***Live Updates*** Vice Presidential Debate: Mike Pence vs. Kamala Harris

(INSERTS: Kamala Harris) SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - OCTOBER 07: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence
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Tony Lee

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) will face off Wednesday evening in the vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, Utah.

USA Today’s Susan Page will moderate the debate.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for live updates.

All times Eastern.



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11:45 PM:

11:30 PM: AOC to Pence:

11:20 PM:

11:05 PM: Biden fundraising off of the debate fly:

10:50 PM:

10:35 PM: CNN anchors talking about this being a regular debate that was much more civil. Blitzer says Pence learned it was “nearly impossible” to put a positive spin on the Trump administration’s Coronavirus record.

Jake Tapper says it was a “normal debate” and “not an emotionally abusive session with someone who” is a bit “unhinged.”

10:30 PM: Harris says Biden decided to run because the “hate” he saw during Charlottesville troubled him. He says Biden has a history of working across the aisle and that is what he would do as president. She says Biden has known pain, suffering and love and encourages her to determine the country’s future with her actions and eventually her vote.

10:28 PM: Final question is from an eight grader from Utah. She says all she sees on the news is people fighting and if they can’t get a long how can citizens get along. She talks about how politicians could set better examples.

Pence says Americans embrace a free and open exchange of ideas and we celebrate that. He says don’t assume what you are seeing on local news networks is synonymous with the American people. He talks about the genuine friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. He says Americans love a good debate and always come together in times of need.

10:26 PM: Page asks Pence what would be his role if Biden wins and Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power. Pence says he thinks they will win.  He says while Biden-Harris are rattling off establishment supporters from an establishment Biden has been a part of for 47 years, Trump has energized a movement. Pence talks about appointing conservative judges and standing with law enforcement.

Pence says Harris’s party has spent the last four years trying to overturn the results of the last election while the previous administration tried to spy on his campaign. Pence also said Hillary Clinton has also said Biden should under no circumstances should concede the election.

10:23 PM: Final round is about Election 2000. Page asks what they would do if Trump refuses to concede and accept the election results. Harris says their campaign has the support of many Republicans because they believe Biden will bring integrity back to the White House. She says they believe in the American people and urges American people to vote to not let anyone “subvert our democracy.” Harris says Trump openly attempted to suppress the vote at the first debate while Biden encouraged people to vote.

10:16 PM: Pence, asked the same question on Taylor, says he believes in the justice system.

Pence says it is remarkable that Harris, as a former prosecutor, would assume a grand jury would get it wrong.

Pence says there is no excuse for the rioting and looting that followed George Floyd’s death. He says what happened to Floyd was wrong and justice will be served.

Pence rips Biden-Harris for saying America is “systemically racist” and believing law enforcement has an “implicit bias” against people of color. Pence says it is a “great insult” and says Trump-Pence stands with law enforcement.

Harris rips Trump for not condemning white supremacists and says Americans deserve a president who is better than that.

Pence says Americans dislike the media for selectively editing Trump’s “very good people” remarks. He says African-Americans were 19 times more likely to be prosecuted for drug offenses in San Francisco when she left as district attorney. Pence says Harris has done nothing on criminal justice reform for African-Americans.

10:12 PM: Debate turns to Breonna Taylor. Page asks if justice was served. Harris says she doesn’t think so and says she has spoken to her mother. Harris talk about George Floyd and how he was “tortured and killed under the knee of an armed, uniformed police officer.” Harris says people around the country marched fighting for America to achieve equal justice under the law.

She says she was a part of those “peaceful protests.” Harris says bad cops are bad for good cops and she says she knows what she’s talking about as a former prosecutor. She says Biden-Harris will ban choke holds and create a national database of cops who have broken the law.

She talks about getting rid of private prisons and cash bail. She wants to expunge the records of those with marijuana convictions.

