During the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence wiped the floor with Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, on the coronavirus pandemic.
Pence began by noting that Trump did “what no other American president had ever done, he suspended all travel from China.”
“Joe Biden opposed that decision, he said it was xenophobic and hysterical,” the vice president continued. Indeed, Biden did oppose the ban. Yet the China travel ban “saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”
Next, Pence hit Biden on plagiarizing Trump’s policy response to the pandemic.
“When I look at their plan that talks about advancing testing, creating new PPE, developing a vaccine, it looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about,” the vice president quipped, noting that Biden suspended his 1988 presidential campaign after confessing to plagiarism.
Vice President @Mike_Pence on the Biden-Harris coronavirus plan: "When I look at their plan that talks about advancing testing, creating new PPE, developing a vaccine, it looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about."#VPDebate pic.twitter.com/f9Iwmylgib
— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 8, 2020
Indeed, Biden’s plans continued to echo Trump’s actions, even while the Democrat accused the president of failing to respond to the pandemic.
As the debate continued, Harris said she would not take a vaccine that President Donald Trump recommended, as if the president would encourage a vaccine that Dr. Anthony Fauci did not approve. Pence called her out on this.
“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable. Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives,” he declared.
Vice President @Mike_Pence: "The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the @realDonaldTrump Administration, I think is unconscionable. Senator, I just ask you, stop playing politics with people’s lives."#VPDebate pic.twitter.com/MXMGvQ3DIa
— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 8, 2020
Lastly, Pence slammed the Obama-Biden administration’s failures during the H1N1 pandemic.
“We actually do know what failure looks like in a pandemic,” Pence said. He mentioned the 2009 swine flu pandemic. “Before the end of the year, when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, not 7.5 million people contracted the swine flu, 60 million Americans contracted the swine flu.”
“If the swine flu had been as lethal as the coronavirus in 2009 when Joe Biden was vice president, we would have lost 2 million American lives,” the vice president argued. Indeed, as PJ Media’s Matt Margolis reported, COVID-19 is nearly four times more infectious and 13-20 times more deadly than H1N1.
Pence concluded by quoting Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, who admitted it was the result of “luck” that more people didn’t die because they did “every possible thing wrong.”
Vice President @Mike_Pence: We know what failure looks like and it's how the Obama-Biden administration handled Swine Flu#VPDebate pic.twitter.com/CVzIGmXHsr
— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) October 8, 2020
Debaters, pay attention. Mike Pence just gave you a master class in how to demolish Democratic arguments on the coronavirus pandemic.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
