On Oct. 8, the candidates for Vice President of the United States, Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, took the debate stage in Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah. The pandemic has transformed the way we see Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. Precautions included a socially distanced audience, safety shields in front of each of the candidates, prior screening for COVID-19, temperature checks, face mask requirement for all people entering the debate hall.
The debate was mediated by Susan Page of USA Today. She asked questions about many of the issues Americans are considering most important before this upcoming election. The debate topics included COVID-19 and President Donald Trump’s recent positive testing for the virus, climate change, tax reform, economics, healthcare, crime, voting fraud, abortion, Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, the supreme court vacancy, and foreign policy.
Citizens were seeking a debate with more order and answers after the disastrous first Presidential debate held on Sept. 29 of this year. CNN aired the event and reported that despite the candidates at times cutting into each other’s time , they spoke for nearly the exact same amount of time over the ninety minute run time of the debate–with only a 3 second difference in favor of Pence.
Issues surrounding the handling of COVID-19 by the Trump Administration sparked a heated debate between the candidates. “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. And, here are the facts. 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. Over 7 million people who have contracted this disease. One in five businesses closed. We’re looking at frontline workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment,” Harris said when addressing the question of how the Coronavirus pandemic was managed by Trump and Pence. She continued by discussing the importance of a “plan” in the coming months, something that the Trump Administration lacks in the eyes of the Biden Administration.
Pence defended the Trump Administration’s handling of Coronavirus, since they first heard about the virus in late January. When discussing the future and how this country is going to proceed with the pandemic, Pence stated, “The American people have demonstrated over the last eight months that when given the facts, they’re willing to put the health of their families, and their neighbors, and people they don’t even know first. President Trump and I have great confidence in the American people and their ability to take that information and put it into practice.” He seemed to suggest that no further changes are necessary or are being planned.
The next presidential debate was scheduled to commence next week, but has been canceled due to Trump’s recent case of COVID-19. Trump has refused to participate in a virtual debate.