 

10:07 PM: Page asks how the Trump administration will protect Americans with pre-existing conditions. Pence says he is proud of Trump’s pro-life record and he is proud to be pro-life. Pence says Biden supports taxpayer funded abortions up to birth. Pence says American people deserve to know whether Biden-Harris will pack the court, which has had nine seats for 150 years. Pence says it seems like if Democrats can’t win by the rules, they want to change the rules.

Harris says Abraham Lincoln said voters should elect a president when a Supreme Court vacancy came up. Pence says voters must reject the Biden-Harris ticket if they value the Supreme Court.

Harris says the Trump-Pence administration has appointed people who are purely ideological and who have been reviewed to be not competent or “substandard.”

USTV Pool

Pence says he wants the record to reflect she never answered the question.

10:01 PM: Page asks the candidates about the Supreme Court and Roe. She asks Pence if it is overturned, will he want Indiana to ban all abortions. Pence uses his time to answer the question from the previous round. He says Harris and Biden questioned the killing of Soleimani and mentions that Biden opposed the bin Laden raid.

Pence says he and Trump could not be more enthusiastic about Amy Coney Barrett, whom he calls a “brilliant woman.” He says his hope is she gets a fair hearing, unlike what Kavanaugh had to go through. He calls out Harris.

Pence says he doesn’t want to see attacks on Barrett’s faith next week. Pence says Harris attacked a judicial nominee for being a member of the Knight of Columbus.

Pence doesn’t answer the question. Page doesn’t follow up and asks Harris the same question.

Harris says she and Biden are both “people of faith” and it is insulting to suggest they would attack anyone based on their faith.

She says Biden would be the second practicing Catholic president if elected.

Harris says we are literally in an election and over four million people have voted. And so Biden has been clear about letting the American people fill the seat in the White House and then fill the Supreme Court seat. Harris says she will fight for a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.

She pivots to the Affordable Care Act. She says in the middle of pandemic, Trump is in court trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. She says if they win, there will be no more protections for people with pre-existing conditions. She says they are trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act while Biden is trying to expand it.

9:52 PM: Harris is asked about America’s role in the world. She says Biden views it as relationships.

She says Trump has betrayed our friends and embraced dictators around the world. Harris says Russia interfered in the country’s elections in 2016 and is planning to again in 2020 and Trump is more willing to take the word of Putin than the word of America’s intelligence community. She claims the Iran Nuclear Deal has made America less safe because Iran could build up a more significant nuclear arsenal.

She says Trump doesn’t understand what it means to be honest after talking about the importance of keeping America’s word to allies.

Pence says Trump kept his word when he moved America’s embassy to Jerusalem while the Obama-Biden administration did not. The vice president talks about taking out al-Baghdadi and mentions Kayla Mueller’s parents who are with him in Salt Lake City. Pence says two ISIS soldiers who were responsible for her death were brought to justice today. He says Obama-Biden had a chance to save Mueller and when Biden was vice president, they hesitated for a month and were two days late. Pence says her family believes if Trump had been president, Mueller would be alive today.

Harris says she is so sorry to Mueller’s parents about what happened to their daughter. She says Biden and Obama feel the same way.

Harris then hits Trump, saying he called soldiers “suckers and losers” and wondered what was in it for people who died while serving the country. Harris says Trump said McCain didn’t deserve to be called a “hero” because he was captured.

Harris says when Russia had bounties on American soldiers, Trump had talked six times to Putin and never brought up the subject. She says Biden “would never do that” and hold Russia to account for any threat to our troops.

Pence says the accusations against Trump are “absurd” while Page keeps trying to cut her off. Pence claims Trump “reveres” America’s soldiers… Page won’t let Pence answer. She says she is here to “enforce” the rules and won’t let Pence finish his answer.

9:48 PM: Page asks Pence if China is a competitor, adversary, or enemy. Pence spends the first part of his answer to say Harris was one of only ten members of the Senate to vote against the USMCA because it didn’t go far enough on climate change. Pence says Harris put her “radical environmental agenda” ahead of America’s autoworkers.

