08 October 2020 - US vice presidential debate
5 takeaways from the vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence
Eric Bradner and Kevin Liptak (CNN, 08/10/2020)
It was last week's debate, on decaf.
In the vice presidential debate Wednesday night in Utah, Vice President Mike Pence blew through the moderator's efforts to enforce time limits -- but was more polite about it than President Donald Trump was last week.
The debate covered more topics than last week's Trump-Biden showdown. But California Sen. Kamala Harris, the running mate of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, sometimes ignored the questions she was asked. Pence routinely paid them even less attention.
A Straightforward Vice-Presidential Debate About a Catastrophic Presidency
Benjamin Wallace-Wells (The New Yorker, 08/10/2020)
There have been plenty of times during this election campaign when Republican and Democratic partisans alike have wished that they were running their Vice-Presidential nominee at the top of the ticket. Mike Pence’s sonorous talk of a liberated free market suits the traditional Republican base better than spectacles such as that of this afternoon, when Donald Trump, his face thick with bronzer that didn’t quite cover his ears, gave a pepped-up four-minute speech about his own experiences with covid-19 that made it sound like he was the only American who’d ever caught it—Trump called his infection “a blessing from God”—and trumpeted an antibody cocktail that’s manufactured by a member of his Westchester golf club. Kamala Harris makes Democrats proud at the moments when Joe Biden makes them wince, with her willingness to support progressive policies without nostalgia or equivocation, and—most plainly—to embody the country’s present rather than its past.
Mike Pence struggles to defend the indefensible and please his disastrous boss
Richard Wolffe (The Guardian, 08/10/2020)
It’s rare that something unexpected and unrehearsed crosses Mike Pence’s head. The sitting vice-president is a disciplined performer known to prep for his public moments, in stark contrast to his boss.
But as the vice-presidential debate neared its close, with the candidates tackling the challenges of racial justice, a dark object landed on his blanched white scalp.
Pence was expressing his faux sympathy for the family of Breonna Taylor, while also condemning the notion that America is systemically racist, when a large fly found the smell of his words as attractive as the brown debris that decorates a dog run.
Late Night Buzzes Over Mike Pence’s Fly
Trish Bendix (The New York Times, 08/10/2020)
Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel went live after the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night and discussed the fly that stole the show when it found a temporary home on Vice President Mike Pence’s head.
“Mike Pence’s fly just became the most popular Halloween costume of 2020,” Kimmel joked in his monologue.