2020 vice presidential debate

The vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris has wrapped. The candidates debated for 90 minutes about several topics, including coronavirus, the economy, foreign policy, race and police reform.

Harris made history tonight, becoming the first Black and South Asian woman to participate in a general election debate.

If you are just reading in, here are some key moments from the showdown: 

On President Trump’s taxes:

On the coronavirus vaccine:

On adding seats to the Supreme Court:

On police violence and the death of Breonna Taylor:

On trade:

On climate change:

More Americans said Sen. Kamala Harris did the best job in the vice presidential debate tonight, according to a CNN Instant Poll of registered voters who watched. About six in 10 (59%) said Harris won, 38% said Vice President Mike Pence had the better night.

Those results roughly match voters’ expectations heading in to the debate. In interviews conducted before tonight’s debate, 61% of these same voters said they expected Harris to win, 36% thought Pence would. 

Harris did improve her favorability rating among those who watched, according to the poll, while for Pence, the debate was a wash. In pre-debate interviews, 56% said they had a positive view of Harris, that rose to 63% after the debate. For Pence, his favorability stood at 41% in both pre- and post-debate interviews. 

Both candidates who took the stage tonight are broadly seen as qualified to be president: 65% said Pence is qualified to serve as president should that become necessary, 63% said the same about Harris. 

The CNN post-debate poll was conducted by SSRS by telephone and includes interviews with 609 registered voters who watched the Oct. 7 vice presidential debate. Results among debate-watchers have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points. Respondents were originally interviewed Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 either by telephone or online, and indicated they planned to watch the debate and would be willing to be re-interviewed when it was over. Respondents initially reached online are members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative probability-based panel.

CNN’s David Chalian breaks down the numbers:

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President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reacted on Twitter to their running mates’ vice presidential debate.

Trump and Biden are set to debate again next week in the second presidential debate.

See their tweets:

Following tonight’s vice presidential debate, a panel of undecided voters spoke with CNN’s Sara Sidner about what they thought of each candidate’s performance.

When the group was asked specifically to choose a winner between California Sen. Kamala Harris or Vice President Mike Pence, it was a tie; four thought Harris won, four thought Pence won and the rest thought the debate was a wash.

Watch their full reaction:

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Vice President Mike Pence claimed that universal mail-in voting leads to widespread fraud. 

“President Trump and I are fighting every day in courthouses to prevent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from changing the rules and creating this universal mail-in voting that will create a massive opportunity for voter fraud,” Pence said.  

Facts first: This claim about voter fraud, which Trump has also made repeatedly, is false.  

Numerous studies have found that mail-in voting does not lead to “massive” fraud. Furthermore, only nine states and Washington, DC, are using “universal mail-in voting” this year. 

Experts acknowledge there might be some logistical issues in terms of people being able to receive and mail in their ballots. Isolated incidents of missing ballots or discarded envelopes have cropped up in recent weeks. But there’s no evidence that mail-in voting leads to fraudulent and rigged elections, which the Trump White House has repeatedly claimed. 

Voting by mail rarely results in fraud. States have put in place multiple policies and safeguards like bar codes and signature verification to combat risks and deter attempts to commit fraud. Comprehensive studies of billions of ballots cast over many years indicate that the rate of voter fraud is less than 0.0001%.

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database hereand learn more about mail-in voting here.

Vice President Mike Pence and Kamala Harris briefly rehashed a dispute that has been a part of the political wrangling over Covid-19 — whether or not the Trump White House disbanded an Obama-era pandemic team.  

Harris said the Obama administration “created within the White House, an office that basically was responsible for monitoring pandemics” and claimed that the Trump administration “got rid of it.” Pence responded, “Not true.” 

Facts First: That the Trump administration got rid of the office is true, but it’s complicated. The White House pandemic team was disbanded under Trump, but some of the public health officials on the team were kept onboard and reassigned to related roles. It’s impossible to know if this move led to the bungled US response to Covid-19, but many leading public health experts have said the US was better off with the pandemic team intact. 

Two things are clear: Number one, the Obama administration created a specific team on the National Security Council to handle pandemic preparation and global health. Number two, that team no longer exists. 

The official who was in charge, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, departed in 2018. Around that time, John Bolton became Trump’s new national security adviser and reshuffled the NSC, which included changes to the pandemic team. CNN previously reported that another official with a similar purview has less authority than Ziemer had before he left. 

Regarding the fate of the White House pandemic team, it depends on who you ask. Trump critics and former Obama administration officials say the team was fired, eliminated or disbanded. Trump and his conservative allies say the group was streamlined, reorganized or reassigned. 

Beth Cameron, who led the pandemic team after it was created by the Obama White House, said Trump “dissolved” the office and that this move significantly hampered the US response to Covid-19. Tim Morrison, who oversaw the new operation in the Trump administration, said the merged group of NSC officials was “stronger because related expertise could be commingled.” 

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here.

Sen. Kamala Harris said that Joe Biden would not raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. 

Facts First: This needs context and depends a lot on how you define taxes. 

At least two economic models show that Biden’s plan would not raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000 when considering direct income and payroll taxes. That includes analyses from the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Penn Wharton Budget Model. 

But the story is different when considering indirect taxes and the impact of other Biden proposals. Workers might bear some of the cost of his proposal to raise corporate taxes – resulting in lower after-tax wages. Another proposal from Biden to change 401(k)s could reduce the tax benefits of contributing to those accounts for some taxpayers.

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here.

Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris have just wrapped up their only debate of the 2020 election campaign and we want to hear from you.

Tell us what you thought of the debate and what impact it had on you using the form below.

In the final moments of tonight vice presidential debate, both candidates sought to sound a note of unity, even as they had spent the previous 90 minutes in vigorous disagreement. 

The candidates’ final remarks were given in response to a question from the debate’s moderator Susan Page, in which she read from an essay by an eighth grader about constant “arguing between Democrats and Republicans.”  

“If our leaders can’t get along, how are the citizens supposed to get along?” asked the eighth grader, according to Page.

Pence, who offered the first closing statement, cited the late Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, known for delivering opposing opinions from the bench while maintaining a close personal relationship. 

“They were on polar opposites, one very liberal, one very conservative,” said Pence. “What has been learned since her passing is that the two of them and their families were the very closest of friends.”

“Here in America, we can disagree, we can debate vigorously as Sen. Harris and I have on this stage tonight but when the debate is over we come together as Americans,” Pence added. 

Harris, for her part, cited the record of her running mate, Joe Biden, who built a reputation for working across the aisle during his decades serving in the US Senate.

Harris began by saying Biden had decided to run against Trump, after witnessing the racism, hatred and division on display in Charlottesville in 2017.

“One of the reasons Joe decided to run for president is after Charlottesville… It so troubled him and upset him like it did all of us, that there was that kind of hate and that division,” she said.

“Joe has a long standing reputation of working across the aisle and working in a bipartisan way and that’s what he is going to do as President,” Harris continued. “Joe Biden has a history of lifting people up and fighting for their dignity.”

Vice President Mike Pence faced an unlikely challenger for the spotlight during Wednesday night’s debate when a common house fly landed on his head as he and Democratic opponent Sen. Kamala Harris sparred over their visions for America’s next four years.

The fly, which sat on Pence’s head for an impressive two minutes, drew a surge of tweets from debate viewers, including Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who tweeted a photo of himself with a fly swatter and the caption: “Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly.” Later, within an hour of the debate ending, the Biden campaign started selling a “truth over flies” fly swatter.

The Democratic National Committee similarly leveraged the trending fly moment by tweeting the URL “Flywillvote.com,” which redirects to the DNC’s voter registration website. 

After the debate, CNN’s Jake Tapper quipped: “There were times during the debate that I thought the most effective being on that state to go after Vice President Pence was that fly that landed on his head.”

During tonight’s debate, Vice President Mike Pence said Kamala Harris had previously supported a ban on fracking. 

