Kamala Harris wins vice presidential debate against Mike Pence

Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris went straight on the attack at the vice presidential debate against Mike Pence in Utah on Wednesday night, tearing into Donald Trump’s catastrophic response to the coronavirus that has left more than 211,000 Americans dead from more than 7.5 million infections.

“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris said, pointing to the more than 211,000 Americans who have lost their lives to the disease.

Harris also talked about President Trump’s inability to tell the American people the truth on the coronavirus, a failure that resulted in the hundreds of thousands of American lives lost, she added.

On President Trump’s tax evasion, Harris said when she read that Trump only paid $750 in federal income tax in 2016, she thought she read $750,000.

“Joe Biden has been incredibly transparent, and certainly by contrast, the president has not appeared both in terms of health records, but also let’s look at taxes.

“We now know because of great investigative journalism that Donald Trump paid $750 in taxes. When I first heard about it, I literally said, you mean $750,000? And it was like no, $750,” Harris said.

Pence stood up for Donald Trump, claiming that the president has paid millions in taxes and quickly shifted the discussion to the economy.

Mike Pence came into the night with Donald Trump trailing in the polls and he had to change the trajectory of the race with a spectacular performance, but he was unable to give cogent reasons as to why the United States under his coronavirus task force has performed worse than any other country on earth.

On the racial justice and police reforms, Kamala Harris enumerated some of the steps that the Biden-Harris administration would take.

“Look, I’m a former career prosecutor. I know what I’m talking about. Bad cops are bad for good cops,” Harris said.

A Biden administration would ban chokeholds, require a national registry for officers who break the law, get rid of private prisons and decriminalized marijuana, she added.

On foreign policy, Harris said “Donald Trump…has betrayed our friends and embraced dictators around the world.” Harris, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, attacks the administration’s unilateral approach to foreign policy and “isolationism.”

In the end, Vice President Pence failed to make the argument that Trump deserved a second term, and his performance may not change the race Donald Trump seems to be losing.