On China, Pence says China is to blame for the Coronavirus and “President Trump is not happy about it.” He says China and the WHO did not “play it straight” with the American people and did not allow Americans into China to get information on the Coronavirus.

He says Trump has been standing up to China after it had been taking advantage of America while people like Biden were being cheerleaders. He says they want to hold China accountable for what they did to America.

Harris, asked the same question about the fundamental relationship with China, says there is a weird obsession Trump has of getting rid of anything Obama-Biden accomplished. Harris says Trump-Pence got rid of an office Obama-Biden created for monitoring pandemics.

9:45 PM: Harris is now claiming the Trump administration has “lost the trade war” with China. Harris claims the “American people know what I’m talking about.” Pence says Biden has been a “cheerleader” for Communist China and the Obama-Biden administration said they needed a “magic wand” to bring manufacturing jobs back while the Trump administration saw the creation of 500,000 new manufacturing jobs.

Harris says Biden is responsible for saving the auto industry and Pence “voted against it.”

9:43 PM: When Page asks Pence if climate change is an “existential threat,” Pence says “climate is changing” and “we’ll follow the science.” Pence uses Harris’s past statements on fracking against her and thanks the moderator for pointing out that the Green New Deal is on the Biden campaign’s website.

9:41 PM: Page says Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal while Biden says he does not support it. She says what the Biden-Harris stance will be on the Green New Deal. Harris again claims it is a “fact” that Biden will not ban fracking. She says Biden has been clear about growing jobs and will not increase taxes for anyone making less than $400,000 a year.

Harris says Biden believes in sciences while filibustering her answer to not answer about what their exact stance is on the Green New Deal.

Page not doing a good job following up with both candidates when they don’t answer questions. She says they will enter the Paris Accord “with pride.”

9:40 PM: Pence uses a climate change question to remind voters that Biden-Harris will put America back in the Paris Climate Accord, which will “crush” American jobs. Pence talks about a strong “free-market economy” to tackle clean-energy issues through innovation.

Pence also talks about forest management being “front and center” when it comes to wildfires. Pence says there are no more hurricanes today than there were 100 years ago while alarmists are using hurricanes to try and sell the Green New Deal.

9:31 PM: Page asks Pence if Americans should expect a recovery that takes longer than Trump/Pence have claimed. He says Trump has cut taxes across the board and an average American family of four saved $2,000 on taxes and the average income for a family of four increased by $4,000. Pence says Harris admitted that Biden will raise taxes on “day one.”

While Harris keeps smirking, Pence says it is remarkable that Biden would repeal Trump’s tax cuts as the American economy is recovering from a pandemic. He says they want to “bury our economy” under the $2 trillion Green New Deal.

Pence says Biden wants to go back to the “economic surrender” to China by repealing all of the tariffs that Trump put into effect on behalf of American workers. Pence says Harris is not entitled to her own facts and calls her out for claiming Biden, despite his past remarks, will not ban fracking.

Harris says this is a debate that is supposed to be based on facts and says Biden will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year. She claims Biden will not end fracking. She says Trump is responsible for a recession that is rivaling the Great Depression. She uses the opportunity to talk about Obamacare and accusing the Trump administration of trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act in court.

Harris says if you have a pre-existing condition, “they’re coming for you.”

9:29 PM: Page asks Harris if raising taxes would put the economy at risk. She says there could not be more of a fundamental difference between Biden and Trump. She says Trump measures the economy based on how rich people are doing while Biden cares about the quality of life of regular people. Harris says Biden will repeal Trump’s tax cut and invest in infrastructure and clean energy and innovation and education (free two-year community college and free public university for those who come from families who make less than $125,000). She says there was a time when our country believed in science and invested in development.

9:25 PM: Page asks both about whether voters deserve to know about the health of Trump and Biden. Pence says that they have been moved by the prayers that have come in for the president. He says the care Trump received at Walter Reed was exceptional and the “transparency” will continue. He says he is extremely grateful and more than a little moved for the bipartisan concern. She thanks Biden and Harris for their genuine concern and congratulates Harris on the “historic nature” of  her nomination.