“You yourself said on multiple occasions when you were running for president that you would ban fracking,” he claimed.   

Facts First: It’s true Harris voiced support for a ban on fracking during her primary run, starting with public lands.  

During a CNN town hall in September 2019, Harris was asked if she would “commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office.”  

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” Harris said. “So yes. And starting with what we can do on day one around public lands. And then there has to be legislation.”  

The Biden campaign’s written plan, however, proposes “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” and does not include a full ban on fracking.  

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here.

When asked about the future of American health care at the debate, Vice President Mike Pence said, “President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and to protect pre-existing conditions for every American.” 

Facts First: This is false. The Trump administration, along with Republicans in Congress, have long promised a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act and that they would also protect people with pre-existing conditions. However, the President has yet to put forth a concrete plan that will provide the same strong provisions that currently exist under the ACA. 

In fact, the President is supporting a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Republican attorneys general that could topple the landmark health reform law and its provisions that ban insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on consumers’ pre-existing conditions. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on Nov. 10, a week after the election. 

In late September, Trump signed an executive order that stated that it’s US policy that people who suffer from pre-existing conditions will be protected. However, this is not actually a plan. 

Later in the debate, when asked directly to explain the administration’s health care plan, Pence switched topics. 

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

The pandemic has devastated the American economy. Sen. Kamala Harris said “1 in 5 businesses closed.”

Facts First: This needs context. Harris is correct based on a June survey from the US Chamber of Commerce, but there’s little real-time data on small business closures and it’s hard to tell how many have permanently shuttered because of the pandemic.

The MetLife & US Chamber of Commerce Small Business Coronavirus Impact Poll from June found that 1 in 5 small businesses were closed, with 19% of them shuttered temporarily and only 1% closed permanently. Most businesses said then that they believe it will take some time to return to normal operations but that they will reopen. 

In July, the same poll found that 86% of small business reported that they were fully or partially open. At the same time, 58% of respondents to the survey worried that their businesses would have to permanently close due to the impact of the pandemic.

A Washington Post analysis of a survey by researchers at Harvard, the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago said that 100,000 small businesses had permanently shut from March to May.

Kamala Harris said during tonight’s debate that President Trump knew about the threat of the coronavirus weeks before it took hold in the United States, noting that “on January 28th, the vice president and the President were informed about the nature of this pandemic.” 

Facts First: This is true. Trump told journalist Bob Woodward how deadly the virus was in a Feb. 7 interview, and Woodward reported that the President had been briefed on the serious threat the virus posed on January 28.  

Woodward reported that Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, told the President in a classified briefing that coronavirus would be the “biggest national security threat” of his presidency. Trump’s head “popped up,” Woodward reported. Pence told Fox News he was also at the Jan. 28 national security briefing.

Trump later told Woodward that he purposely downplayed the threat of the virus. The President said in a March 19 interview, “I wanted to always play it down.” 

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

Vice President Mike Pence gave Americans hope that there would be a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.

“The reality is, 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,” Pence said. 

Facts First: This needs context.

Though there are several vaccine candidates in different phases of testing, there is no guarantee that the US Food and Drug Administration will have approved a vaccine by the end of the year. And even once one is approved, it will likely still be many months before it’s widely available across the US. 

In interviews in September, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made it clear that vaccine timeline projections are just that — projections — and it will take until next year before vaccines are widely distributed. 

“By the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations, and you get the majority, or more, of the population vaccinated and protected, that’s likely not going to happen to the mid or end of 2021,” Fauci told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. 

 For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

At the end of tonight’s debate, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris ended up with nearly the same amount of speaking time, differing by just a few seconds.

Kamala Harris proclaimed defiantly she will not “be lectured by the vice president” during a back-and-forth on criminal justice where she called the killing of George Floyd “torture.” 

Vice President Mike Pence, responding to Harris’ assertion that there is systemic racism in this country and that Black people don’t feel as though they have the full rights in the system, said, “I must tell you this presumption that you hear consistently from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that America is systemically racist.”

Harris shot back at Pence, saying, “I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president, on what it means to enforce the laws of our country. I’m the only one on this stage who has personally prosecuted everything from child sexual assault to homicide,” and went on to describe her record. 

Pence hit her back, parroting the arrest rate for Black men during her tenure as district attorney of San Francisco, along with other accusations.

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris used the death of Breonna Taylor to discuss the issue of police violence plaguing the US.

Taylor was a 26-year-old Black emergency room technician and aspiring nurse in Louisville, Kentucky, who was killed by police on March 13.

Harris called Taylor “a beautiful young woman” whose life was taken “unjustifiably.”

“I’ve talked with Breonna’s mother and her family, and her family deserves justice,” Harris said. “We’re never going to condone violence. But we always must fight for the values that we hold dear, including the fight for our ideals. I’m a former career prosecutor.”

She then vowed to immediately ban chokeholds if she and Joe Biden are elected.

“Bad cops are bad for good cops. We need reform of policing in America and our criminal justice system. That’s why Joe and I will immediately ban chokeholds and carotid holds,” Harris said.

Pence said Taylor’s family had his “sympathies.” He also referenced the upswell of anti-police sentiment that has blanked the country following the deaths of Taylor and other Black Americans.

“[T]he family of Breonna Taylor has our sympathies. But I trust our justice system,” Pence said. “This presumption that you hear from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that America is systemically racist, and as Joe Biden said, he believes that law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities, it’s a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement.”

Watch the moment:

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President Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election.

Tonight, Vice President Mike Pence got the same question – and gave about the same answer, only in more measured tones.

First, Pence reiterated his confidence that the Republican ticket would be victorious on Election Day and talked up the “movement” behind Trump.

Then he pivoted to a rosy summation of Trump’s record and touted the President’s appointment of conservative judges to the federal bench.

Pence went on to accuse Democrats of trying to effectively steal the 2016 election from Trump, citing the investigation into Russian election interference – and parroting Trump’s familiar declaration that the probe found “no obstruction” and “no collusion.”

From there, it was onto impeachment, which Pence – again echoing Trump, though in a lower register – described as being centered on “a phone call.”

After a Hillary Clinton mention, Pence once again and finally used Trump’s equivocal phrasing, saying, “If we have a free and fair election, we’ll have confidence in it. And I know and believe that President Donald Trump will be re-elected for four more years.” 

In short, he didn’t answer the question.

Here’s how the question played out:

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Second lady Karen Pence appeared to break the agreed-upon rules on masks at the vice presidential debate Wednesday evening upon its conclusion.

In the aftermath of the first presidential debate, where some audience members, including the first lady and other Trump family members, removed their masks, the Commission on Presidential Debates mandated that everyone in the audience, with the only exceptions of the candidates and the moderator, wear a mask during future debates.

After the last questions were answers, Pence joined her husband, Vice President Mike Pence, on stage.

Douglas Emhoff joined his wife, Sen. Kamala Harris. Emhoff wore a mask as he stood by Harris. Karen Pence removed her mask.

Pence’s action was another example of the administration flouting its own guidelines on best public health practices and shirking the opportunity to lead on mask wearing.

Pence was present 11 days ago in the White House Rose Garden for an event nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. At least 12 attendees have since tested positive for Covid-19.

Watch:

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Vice President Mike Pence said during the debate that “while Joe Biden denied the Green New Deal… the Green New Deal is on their campaign website.” 

Facts First: This is true but needs context. Biden’s campaign website does say the resolution is a “crucial framework” for addressing climate change, but his own plan differs from it in several ways. In particular, Biden’s plan does not include some of the Green New Deal’s proposed economic actions, such as guaranteeing a job for every American.

After lauding the “framework” of the Green New Deal, Biden’s campaign webpage on the environment lays out the bullet points of the candidate’s own plan to combat climate change, which includes items like building out energy-efficient infrastructure and setting a goal for the US to reach zero emissions by 2050.

