Looks speak louder than words as Harris makes
quotable case against Pence
US
elections 2020
The vice-presidential debate was more courteous than
last week’s horror show but still showed two contrasting faces of America
David Smith
in Washington
@smithinamerica
Thu 8 Oct
2020 05.56 BSTLast modified on Thu 8 Oct 2020 06.25 BST
It was
always going to be about the two faces of America.
One: white,
male, midwestern, evangelical Christian. The other: Black, female, coastal,
progressive.
What wasn’t
so predictable about the face-to-face at Wednesday’s US vice-presidential
debate was that Mike Pence would show up with bloodshot eye – never a good look
during a pandemic – or that a fly would nestle in his snowy white hair.
Equally
striking was Kamala Harris’s ability to weaponise facial expressions. The
California senator’s fusillade of raised eyebrows, pursed lips and withering
stares at her opponent will live in Democrats’ memory long after the words are
forgotten (and probably be viewed by Republicans as sneering elitism).
It was also
notable that both candidates did a better job than their bosses in last week’s
debate apocalypse. Both were adept at sidestepping questions – such as whether
they had discussed “the issue of presidential disability” with their
septuagenarian running mates – in favour of talking points. At times, it almost
felt like a brief holiday in political normality.
This may
also have been a sneak preview of the 2024 election. Harris was on her game and
looked ready to take over from Trump’s Democratic presidential challenger, Joe
Biden. Pence, the current vice-president, used attack lines on taxes, the Green
New Deal and the supreme court that Trump failed to land against Biden last
week.
It was
hardly a surprise that Pence reeked of white male privilege; it was less
anticipated that the target was the moderator, Susan Page of USA Today, as much
as Harris. Showing no respect for her questions, rules or timekeeping, he just
kept talking and often called her “Susan”.
Struggling
to gain control, she pleaded: “I did not create the rules for tonight ... I’m
here to enforce them.”
So with
that, Republicans may have lost more suburban women voters, if that is even
possible. But the bottom line is that this VP debate won’t change the race.
It took
place in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the candidates separated by two Perspex
screens, a metaphor if ever there was one for America’s divisions and
self-affirming bubbles.
Pence wore
a dark suit, white shirt and Trumpian red tie; Harris sported a black jacket,
dark blouse and necklace; both wore Stars and Stripes badges.
The former
prosecutor made her case to the jury with a bald statement about the
coronavirus pandemic that would prove impossible to top: “The American people
have witnessed the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the
history of our country.”
She added
for good measure that “this administration has forfeited their right to
re-election based on this”.
Pence had
the unenviable task of defending the indefensible. “From the very first day,
President Donald Trump has put the health of America first,” he claimed
unconvincingly, during a pandemic that has claimed more than 210,000 American
lives and infected more than 7 million people. Harris pulled another of her
scathing lawyerly expressions.
Pence, head
of the White House coronavirus taskforce, went on to offer a highly
disingenuous defence that bore little relation to Harris’s critique: “When you
say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn’t
worked, that’s a great disservice to the sacrifices of the American people.”
Pence also
claimed that the Biden-Harris plan for dealing with Covid-19 looks awfully
similar to what the Trump administration is already doing. “It looks a bit like
plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.”
It was a
reference to Biden failing to credit the British Labour leader Neil Kinnock in
a speech 33 years ago. Harris shook her head wryly.Yet twice in the debate
Pence used the line, “You’re entitled to your opinion but you’re not entitled
to your own facts,” without crediting the man who coined it, the late
Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. “Good line,” said Harris
sarcastically.
It was a
bold line of attack for a campaign and administration that has been caught in
thousands of lies or misleading claims. Would Harris take a Covid-19 vaccine if
it became available? “If the public health professionals, if Dr Fauci, if the
doctors tell us that we should take it I’ll be the first in line to take it,”
she said. “Absolutely. But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it I’m
not taking it.”
Pence
demanded: “Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives.
The reality is that we will have a vaccine, we believe, before the end of this
year. And it will have the capacity to save countless American lives. And your
continuous undermining of confidence in a vaccine is just unacceptable.”
Harris
smiled and shook her head.
Later, she
delivered a memorable warning about the Trump administration’s concerted
efforts to undo Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
“If you
have a pre-existing condition – heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer –
they’re coming for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition,
they’re coming for you. If you are under the age of 26 on your parents’
coverage, they’re coming for you.”
It was
perhaps the most quotable riff of a night that was more courteous than the
horror show in Cleveland last week.
When Trump
interrupted like a jackhammer, Biden eventually snapped: “Will you shut up,
man?” Harris had a more elegant rebuke prepared: “Mr Vice-President, I’m
speaking.”
She
deployed it a few times but, on one occasion, during a tangle over Biden’s tax
policy, Pence nipped in: “It’d be important if you said the truth.”
Harris
smiled and paused, fatally, allowing the vice-president to seize the initiative
and state: “Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he’s going to
repeal the Trump tax cuts.”
