VP debate live: Kamala Harris slams Mike Pence over coronavirus response and healthcare | US news

Pence dodged a question about what he’d do if Trump loses, and refuses to accept the results.

Watching the debate tonight, we’re reminded of something Trump once said about the vice president after Pence dodged a journalist’s question about healthcare earlier this year: “I think that’s one of the greatest answers I’ve ever heard because Mike was able to speak for five minutes and not even touch your question.’

Pence, muttered “Not true,” when Harris referenced Trump’s comments on the Proud Boys.

Harris’ assertion was true – and witnessed by everyone watching on TV. Pence has repeatedly questioned Harris’ grasp of the facts tonight – even as he has continued to make false and misleading statements.

Asked if Breonna Taylor was denied justice, Pence responded: “I trust our justice system,” Pence said.

“This idea that America is systemically racist, that there’s implicit bias in law enforcement,” Pence said, “is a great insult to the men and women who work in law enforcement.”

Harris hit back: “I am the only one on this stage who has personally prosecuted” a range of crimes, she said. She then attacked Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists. The president told Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate. “This is part of a pattern,” Harris said, pointing to the president’s racist rhetoric about Mexicans, and his response to white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.

Harris twice avoided answering whether a Biden administration would pack the supreme court.

Biden has taken a similar approach, largely avoiding a straight answer on whether he’d support adding seats to the supreme court if Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed.

Asked what they would do in their states if Roe v Wade is overturned by the supreme court, Pence completely evaded the question, and Harris pivoted to healthcare.

Pence began by responding to a previous topic and then accused Democrats of attacking supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett – a conservative who is expected to overturn American’s women’s right to abortion – based on her faith.

Harris said she will “always fight for a woman’s right to make choices about her body”. She then pointed out that abortion isn’t the only issue that could be decided by Barrett – the future of the ACA is currently being challenged in the supreme court.

Neither directly said what they’d do in Indiana and California, respectively.

Susan Page gave Pence a talking to, after he repeatedly rolled through her warnings that his time to speak was up.

“You have 15 seconds,” Page warned Pence.

“I gotta have more than that,” he insisted.

Through the night, Page has tried to interrupt, ineffectively, with “thank you, Vice-president Pence” – even as she’s talked over.

On foreign policy, Harris says Trump has “ embraced dictators around the world,” and sided with Russia over American intelligence. “America’s intelligence community told us Russia interfered in the election in 2016,” she said. “But Donald Trump prefers to take the word of Vladimir Putin over word of the U.S. intelligence community”