While the two plans overlap on some environmental objectives, Biden’s plan does not include many of the social welfare proposals of the Green New Deal. For instance, he is not calling for a guaranteed job for each American with family and medical leave and paid vacations, as the deal proposes.

In other ways, the proposals differ less dramatically. Biden’s plan also has a goal of creating a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035, whereas the Green New Deal proposed reaching 100% clean power in 10 years.

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

Sen. Kamala Harris, who was formerly the Attorney General of California and a top prosecutor in San Francisco, embraced her record as a prosecutor on Wednesday night, leading Vice President Mike Pence to quickly accuse her for not doing enough on criminal justice reform.

The fight highlights an issue that has faced the Trump campaign: Attacking Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Harris for being too soft on crime, while also faulting the former California senator for being too hard on crime during her time as a law enforcement official in the state.

“I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president on what it means to enforce the laws of our country,” Harris said after Pence spoke about criminal justice reform, noting that she had prosecuted trials ranging from child sexual assault to homicide.

Harris has struggled with her prosecutorial record ever since she launched her Democratic presidential campaign in 2019, both leaning on it and running away from it during her primary bid. But Harris’ answer on Wednesday night shows how the Biden campaign believes it could help their bid against Trump and Pence.

Pence hit back at Harris’ comment, noting some of the tough on crime efforts Harris oversaw when she was district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general of California.

“Your record speaks for itself,” Pence said. “President Trump and I have fought for criminal justice reform. … And we will do it for four more years.”

Vice President Mike Pence claimed during tonight’s debate that the Biden campaign wants to “ban fracking.” 

Facts First: This is misleading. Joe Biden is not running on a proposal to completely ban fracking (hydraulic fracturing, a drilling method used to extract natural gas or oil). However, there is at least some basis for Pence’s claim: During the Democratic primary, Biden sometimes suggested he was proposing to get rid of all fracking. He’s also pledged to “establish an enforcement mechanism to achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050,” which would almost certainly require a significant reduction in fracking.

Biden’s written plan never included a full ban on fracking; rather, it proposes “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” not ending all new fracking anywhere or ending all existing fracking on public lands and waters. Biden has explicitly said he does not support a nationwide fracking ban (though in part because he doesn’t believe such a ban would pass).

Biden created confusion about his stance with some of his comments during the Democratic primary. For example, he had this exchange with CNN’s Dana Bash during a July 2019 debate:

Bash: “Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?”
Biden: “No, we would — we would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either — any fossil fuel.”

Could a president even ban fracking alone? No.

Without an act of Congress, the president could not issue an outright ban on fracking across the US. There are, however, a number of regulatory and executive actions an administration could take to prevent or shrink the use of fracking technology, particularly on federal land. However, most fracking takes place on private land, and any attempts to limit it would likely face legal challenges.

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

Vice President Mike Pence claimed at tonight’s debate that the Obama administration “left the Strategic National Stockpile empty” 

Facts First: This is misleading. 

The Strategic National Stockpile was not empty before the coronavirus pandemic. For example, the stockpile contains enough smallpox vaccines for every American, among other medical resources.  

While Trump isn’t wrong to suggest he inherited a depleted stockpile of some medical supplies — the stockpile of masks, for example, was drained and not replenished by the Obama administration — it was not completely empty; he inherited significant quantities of other supplies. Congress repeatedly did not pay for the stockpile to be replenished. And Trump had three years in office to build depleted stockpiles back up. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services also confirmed to CNN in late June that there had been about 19,000 ventilators in the national stockpile for “many years,” including 16,660 ventilators that were ready for immediate use in March 2020; the spokesperson confirmed that none of those 16,660 were purchased by the Trump administration.  

You can read a longer fact check here. 

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

California Sen. Kamala Harris ducked Vice President Mike Pence’s question about whether a Biden administration would seek to add seats to the Supreme Court if the Trump administration pushes through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“This is a classic case of, if you can’t win by the rules, you’re going to change the rules,” Pence said, turning to Harris and asking directly if she and Biden were “going to pack the Supreme Court to get your way?”

Harris did not answer directly, instead saying that the Senate should not move forward with Coney Barrett’s confirmation.

“Joe and I are very clear: The American people are voting right now. And it should be their decision about who will serve on (the court) … for a lifetime,” she said.

Pence shot back: “You gave a non-answer. Joe Biden gave a non-answer. The American people deserve a straight answer, and if you haven’t figured it out yet, the straight answer is, they are going to pack the Supreme Court.”

Biden, too, has avoided the question, including when Trump asked him last week in their first debate. The exchanges highlighted the difference between the Democratic ticket and some on the left of the party who have been invigorated by calls for sweeping change in the face of another Supreme Court pick by Trump. Both, however, have also been careful not to disavow the idea.

Watch the moment:

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Mike Pence and Kamala Harris debated the upcoming fight over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, sparring over how some of Barrett’s religious views could be central to that debate.

“We particularly hope we don’t see the kind of attacks on her Christian faith that we saw before,” Pence said in response to the Supreme Court, noting that some members of the Senate have suggested they have questions about her association with a Christian group called People of Praise.

Pence then hit Harris for questioning another judicial nominee because the pick was a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic group that is anti-abortion.

Harris hit back by casting the attack as personal.

“First of all, Joe Biden and I are both people of faith. And it’s insulting to suggest that we would knock anyone for their faith,” Harris said. “And in fact, Joe, if elected, will be only the second practicing Catholic as president of the United States.”

Barrett’s religious beliefs came up during 2017 confirmation hearings to her current seat on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals. California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned whether the nominee could separate her faith from her legal opinions.

At issue then, as it is now, is how her faith would inform her approach, especially on legal challenges to abortion rights.

Hear the exchange:

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About an hour into tonight’s debate, Vice President Mike Pence leads in speaking time with more than 28 minutes, maintaining about a 90 second lead ahead of Sen. Kamala Harris.

A major fight over the future of the Supreme Court is underway as Senate Republicans push to quickly confirm President Trump’s newest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, amid Democratic opposition.

Trump nominated Barrett following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, setting off a high-stakes confirmation battle in the run-up to an election where control of the White House and Congress are on the line. 

Republicans, who control the Senate majority, signaled early on they would move as quickly as possible to take up the nomination, setting the stage for the possibility of a final confirmation vote before Election Day on Nov. 3.

The vetting process will kick into high gear next week when the Senate Judiciary Committee begins holding hearings on the nomination. During those hearings, which are scheduled to start on Monday, Oct. 12, lawmakers will have a chance to question the nominee ahead of a final vote on the Senate floor on confirmation.

Making matters more complicated, however, three Republican senators — Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — recently tested positive for coronavirus and are away from the Senate recovering. 

Lee and Tillis are on the Judiciary Committee and will be needed back in time to process and vote Barrett out of committee and Johnson’s vote will be needed on the floor to ensure enough Republicans are there to confirm her.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have already signaled they won’t back any GOP nominee ahead of Election Day. That leaves little room for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to find the votes if members of his conference contract or remain sick with Covid-19 since he can only afford to lose one more Republican besides Collins and Murkowski and still push through a nominee.

But confirming Barrett to the high court remains a top priority for Senate Republicans, who plan to press ahead and do whatever it takes to push for confirmation of the nominee as quickly as possible even in the face of the recent diagnoses within their ranks.

Johnson said on Monday that he will do everything he can to vote for Barrett, even if he has to wear a “moon suit” to do it. And McConnell said on Monday that Republicans remain “full steam ahead with the fair, thorough, and timely confirmation process that Judge Barrett, the court and the nation deserve.” 

Vice President Mike Pence claimed tonight that the Trump White House has “always” told the truth about Covid-19.  

“Let’s talk about respecting the American people. You respect the American people when you tell them the truth,” Harris said. Pence then interjected, “Which we’ve always done.” 

Facts First: That’s false. The Trump administration has not “always” been truthful about the pandemic. 

