The two candidates for vice president debated in Salt Lake City Wednesday evening in an event that took a much less hostile tone from both candidates as compared to that of the debate of the candidates for president just over a week ago.
Vice-President Mike Pence (R) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D) debated topics such as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, the economy, and even the age of the men they are on the ticket with.
Pence accused Harris of trying to undermine the legitimacy of a possible coronavirus vaccine.
“We will have a vaccine, we believe, before the end of this year,” Pence said to Harris. “It will have the capacity to save countless American lives and your continuous undermining of the confidence of a vaccine is just unacceptable.”
Harris said that if public health professionals and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s top infectious disease expert, say that we should take the vaccine that she would be the first in line, but that if President Trump said we should take she said “I’m not taking it.”
Harris pressed Pence about what she called a lack of information and a “cover-up” of the severity of the pandemic.
“The American people have had to sacrifice way too much because of the incompetence of this administration,” Harris said. “It is asking too much of the people, that they would not be equipped with the information they need to help themselves, to protect themselves.”
That was one of a handful of times Harris and Pence spoke over each other. The two also sparred over the economy, specifically about President Trump’s tax cuts.
Pence said under a Biden White House American taxes would go up with the repeal of tax cuts pushed by President Trump and eventually passed by Congress in the first two years of his presidency.
Harris seemed to confirm that saying they would repeal the tax cuts, but clarified they “would not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000.” Pence interrupted saying that was not truthful if Biden and Harris intend to repeal the aforementioned tax cut legislation.
“Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he was going to repeal the Trump tax cuts,” Pence said. “That was tax cuts that gave the average working family $2,000 in a tax break every year.”
Harris then reiterated her statement that Joe Biden would not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year.
Harris also accused President Trump and the White House of not acknowledging scientific reasoning for climate change. Pence said they want to take advice from the experts on climate change, but said the true cause of it is not yet and that he and the president will continue to “listen to the science.”
Both political parties are declaring victory in the VP Debate. It will be the only time Harris and Pence will debate ahead of the election in November.
