics claim many had underlying health conditions.
VACCINE PRODUCTION
And Pence echoed Trump’s pledge that there will soon be “tens of millions of doses” of a vaccine available, and dismissed Biden’s COVID- 19 plan as “plagiarism.”
With forest fires blazing in western states and a new hurricane yet again the southern coast of America, the debate quickly moved on to the issue of climate change.
Pence was asked about causing controversy by questioning the science of climate change. Pence said he’s proud of the administration’s record on the environment and conservation, and he stressed that air is historically clean.
President Trump has “made a commitment” to conservation, and with regards to climate change, Pence stressed: “The climate is changing. The issue is, what’s the cause, and what do we do about it?”
Harris was quick to push back. She said her home state of California is burning. And she complained that in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes are raging and there’s flooding in the midwest. “This administration took the word science off the website,” Harris claimed, looking at Pence. “We have seen a pattern with this administration, and that is they don’t believe in science.”
“HURTING ECONOMY”
Pence warned, however, that the Biden-Harris team would go back to the Paris Climate Accord “and hurt” the U.S. economy with their focus on clean energy. Trump-Pence, will “always put American workers and American jobs first,” he pledged.
Amid the testy exchanges, the issue of taxes as mentioned. Pence and Harris fiercely disagreed about whether Biden would raise taxes. Harris said Biden would not raise taxes on anyone who earns less than $400,000 a year.
Pence disagreed and warned Americans: “On day one, Joe Biden’s gonna raise your taxes.” He says that despite COVID-19 hurting the economy, “we’ve already added back 11.6 million jobs”.
He stressed this is because the president has “unleashed American energy, fought for free trade, and … saved 50 million jobs through the paycheck protection program.”
Pence claimed Biden and Kamala Harris want to raise taxes and “bury our economy under the green new deal”.
He claimed that policy would also “abolish fossil fuels and ban fracking”, which Pence added would cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
ISRAEL POLICY
Besides domestic issues, the debate also focused on America’s global leadership. Pence reminded the audience about a policy that led to at least three Nobel Peace Prize nominations for Donald Trump.
That policy included several Arabic nations normalizing relations with Israel. Pence said the United States kept its word to Israel, by moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite international opposition.
He also noted that the NATO military alliance member states are now contributing more money for joint defenses than under the previous President Obama administration.
He recalled that during the Obama years the Islamic State terror group had captured a region as big as Pennsylvania. He was referring to the crucial “swing state” to receive votes from during the upcoming elections. Pence stressed that the terrorist group has now been practically wiped off the map.
Pence referred to the death of US aid worker Kayla Mueller, whose parents were in the audience tonight. He said she may not have died in Syria if Trump had been president when she was captured.
RUSSIA RELATIONSHIP
The Vice-President’s remarks followed allegations by Senator Harris that Trump was “taking the word of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin over our friends in the intelligence community”.
She called the U.S. less safe for having pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. “He pulled us out and made America less safe,” she argued as it was a deal among America’s “friends”.
Supreme Court
Christian faith and Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court were also an important element of Wednesday’s highly anticipated debate. Democrats fear Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion across the United States in 1973, will be lifted.
Pence was asked if states are given the right to decide whether or not to allow it there, would Pence support abortion access in his home state of Indiana?
Without answering the question directly, Pence stressed that he and Trump “could not be more enthusiastic to see judge Amy Coney Barrett made into Justice Amy Coney Barrett”.
CATHOLIC FAITH
Harris claimed that she and Biden are both “people of faith” and would never attack Barrett for her Catholic faith, as Republicans claim Democrats have done. However, she was quick to stress:
“I will always fight for a women to make her own decision about her own body.”
About the Supreme Court nomination, Harris warned that a conservative-dominated Supreme Court would lead to an end of healthcare access for millions of Americans with pre-existing health conditions.
She made clear that a decision on who will fill the seat left empty by the recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, should be made after the November 3 election. “Let the American people fill the White House, and we will fill that Supreme Court seat”.
While testy are times, Wednesday’s debate appeared more orderly than the fierce exchange between U.S. President Trump and former Vice-President Biden.
Just two hours before the debate, President Trump pledged he would soon recover of COVID-19. In a video message, he even called his illness a “blessing from God” because he now feels so good, crediting that to an experimental drug.
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