CNN’s fact-check reporter Daniel Dale called this “a whopper of a lie.” That’s because Trump has made hundreds of false claims during the pandemic, including false claims about his travel restrictions, Covid-19 testing, the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, the national stockpile of ventilators, and more. In recent weeks, Trump even lied about lying about the virus. 

Trump has also admitted, in a series of interviews with Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, that he concealed the true threat of the coronavirus from the American public earlier this year. Trump said, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” 

Sen. Kamala Harris excoriated Vice President Mike Pence and the Trump administration’s handling of trade tonight, leading the vice president to fire back at Joe Biden’s record on trade agreements.

“The vice president earlier said it’s what he thinks as an accomplishment that the President’s trade war with China,” Harris said. “You lost that trade war. You lost it. What ended up happening is because of a so-called trade war with China, America lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs.”

Harris went on to note that farmers have experienced more bankruptcies in recent years and manufacturing jobs have dipped.

“Joe Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China over the last several decades. And Sen. Harris, you’re entitled to your opinion, not your own facts,” Pence said.

Trump made renegotiating trade agreements a key priority during his first term, taking on the North American Free Trade Agreement and renegotiating it into what is now called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The effort has been heralded by some trade unions and manufacturers, but farmers have complained about the way the trade war has damaged markets for products ranging from soybeans to cheese to pork.

Watch the moment:

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Vice President Mike Pence claimed that Joe Biden called President Trump’s travel restrictions on China “xenophobic.” 

“Biden opposed that decision. He said it was xenophobic,” Pence said. 

Facts First: This needs context. It’s not clear Biden even knew about Trump’s China travel restrictions when he called Trump xenophobic on the day the restrictions were unveiled; Biden has never explicitly linked his accusation of xenophobia to these travel restrictions. 

The campaign says Biden’s Jan. 31 accusations – that Trump has a record of “hysterical xenophobia” and “fear mongering” – were not about the travel restrictions at all. The campaign says Biden did not know about the restrictions at the time of his speech, since his campaign event in Iowa started shortly after the Trump administration briefing where the restrictions were revealed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.  

Given the timing of Biden’s remarks, it’s not unreasonable for Pence to infer that the former vice president was talking about the travel restrictions. But Biden never took an explicit position on the restrictions until his April declaration of support. 

You can read more about Biden’s comments here.  

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

Vice President Mike Pence did not agree with California Sen. Kamala Harris’ assessment that the climate crisis poses an existential threat, saying when he was asked directly about that assessment: “The climate is changing. We will follow the science.”

Pence, who has long denied climate science – including once writing in an op-ed that global warming is a “myth” — immediately pivoted to discussing tax policies, rather than talking in greater depth about the climate. He also criticized Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Harris for linking hurricanes and wildfires to climate change.

“There are no more hurricanes today than there were 100 years ago, but many climate alarmists use hurricanes and fires to try and sell the Green New Deal,” Pence said.

Harris, meanwhile, said Biden does not support the progressive Green New Deal but touted his proposed stimulus package, which would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy jobs.

“Let’s talk about who is prepared to lead our country over the course of the next four years on what is an existential threat to us as human beings. Joe is about saying, ‘We’re going to invest in renewable energy, it’s going to be about the creation of millions of jobs, we will achieve zero emissions by 2050, carbon neutral by 2035. Joe has a plan,” Harris said, adding that Biden would rejoin the Paris climate accord, which Trump left.

The Trump administration’s relationship to the facts on any issue is generally tenuous, at best, and more often completely at odds with them.

And yet, on Wednesday night, Mike Pence challenged Kamala Harris over her accurate description of what would happen if the Affordable Care Act was struck down in court.

“Obamacare was a disaster,” Pence said, speaking in the past tense of a law that still exists.

He continued: “President Trump and I have a plan to improve health care and protect pre-existing conditions for every American.”

They have no such plan, despite Trump’s repeated promises to unveil one.

“Senator Harris,” Pence went on, “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”

There he borrowed a line from the late former New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan – without attribution.

Watch the exchange:

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“The President said it was a hoax,” Sen. Kamala Harris claimed in criticizing the administration’s downplaying of coronavirus. 

Harris is likely referring to Trump’s comments during a February rally, which the Biden campaign portrayed as Trump calling coronavirus a “hoax” in a September campaign ad.  

Facts First: This is misleading. Taken in totality, Trump’s comments at the Feb. 28 rally indicate that he is deriding Democrats for attacking his performance on coronavirus. A full 56 seconds pass between the two clips the campaign ad edited together.

In this section of his rally speech, Trump began by saying that “the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” ridiculing Democrats for attacking his administration’s performance addressing the virus. The President then compared this attack to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and calling his impeachment a “hoax.”

Trump then said, “They’d been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

 Here is what Trump said in full: 

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus — you know that right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes.
One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’d been doing it since you got in.’ It’s all turning. They lost. It’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

The next day Trump was asked about this comment and tried to clarify what he said, claiming he was “referring to the action that [the Democrats] take to try and pin this on somebody, because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them.”

That said, Trump’s clarification has not stopped some of his supporters from believing the pandemic is, in fact, a hoax. One Trump supporter attending a campaign rally in Michigan on Sept. 10 was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta why he was not wearing a mask. “Because there’s no Covid,” he said. “It’s a fake pandemic created to destroy the United States of America.”

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here

Vice President Mike Pence claimed President Trump “suspended all travel from China” in response to the coronavirus pandemic.   

Facts First: This is false. While Trump did restrict travel from China, his policy was not an actual “ban”: It made exemptions for travel by US citizens, permanent residents, many of the family members of both groups and some others.   

The New York Times reported in April that nearly 40,000 people had flown to the US from China since the restrictions went into effect in early February.  

You can read more here about the travel restrictions Trump imposed on China here. 

For more CNN fact checks, visit our fact check database here.

Sen. Kamala Harris hit back at Vice President Mike Pence trying to interrupt one of her answers about coronavirus by bluntly saying: “Mr. Vice President, I am speaking.”

The moment came in the wake of a presidential debate last week where President Trump frequently interrupted Democratic nominee Joe Biden, leading to a chaotic and disorganized debate.

Moderator Susan Page has tried to stop that from happening by repeatedly telling each candidate they had time to answer “uninterrupted.”

But the debate has, at moments, veered into the two sparring for time.

“I have to weigh in,” Pence said, trying to stop Harris.

He was unable to, however, and Harris was able to deliver a message about the way coronavirus has impacted American lives.

When Page tried to cut off Harris again, the senator said, “He interrupted me, and I’d like to just finish, please.”

The tone and tenor of the debate were front of mind for Harris’ team, who are well aware of the optics that could be at play given Harris is the first Black and South Asian woman to appear in a general election debate.

Watch the moment:

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Kamala Harris shifted over the course of her Democratic primary campaign from supporting “Medicare for All” to a more moderate plan. 

It called for a 10-year transition period — longer than the four years laid out in Bernie Sanders’ bill — though Americans could have bought into Medicare immediately if they wanted. Her proposal would not have raised middle class taxes, exempting households below $100,000, another distinction with Sanders. Harris would have placed new taxes on Wall Street transactions to help pay for it.

Notably, the Harris plan would have allowed a role for private insurers, a key wedge in the Democratic Party’s internal health care debate.

Biden, on the other hand, has been steady in his opposition to Medicare for All. Even as he gave way some on climate policy during the period after Sanders dropped out of the primary, the former vice president held steady on health care. At one point, Biden said he would veto the bill if it came to his desk, citing the cost.

The Biden plan would beef up Obamacare and add a public option, which his campaign has described as akin to Medicare.

On Covid-19 costs: Harris and Biden are also in lockstep, along with most rest of the party, on Covid-19 treatment costs, saying there shouldn’t be any. The same goes for an eventual vaccine.

The question: Do voters deserve a clearer picture of the presidential candidates’ health?