Harris says Biden has been transparent while Trump has not been… she then pivots to taxes and says Trump has not even been transparent on taxes. Harris says Trump is $400 million in debt and she says the American people have a right to know the people Trump owes money to and if they are influencing Trump’s decisions.

She says Biden is “honest” and “forthright” and puts it all out there while Trump has been about “covering up everything.”

9:22 PM: After Pence punts on a question about whether he has had a conversation about Trump about the transfer of power in case of a disability, Harris says Biden chose her because of what she accomplished as California’s attorney general. She says Biden asked her to serve with him because they share the purpose of wanting to lift up the American people.

9:18 PM: Page asks Harris if she would take a Coronavirus vaccine.

Harris says if public health professionals like Dr. Fauci say it is okay, she would be the first in line. She says if Donald Trump tells her to take it, she won’t.

Pence accuses Harris of “undermining public confidence” in the vaccine and tells her to “stop playing politics with people’s lives.” She says her undermining of the confidence of the vaccine is “unacceptable.”

9:15 PM: Page asks Pence about being in the front row of a “super spreader” event at the White House. She asks why the American people should trust the administration when they have been so reckless.

He says there has been a “great deal of speculation” about the event and it was an outdoor event. Pence says this administration trusts the American people while Biden and Harris believe in mandates.

Harris says you respect the American people when you tell them the truth. She says this administration stood on information that prevented Americans from making preparations about how to deal with the pandemic. She says the American people have had to sacrifice far too much because of the “incompetence” of this administration.

9:12 PM: Harris says whatever Pence is claiming the administration has done, it has clearly not worked. She says Pence is the head of the task force and knew on January 28 how serious this was. Harris says Pence didn’t tell Americans because Trump wanted people to be calm. She asks Americans how calm they were during the pandemic.

Pence says it is a “great disservice” to the sacrifices the American people made to say what the administration has done in the past eight months has not worked. Pence says if Trump didn’t shut down half of the American economy, we could have lost 2.2 million Americans. Pence says the American people deserve credit for the sacrifices they made.

9:09 PM: Page asks Pence about America’s high death toll and why it is higher, as a percentage of the population, than almost any other wealthy country. Pence talks about Trump’s China ban and says Biden opposed that decision, calling it “xenophobic.” Pence says that decision bought the administration time to save hundreds of thousands of American lives. Pence says the Biden plan reads a lot like Trump’s plan. He talks about advancing testing, creating new PPE. Pence says it looks like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a lot about.

9:06 PM: The first question is about the Coronavirus. Page asks Harris that even if a vaccine is released, the next administration will face hard choices. She asks what the Biden administration will do next year that the Trump administration will not.

Harris says the American people have witnessed what is “the greatest failure” by any administration in the history of the country. She says frontline workers have been treated like sacrificial workers and more than 200,000 people have died. She says on January 28, the vice president and the president were informed about the nature of the pandemic and they “knew what was happening and they didn’t tell you.” She says Trump claimed it was a hoax and the administration engaged in a cover up and “they still don’t have a plan.”

She really doesn’t answer what they would do differently except contact-tracing.

9:05 PM: Page says we are meeting as the president and first lady are battling the Coronavirus and she wishes them well. She says she wants a debate that is “lively” yet “civil.”

9:03 PM: Page welcomes everyone to the debate and says it is her “honor” to moderate the first and only vice presidential debate. She says they have taken “extra precaution” during the pandemic and notes the audience is socially distanced. She welcomes the candidates and they both take their seats.

8:59 PM: Moderator Susan Page takes her seat as the debate is about to get started.

8:45 PM: Members of the Commission on Presidential Debates remind the audience to “not interfere” by applauding or cheering while the candidates debate. Frank Fahrenkopf, the co-chair, says law enforcement will escort anyone in the audience who takes their mask off and refuses to put it back on out of the debate hall.

8:35 PM:

8:30 PM: Some are still insisting the Pence-Harris debate should be held virtually.

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