The debate
moved on, unlikely to change many minds. Perhaps tellingly, Pence was denying
the existence of systemic racism when the fly spent two minutes on his head.
The lie
will be forgotten by Thursday afternoon. The fly will not. It evoked
comparisons with the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in which Norman Bates,
channeling his mother, spots a fly and says: “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly
…”
At the end,
Pence’s wife, Karen, joined him on stage and was not wearing a face mask. Pence
reportedly calls her “mother”.
Pence-Harris vice-presidential debate: five key
takeaways
Coronavirus was the key theme, but Harris also warned
of the threat to Obamacare as both candidates dodged questions
Adam
Gabbatt in New York
@adamgabbatt
Thu 8 Oct
2020 05.25 BST
The
vice-presidential debate on Wednesday was less openly hostile than the Donald
Trump-Joe Biden debacle last week – but provided a further insight into the
state of both campaigns ahead of November.
Kamala
Harris and Mike Pence met in Utah for the only vice-presidential debate of the
election, separated by Plexiglass barriers as a protection against coronavirus,
and seeking to advance their boss’s cases.
As Biden
continues to lead Trump in the polls, the pressure was particularly on for
Pence to defend the administration’s record, just days after the president
tested positive for Covid-19.
From the
pandemic to healthcare to the supreme court to a fly, here are the key moments.
1. Harris hammers home criticism over coronavirus
response
As
expected, the first question was about coronavirus in a debate dominated by the
pandemic. Pence’s staff had insisted the vice-president has tested negative for
Covid-19, but the two Plexiglass barriers placed between Harris and Pence
served as a constant reminder of the crisis.
Harris kept
her point simple. She focused on the numbers dead, and the millions of people
affected.
“Here are
the facts: 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last seven months.
Over 7 million who have contracted this disease,” Harris said.
“We’re
looking at over 30 million people who in the last seven months had to file for
unemployment.”
Harris
pointed out, more than once, that Trump and Pence had known about the severity
of coronavirus in January, and that Trump had sought to downplay the virus.
“The
American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential
administration in the history of our country,” Harris said. “This
administration has forfeited their right to re-election.”
2. They’re coming for you
One of the
most memorable moments of the night was on healthcare, when Harris issued a
stark warning about the Trump administration’s intentions.
Trump is
seeking to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare,
which prevents health companies turning away patients with pre-existing
conditions – and Harris made sure viewers knew it.
“If you
have a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they’re
coming for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they’re
coming for you.”
Pence
responded by claiming the Trump administration has a plan to protect people
with pre-existing conditions. Trump has spent years claiming he will release a
comprehensive healthcare plan. We’re yet to see it.
3. Harris: ‘I’m speaking’
Donald
Trump interrupted Joe Biden 71 times during the first presidential debate.
Pence cut
in on Harris a lot less – perhaps because one of his early attempts was
witheringly cut down by Harris.
“Mr
Vice-President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking,” Harris said to Pence, as he tried
to chirp in while she discussed Trump’s tax cuts.
Delivered
with the tone a parent would reserve for a misbehaving child, the moment was
widely shared on Twitter.
4. Pence eats up time
While the
candidates didn’t interrupt each other with anything like the frequency of
Trump in the presidential debate last week, this wasn’t a lesson in debate
etiquette.
The phrase:
“Thank you Vice-President Pence” chimed out over and over again during the
entire encounter, as the moderator from USA Today, Susan Page, sought to stop
Pence from taking longer than his allotted time.
It didn’t
work, and just as the Fox News host Chris Wallace was criticized for his
handling of the Trump-Biden debate, the sense was Page could have been stronger
in forcing Pence to stick to his time limit.
5. Both candidates dodge questions
The debate topics
were not released ahead of Wednesday night – but neither candidate was caught
out.
Both Harris
and Pence were guilty of refusing to answer some of Page’s questions – in some
cases barely acknowledging questions before launching into prepared answers.
Neither
candidate answered a question about whether they had discussed potentially
stepping in for Trump, 74, or Biden, 77, respectively, if they were to fall ill
– a question made more pressing by the president’s Covid-19 diagnosis last
week.
Harris was
asked if she and Biden would seek to add seats to the supreme court to increase
the number of liberal justices – a move which some Democrats, including former
presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg have touted – but did not answer.
Pence,
asked why the number of deaths per capita in the US is worse than the majority
of other countries, never came close to answering.
More
troublingly, Pence refused to say he would accept the results of the election –
Trump did the same in the presidential debate.
5. Questions raised over Pence’s appearance
During her
debate prep Harris and her team were aware of the double standard women in
power are subjected to compared with men – including increased scrutiny over
how women look.
Instead it
was Pence whose appearance raised eyebrows.
Towards the
end of the debate a fly landed on Pence’s head, where it remained for two
minutes.
Pink eye,
or conjunctivitis, can be a symptom of coronavirus.
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