Kamala Harris’ answer: If you want to discuss transparency, let’s talk about Trump’s taxes.

If the presidential debate last week was a departure from historical norms, the vice presidential debate tonight is a return to them – neither candidate is engaging with tricky questions and both are turning to pre-planned talking points.

Harris, though, has a sharp one here. Calling on The New York Times’ reporting on Trump’s tax record, she zeroed in on the $400 million in debt he is believed to owe to unknown business partners or creditors.

“Just so everyone is clear, when we say in debt, it means you owe money to somebody. It would be really good to know who the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, owes money to,” Harris said. “Because the American people have a right to know what is influencing the President’s decisions. And is he making those decisions on the best interests of the American people, of you, or self-interest?”

Harris did return to Biden, though not his health, citing his openness about his finances – a stark contrast with Trump.

“Joe has been incredibly transparent, over many, many years. The one thing we all know about Joe, he puts it all out there. He is honest, he’s forthright,” she said. “But Donald Trump has been about covering up everything.”

Watch the moment:

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were mostly aligned on climate questions, though the California senator – in part because of her office – offered more concrete support for the Green New Deal’s blueprint. She signed on to a resolution written by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. 

When challenged by Trump in their debate last week, Biden said he opposed the Green New Deal. And while it’s true he hasn’t embraced it, his climate plan has been (cautiously) applauded by leading environmental groups. 

“Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face,” according to his campaign website, which touts his plan as a “Clean Energy Revolution.”

Both Harris and Biden support re-entering the Paris climate agreement, ending fossil fuel extraction on public land and putting a price on carbon emissions as part of broader policy visions.

But they differed somewhat, during the primary, on fracking.

Harris said she wanted to ban the practice, beginning on federal land. 

Biden has said he wants to limit it, but rejects a ban in favor of stopping new or additional fracking on federal land. 

“I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again: I am not banning fracking,” Biden said at a speech in Pittsburgh this summer. “No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me.”

Watch the exchange:

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President Trump pledged in 2016 to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but that hasn’t happened. Now, his administration is backing court challenge that’s scheduled for Supreme Court just after the election in a case brought by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, who argue the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the entire law must fall.

If the court wipes away Obamacare, it would have a sweeping impact on the nation’s health care system and on the lives of tens of millions of Americans — not only for the roughly 20 million people who’ve gained coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges and through the expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults.

The law is also what allows parents to keep their children on their health insurance plans until age 26 and obtain free mammograms, cholesterol checks and birth control.

And one of its most popular provisions is its strong protections for those with pre-existing conditions, including barring insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on people’s health histories.

Read more here.

Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence both dodged a question at Wednesday’s debate about whether they had discussed “safeguards or procedures” with Joe Biden or Donald Trump “when it comes to presidential disability.”

Debate moderator Susan Page of USA Today noted, “One of you will make history on January 20, you will be the vice president to the oldest president the United States has ever had.”

Page continued, “Donald Trump will be 74 years old on Inauguration Day. Joe Biden will be 78 years old. That already has raised concerns among some voters, concerns that have been sharpened by President Trump’s hospitalization in recent days. Vice President Pence, have you had a conversation or reached an agreement with President Trump about safeguards or procedures when it comes to presidential disability? And if not, do you think you should?”

Pence did not answer the question, and instead pivoted to criticizing Harris for saying she would not trust Donald Trump’s word when it came to a vaccine. Harris said during the debate she would trust the scientists and public health experts when it comes to a potential vaccine, but not solely Trump. 

When the question was posed to her, Harris did not answer the question, either. She instead spoke about her record and the barriers she has broken throughout her career — the first woman of color and Black woman to be elected Attorney General of California, the second Black woman to be elected to the US Senate, and now the first Black and South Asian woman to be a major party vice presidential nominee. 

See the exchange:

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Millions of Americans are still out of work. Many small businesses and major airlines are struggling to stay afloat. And states are still contending with massive budget gaps.

But those in need of relief from the coronavirus pandemic won’t see more money from the federal government anytime soon. After lawmakers struggled for months to agree on an another economic stimulus package, President Donald Trump this week ordered his negotiators to halt talks until after the election.

Democrats and Republicans never got very close to a deal, but there was bipartisan support for a second round of stimulus checks, extending a boost to unemployment benefits, providing more support for small businesses and more money for schools.

Congress passed a $2.2 trillion relief package in March, known as the CARES Act, but most of those programs have expired.

Read more here.

We’re tracking approximate speaking times for the candidates during tonight’s debate. In the first 30 minutes, Vice President Mike Pence has talked more than 13.5 minutes, leading Sen. Harris by almost a minute and a half.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly switched the speaking times.

“Stop playing politics with people’s lives” is a phrase you would probably expect during a debate this year — just not coming from someone working for President Trump.

Nevertheless, Vice President Mike Pence made the accusation, saying Sen. Kamala Harris was undermining confidence in an eventual coronavirus vaccine by saying she wouldn’t take it unless it was endorsed by public health experts.

“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump Administration, I think is unconscionable,” Pence said. “Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives.”

His attack seemed to ignore the repeated efforts by Trump to explicitly insert politics into the pandemic, including efforts to develop a vaccine.

Just hours earlier, Trump made explicit acknowledgment that vaccine development was being influenced by politics, bemoaning rules that make it unlikely a vaccine will be approved by Election Day. And CNN reported on Tuesday that Trump has phoned vaccine makers to press them to work quicker on a vaccine — preferably before Nov. 3.

Vice President Mike Pence defended the administration’s decision to hold a packed event in the White House Rose Garden 11 days ago amid a global pandemic, days before the President, first lady, and multiple attendees tested positive for Covid-19. 

Pence framed his response through the lens of personal freedom as he answered a question from vice presidential debate moderator Susan Page about the event, that, Page suggested, “seems to have been a super spreader event,” and how the administration could expect Americans to follow safety guidelines when they did not follow them themselves.

There was no social distancing in the Rose Garden. Very few attendees wore masks. At least 12 people have since tested positive. 

Pence further defended the decision to hold the event. 

“The reality is, the work of the President of the United States goes on. A vacancy in the Supreme Court of the United States has come upon us and the president introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett,” he said. 

He dismissed questions that the event could have been a “super spreader” as “a great deal of speculation, and noted that “many,” though not all, people at the event “actually were tested for coronavirus.”

He also highlighted that the event was outside, “Which all of our scientists regularly routinely advise.” However, before guests headed to the Rose Garden, some attended gatherings inside the White House reception rooms where social distancing was not practiced — including with hugs and handshakes.

“The difference here is President Trump and I trust the American people to make choices in the best interest of their health,” he said, pivoting to criticize Democratic nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential candidate for “consistently” talking about mandates.

Here’s who has tested positive and negative for Covid-19 in Trump’s circle

This is how the question played out:

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Green New Deal fits perfectly on a bumper sticker.

But the proposal isn’t a simple fix for what ails the US. It would equal taking American society back to the drawing board and rebuilding it from the safety net up.

As written, it is more a list of ideas and ideals than an actual proposal, although the new climate change regulations it suggests could run to $1 trillion.

What was entered as official legislative language on Capitol Hill declares the government should take a stronger position on everything from cutting carbon emissions to giving every American a job to working with family farmers to retrofitting every building in the country.

Read more here.

Kamala Harris directly said on Wednesday that if there is a coronavirus vaccine available during Donald Trump’s administration that is not embraced by scientific advisers but pushed by the President, she will not take it.

But if the scientific advisers like Dr. Anthony Fauci back the vaccine, she would.

The Trump campaign has slammed Harris during the campaign for questioning a vaccine approved by Trump.

Harris, echoing her answer tonight, told CNN earlier this year that she would not outright trust a vaccine unless it came from a “credible” source.

Vice President Mike Pence jumped on those past comments tonight.

“Your continuous undermining of confidence in a vaccine is unacceptable,” Pence said.

Watch the exchange:

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Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, took umbrage with how President Trump and his administration responded to the coronavirus pandemic, saying people needed information they may “not want people to hear, but they need to hear so they can protect themselves.”

“Let’s talk about respecting the American people. You respect the American people when you tell them the truth. You respect the American people when you have the courage to be a leader, speaking of those things you may not want people to hear, but they need to hear so they can protect themselves. But this administration stood on information that if you had as a parent or a worker, if you didn’t have enough money saved up, you’re standing in a food line because of the ineptitude,” Harris said. “They’ve had to sacrifice far too much because of the incompetence of this administration.”

Watch the moment:

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Vice President Mike Pence took his first crack at Joe Biden minutes into the debate, making an allusion to the decades-old episode which ended Biden’s first presidential bid.

Describing the Biden-Harris plan to combat coronavirus, Pence suggested it was ripped from the current Trump administration approach.

“It looks a little like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little about,” he said as his opening answer was concluding.

Biden withdrew from the 1988 presidential race after acknowledging he lifted phrases from a British politician without attribution. Pence’s line was an early cut that signaled his willingness to make personal attacks, even amid answers about policy and governing.

Watch the moment:

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Kamala Harris opened the presidential debate by honing in on Mike Pence and the Trump administration’s greatest vulnerability: The handling of the coronavirus.

“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris said at the outset of the debate before attacking the Trump administration for obscuring the facts around the virus.

Citing interview done between Trump and Bob Woodward at the outset of the virus where the President said he wanted to minimize the virus, Harris said, “They knew what was happening, and they didn’t tell you. Can you imagine if you knew on January 28, as opposed to March 13, what they knew, what you might have done to prepare? They knew and they covered it up.”

Harris added: “They minimized the seriousness of it.”

Coronavirus will likely be the most important issue at the debate, both because of the way it has reshaped American life and the fact that Trump is still in the White House recovering from the disease.

Harris said that the Biden administration would focus on “contact tracing, testing, administration of the vaccine, and making sure that it will be free for all.”

“That is the plan that Joe Biden has and that I have, knowing that we have to get ahold of what has been going on,” Harris concluded.

Hear Sen. Harris’ answer:

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Moderator Susan Page began the debate by beseeching Mike Pence and Kamala Harris to mind their manners – a none-too-subtle nod to President Trump’s behavior at least week’s debate with Joe Biden.

“You will have two minutes to answer without interruption by me, or the other candidate,” Page said.

She went on: “We want a debate that is lively. But Americans also deserve a discussion that is civil. These are tumultuous times, but we can and will have a respectful exchange. Let’s begin with the ongoing pandemic that has cost our country so much.”

And so they did. Pence started off his first answer by saying what an honor it was to share the stage with Harris.

After a debate many observers described as the nastiest in modern history, there’s nowhere to go but up.

See the moment:

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The coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the population and economy has become a key issue of the 2020 election and continues to shape the campaign.

Here are key facts you need to know:

Here’s where new cases are rising across the US in comparison to the previous week:

Vice President Mike Pence knows his place. Perhaps more than any other vice president in recent memory, his defining political characteristic is the unyielding fealty to the President that leaves little question who is in charge.

But if he was wondering this week about his station — perhaps because his boss was hospitalized with coronavirus, receiving supplemental oxygen and being administrated an unprecedented cocktail of drugs — he was reminded today that Trump remains the big man at the White House.

Hours before he was due to emerge onstage in Salt Lake City, Trump made his first appearance since returning home from the hospital, an upbeat if strained direct-to-camera video declaring his illness a “blessing from God.”

All week, the focus has been on the President’s illness. Trump grew irritated when discussion of presidential succession arose in the news, upset that anyone would think he might transfer power to Pence.

If tonight was Pence’s opportunity to shine, Trump ensured he was still the one in the spotlight. And if past is precedent, he will continue making that known during the debate. In 2016, he live-tweeted Pence’s face-off with Sen. Tim Kaine.

Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris’ only vice presidential debate has kicked off. It will run for 90 minutes with no commercial breaks.

Harris made history as she walked on the stage, becoming the first Black and South Asian woman to participate in a general election debate.

Tonight’s debate comes as the Trump administration reels from an outbreak of Covid-19 at the White House and erratic decisions by the commander in chief.

See the moment:

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CNN’s John King dove into the data tonight to explain how the upcoming presidential election “is not 2016” when President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

“Let’s take a look at the polling. One thing to look at, yes, Hillary Clinton was up eight points nationally the last campaign. She won by about one or two if you look at the national polls. She lost in the electoral college, she won the nationwide vote,” King said. “Joe Biden is up by a bigger margin, nationally. Up by 11 points by our polling average. Slightly bigger Biden lead. You see this race is simply not 2016. Joe Biden does as well or better than Hillary Clinton among all the groups Democrats need. Trump at 32% nationally among women. Joe Biden is more than 30 points ahead of that.”

Watch the full moment below:

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Ahead of tonight’s vice presidential debate, a panel of undecided voters spoke with CNN’s Sara Sidner about what they are looking for as Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence prepare to face off. 

“I really want to know what the candidates’ true plans are and how they are going to reach across the aisle to really get things done,” said Joseph, speaking with Sidner in Phoenix, Arizona this evening. “…I want to know how they can work together and make the country work together and not just make one-liners.”

Another undecided voter, Morgan, said it was very important to her that Harris is the first woman of color on a major American political party’s ticket, saying, “it should be important to everybody.” 

“Representation matters,” she said. “Its not the only thing but it’s definitely a big thing. “…I think we should all be paying attention to that.”

Sam, also on the panel, chimed in saying he agreed with Morgan,

“We haven’t had a ton of diversity in the office ever, so I think it’s great,” he told Sidner. 

Coronavirus was already going to be the overriding theme of tonight’s debate; the virus is ripping through the West Wing and the candidates will be speaking to each other through plexiglass. 

But for Vice President Mike Pence, the pandemic has also provided the highest-profile platform of his tenure. He was appointed in late February to lead the White House coronavirus task force, the often-at-odds panel of administration officials designated with leading the federal response.

By almost all accounts, that response has been mismanaged; the United States leads the world in cases, early missteps led to shortages in supplies and Americans widely disapprove of how the Trump administration has handled the pandemic.

Much of the blame has fallen on Trump himself, who has alternated during the crisis from wanting to act as the administration’s front man to shoving responsibility elsewhere, namely on Pence. In May, Trump actually planned to disband Pence’s task force before reversing himself, saying he didn’t realize how popular it was.

Among governors and public health officials, Pence has actually received relatively high marks for communication and responsiveness, even if overall the administration’s efforts have been halting. But that’s not likely something Pence will tout tonight; he has studiously placed all credit for the response on Trump.

The audience from the debate has just started to trickle in to the venue, Kingsbury Hall, on the campus of the University of Utah.

Inside, spectators will be seated in two different sections. 

There is a small group of chairs set up on the floor of the debate hall for the VIP guests directly in front of the stage. Those chairs are distanced from each other.

In the balcony, the general audience is being seated by student ushers wearing rubber black gloves and the standard surgical-style masks that everyone in the debate hall is required to wear.

The seats are assigned and are strategically socially distanced. Each attendee is holding a sizable placard that serves as their ticket that also tells them where they will be seated. Certain attendees are seated together but the groups of clustered attendees are separated.

The front two rows over the balcony have signs that say “Thank you for leaving this seat empty” in observance of social distancing.

More precautions: Each attendee had their temperature checked before entering the building. There are also hand sanitizing stations as you enter. All attendees were also required to receive a negative result on a Covid-19 test 72 hours before today’s event.

Staff was also seen wiping down the desks and chairs where California Sen. Kamala Harris, Vice President Mike Pence, and moderator Susan Page are expected to sit during tonight’s debate.

See inside the venue:

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Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Kamala Harris are set to face off in the only vice presidential debate of the 2020 election starting at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza is answering viewers’ questions ahead of tonight’s debate.

Watch live:

While Vice President Mike Pence will be prepared to defend the administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, he won’t be content to stay on defense.

Pence is ready to flip the conversation from the administration’s response to the virus to Harris’ prior support for Medicare For All. It will be part of broader attempt to tie the Biden/Harris ticket to the far left elements of the Democratic party.

Pence is known for his message discipline and his aides expect “on message Mike,” as he is known in the campaign, to be on full display tonight. 

California Sen. Kamala Harris is not on stage to “eviscerate Mike Pence,” said Joe Biden aide Symone Sanders.

“She is there to really talk to people at home and what they’re feeling,” Sanders added.

Harris will speak to the pain of Americans, drawing a stark contrast with what the public has heard from President Trump. This is a tactic that Harris is practiced in from her time on the Democratic presidential campaign trail, where her stump speech often distilled economic policy into simple ways that connected with supporters — how buying tires for the family car meant a working class family’s entire savings.

This is where gender becomes her advantage — using a softer approach to directly speak to the pain of Americans.

Gender and race optics are both issues the campaign is mindful of, even as Harris makes history tonight. (Harris will make history as the first Black and South Asian woman to participate in a general election debate.) But these are challenges, multiple aides say, that are not new or uncomfortable for Harris.

Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic rival, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, will face off shortly in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the first and only general election vice presidential debate of 2020.

The Commission on Presidential Debates said it was taking additional health and safety precautions at the debate, including using plexiglass, in the wake of President Trump’s positive diagnosis.

Here are some key measures:

Here’s what the debate stage looks like:

As Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris meet in Salt Lake City tonight for their first and only vice presidential debate, more than 5.4 million Americans have already voted in the general election, according to a CNN and Edison Research survey of election officials in 31 states reporting voting data.

More than 3 million of those votes come from 11 of CNN’s most competitively ranked states.

Nationally, Democrats are voting in droves ahead of the election, making up more than half the ballots cast so far in states with party data available, and Republicans making up about one-quarter of the votes so far.

That detailed information, analyzed by Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations, is giving new insights into who is voting before November. Catalist analyzed almost 4.5 million ballots cast in 27 states so far.

This data does not predict the outcome of any race, as polling shows Republicans strongly prefer voting in person on Election Day rather than early. The information contains insights and details about who is voting ahead of Nov. 3. While the returns represent a small fraction of the expected number of ballots to be cast in 2020 — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton received about 130 million votes combined four years ago — some states have reported that the numbers of ballot requests and returns have already set records.

Despite the surge in preelection voting this year, the gender breakdown remains similar to this point in 2016: 55% of the ballots cast so far are from women and 45% are from men. Among CNN’s key states, Wisconsin, at 57%, has the largest share of ballots returned by women.

Most of CNN’s key states are seeing gender breakdowns among ballots cast similar to those of this point four years ago, but there are exceptions. At this point in 2016, roughly 61% of Georgia’s ballots cast had come from women, but so far this year, it’s only 56%.

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CNN’s Pamela Brown breaks down the numbers:

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Joe Biden is surging in the battle for the White House with less than four weeks to go until Election Day.

In our latest Electoral College outlook, the Democratic presidential nominee crosses the 270 threshold for the first time this year. If you add up the states that are currently rated as solidly in his camp (203 electoral votes) and those leaning in his direction (87 electoral votes), it brings his total to 290 electoral votes.

As President Trump remains infected with coronavirus and absent from the campaign trail, his campaign finds itself in its worst political position since the start of the campaign season. The President had a disastrous debate performance last week in what was one of his last best chances to turn things around before millions of Americans began casting their ballots.

It only got worse from there, when his response to contracting Covid-19 was to tell the country not to worry about it and demonstrate a brazen lack of leadership by removing his mask on a White House balcony overlooking the South Lawn for all the world to see —precisely the move that nearly every scientist and expert says goes against promoting the best weapon we currently have to combat the virus.

The Trump campaign also finds itself at a significant competitive disadvantage with the Biden campaign when it comes to money to spend on critical TV ads in the homestretch — exactly the moment when a campaign wants to maximize spending to open as many paths to 270 as possible.

Meanwhile, the former vice president appears to have built back up that so-called blue wall across the Midwest that Trump busted through in 2016 to secure his victory.

Since our last Electoral College outlook, there have been no fewer than eight polls that meet CNN’s reporting standards out of Pennsylvania — a critical battleground state for either candidate’s path to 270 electoral votes. Biden never held less than a 5-percentage point lead in any of them and his support level was never below 49%. We are moving Pennsylvania back to Leans Democratic.

Read the full story here and build your own road to 270 electoral votes with CNN’s interactive map.

California Sen. Kamala Harris entered the Democratic presidential primary as a supporter of “Medicare for All,” the national health insurance plan written and championed by her competitor Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

By the time she dropped out, in December 2019, the senator from California had rowed back her support and unveiled her own plan, which called for transitioning to a government-run program over 10 years but allowing private insurers to participate.

Now she is making the case for Biden and his proposal to beef up the Affordable Care Act and create a public option on top of it.

President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence don’t have a credible health care plan of their own, but that won’t stop the vice president from trying to paint Harris as a tool of the “radical left” over both her initial backing of Medicare for All and her own proposal.

Her ability to pivot out of that conversation and into one about the current administration’s policies, both on the pandemic and their support for a lawsuit that threatens the ACA, could be a defining moment.  

Ahead of tonight’s debate, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a statement that it is safe for Vice President Mike Pence to participate in the vice presidential debate.

Redfield said the CDC had a consultation with Dr. Jesse Schonau, currently serving in the White House medical unit, and based on the descriptions, “the Vice President is not a close contact of any known person with Covid-19, including the President.”

For Covid-19, the CDC defines a close contact as a person who was within six feet of an infected person for 15 minutes or more, starting from two days before illness onset or positive specimen collection, until the patient is isolated.

Four years ago, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence let out an exasperated “there you go again” on the debate stage after his opponent, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said “America, you need a ‘You’re hired’ president, not a ‘You’re fired’ president.”

It was actually the first time Kaine, then the Democratic vice presidential nominee, uttered the phrase during the debate, but Pence didn’t realize that. He had repeatedly heard the line ahead of time from the man playing the role of Kaine in his debate prep, former GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

It’s that kind of preparation that helped him deliver a strong debate performance in 2016, and a source familiar with Pence’s debate prep this time around says he is approaching it the same way — with traditional, tried and true methods like mock debates that last 90 minutes without a break, just like the real thing.

Only a small group of advisers are in the room helping him, including former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has played the role of Kamala Harris, along with others.

Walker predicts that Harris will be a tougher opponent than Kaine was four years ago.

“For two reasons. One, because of her background as a prosecutor. I think that will be perfected. And two, I think the stakes are higher,” Walker said.

With President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and more than a dozen White House staffers now sick with Covid-19, Pence aides are bracing for Harris to turn the conversation to the pandemic as much as possible. And, of course, the vice president is the head of the White House coronavirus task force.

Harris sources say don’t expect her to pull her punches just because the President contracted coronavirus, especially since he is no longer in the hospital.

Harris, like Pence, is preparing in a conventional way. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Pence’s fellow Hoosier, plays the role of the vice president in her mock debates, according a source familiar with her prep.

Lily Adams, Harris’ former communications director both in the Senate and during her presidential campaign, said the California senator is a studier, a voracious reader of briefing books, and taking in the advice of her staff.

In her prep, Adams said Harris is very focused on finding ways to make her positions relatable.

“Let’s really dig deep on how does that impact an actual person’s life? Let me explain the problem that way, as opposed to using some sort of set term or a term that only makes sense in Washington, DC,” Adams recalls Harris asking in prep in the past with staff.

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Vice President Mike Pence’s guest at tonight’s debate will be the parents of Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped and killed by ISIS.

In 2012, Kayla traveled to the Turkey/Syria border to work with the Danish Refugee Council and the humanitarian organization Support to Life, which assisted families forced to flee their homes.

She was taken hostage by ISIS in Aleppo, Syria, in 2013 after she visited a Spanish MSF (Doctors Without Borders) hospital. The family confirmed Kayla’s death in 2015.

Almost nine months into the coronavirus pandemic, the crisis shows no signs of abating, even in states that were once not considered Covid-19 hotspots.

Utah, where the vice presidential candidates will debate tonight, is averaging more than 1,000 new cases each day for the past week. That’s the highest it’s been since the first cases in the US were reported in late January.

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall on Tuesday requested the city reimpose tougher restrictions like smaller limits on social gatherings.

“Our data’s continuing upward trend is alarming and swift action is necessary. The shift to orange should be a signal to Salt Lake City residents of the gravity of this situation,” Mendenhall said.

The head of the Oregon Health Authority on Tuesday said the state is seeing a significant spike in new coronavirus cases since autumn began.

“We have reversed the progress we made in the late summer, and our most recent modeling shows the virus is spreading more rapidly,” Pat Allen told reporters.

State officials in Alaska are seeing record numbers of cases and its highest ever test positivity rate (4.19%).

In Montana, health officials reported more than 500 new cases for the first time. According to The Covid Tracking Project, the state on Monday reported 201 new hospitalizations, a record.

Overall cases across the nation are on the rise. More than 50,000 daily cases were reported on Friday and Saturday. The last time the US saw more than 50,000 cases back to back was mid-August.

Just four states — Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina — are reporting a decline in coronavirus cases over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Kamala Harris and Mike Pence will be the two candidates on the debate stage in Utah tonight, but the California senator’s goal is to make the contest all about the man who isn’t there: President Trump.

Harris, according to multiple Democrats familiar with her debate strategy, is preparing for the highest profile moment in her political career by studying both Trump and Pence’s past positions, speaking with people who either know Pence well or have debated him in the past and preparing for a vice president who, unlike his boss, doesn’t show much emotion on the debate stage.

But the goal, the sources said, is to make the debate about more than Pence and focus the conversation on Trump’s mishandling of coronavirus, much like Biden tried to do a week earlier.

“Even though it is a vice presidential debate, the debate is about Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” said a Biden campaign aide. “And it is all about making the case for why we need Joe Biden in this moment and why Donald Trump has failed.”

Harris will make history as the first Black and South Asian woman to participate in a general election debate.

Read more here.

More than a week ago Americans saw a combative Donald Trump aggressively attack Joe Biden, cut him off and spend the entire debate in a confrontational posture. Mike Pence will be much different.

Expect Pence to abide by the rules, speak in an even handed manner and find ways to make his points with a measured tone.

Aides say he will still “prosecute” the case against Kamala Harris and won’t be afraid to return fire when given the opportunity. The difference will be he will do so with a smile.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on Tuesday released a set of nationwide ads featuring only California Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic ticket’s vice-presidential candidate, ahead of her face off with Vice President Mike Pence at the debate in Salt Lake City.

It’s her second solo rollout of nationwide paid ads on the Biden-Harris campaign, and will air on television, radio and digital and highlights the historic nature of her nomination as the first Black and South Asian woman on a major party’s presidential ticket

The ads, viewed first by CNN, are aimed at engaging Black voters — particularly in battleground states — in an effort to elevate participation in the campaign. And they’re part of the ticket’s weekly seven-figure investment in outreach in battleground states in an effort to provide additional “information and messaging” around the vice presidential debate about Harris’ candidacy, according to a campaign aide.

The ads will be released nationwide with an emphasis on Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Georgia, among other states, the aide said.

One 30-second spot, called “Mirrors,” is a nod to the barrier breaking nature of Harris’ nomination as the first Black and South Asian woman on a major party’s presidential ticket. It shows an elementary school aged Black girl watching footage of Harris’ selection on her couch with a female narrator calling it a “historic decision.”

The small girl reacts in complete awe and then the video shows her on stage, with the message “On November 3rd, vote for her” in bold white letters appearing over her.

“Our time is now,” the young girl declares.

It’s akin to a message both Harris and Biden have sought to magnify — the positive impact that the representation of the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman on a major party’s presidential ticket provides to young women of color.

A day after the announcement, Biden framed his selection as providing little Black and Brown girls who often feel undervalued overlooked to have the ability to see “themselves for the first time in a new way. As the stuff of presidents and vice presidents.”

Read more here.

Taylor Swift said Wednesday she is voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election. 

“The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included. Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first. The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them,” Swift said in an interview with V Magazine. 

Swift tweeted that she was going to be watching tonight’s vice presidential debate between Harris and Vice President Mike Pence. 

“Gonna be watching and supporting @KamalaHarris by yelling at the tv a lot,” Swift tweeted. She included a photo of herself holding her “custom cookies” decorated with the “Biden Harris 2020” logo. 

Swift broke her career-long silence on politics in 2018, when she endorsed two Democratic candidates in Tennessee who were running for the US Senate and House of Representatives. She spoke about her decision to weigh in on politics in the 2020 Netflix documentary, “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana,” in which she said she regretted not speaking out against Trump in 2016. In the documentary, Swift spoke out against Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s conservative record and described her as “Trump in a wig.”

Mike Pence’s team agreed Tuesday night to allow the Commission on Presidential Debates to erect an acrylic glass barrier near the vice president for tonight’s debate in Salt Lake City, a Pence aide and commission member told CNN, bringing an end for now the negotiations over coronavirus safety precautions around the contest.

Pence’s team made it clear throughout the week that they thought putting any acrylic glass barriers near the vice president was unnecessary and that they opposed such a move.

Sen. Kamala Harris’ team, however, wanted the acrylic glass barriers, in part, because of the ongoing spread of coronavirus inside the White House and the fact that Pence attended a Rose Garden event over a week ago that may have been the genesis of the spread. Pence has since repeatedly tested negative for the virus.

Physical barriers are typically recommended when social distancing cannot be maintained. The candidates will be separated by 12 feet on stage. Masks are considered the best defense against both droplet and aerosolized transmission of the virus.

A member of the commission said the decision came on Tuesday evening, adding that there will now be two curved plexiglass barriers between Pence and Harris, one close to the vice president and one close to the California senator.

The commission member said the Pence team agreed Tuesday evening that “if (Harris) feels safer having it up on her side, they will leave it up on his side.”

Pence and Harris have tested negative for coronavirus ahead of tonight’s showdown.

Debate organizers are requiring that anyone in the hall other than the candidates and the moderator must wear a face mask, all of which came after they were advised to make changes by their medical advisers at the Cleveland Clinic.

Some debate background: The addition of the acrylic glass barriers to the debate tonight is the latest sign of how the ongoing coronavirus outbreak inside the Trump administration has reshaped the final month of the presidential campaign.

The health decisions made for the vice presidential debate tonight will certainly hang over the two future presidential debates — one in Miami on Oct. 15 and another in Nashville on Oct. 22.

Trump has said that he plans to show up for the forthcoming debates despite his positive coronavirus diagnosis, leading debate organizers to consider a host of contingencies for how to host each debate safely. One possible option is to hold the debates virtually.

Read more here.

Vice President Mike Pence and his Democratic rival, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, will meet in Utah on tonight for the only vice presidential debate of the campaign.

Their showdown comes with the highest stakes for a vice presidential debate in recent memory, in part because President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has made it unclear if and how additional presidential debates will take place.

It will also mark a historic moment, as Harris becomes the first Black and South Asian woman to participate in a general election presidential campaign debate.

Pence and Harris share tickets with two of the oldest men to run for president — the 74-year-old Trump and the 77-year-old Democratic nominee, Joe Biden — putting an extra emphasis on their roles as the second in command.

Here are things to look for in tonight’s vice presidential debate:

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