Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis sharpens focus on Pence, Harris in VP debate

The debate stage is prepared for the 2020 vice presidential debate between US Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Senator Kamala Harris at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, October 7, 2020.

SALT LAKE CITY: President Donald Trump’s battle with Covid-19, his age and the age of his Democratic challenger Joe Biden figure prominently in yesterday’s debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Pence, 61, and Harris, 55, were due to take the University of Utah stage in Salt Lake City, separated by plastic barriers for a 90-minute debate, a reminder of how the coronavirus pandemic has influenced the race for the November 3 election.

Now 77, Biden would be 78 upon taking office in January, which would make him the oldest U.S. president in history. The Republican Trump is 74, making his Covid-19 all the more dangerous considering his age and underlying health issues. Trump already is the oldest president to seek re-election.

Trump announced yestereday that he had tested positive and was hospitalized for three nights and given treatments that continued with his return on Monday to a White House where the disease has spread. His doctor said yesterday that Trump had no Covid-19 symptoms for 24 hours.

Either of the vice presidential candidates would be a heartbeat away from assuming the presidency, depending on the election’s outcome. How they handle themselves during the debate may be scrutinized even more closely than usual given Trump’s health and the age of both presidential candidates.

The Pence-Harris debate is unlikely to match the chaos of the first debate last week between Trump and Biden, when Trump repeatedly interrupted Biden and the two traded insults. Pence, more even-tempered than Trump, and Harris, a former prosecutor known for sharp questioning during Senate hearings, are seen as polished communicators.

Hours before the debate, the Harris camp sought to ramp up expectations for Pence’s performance.

“We know that Vice President Pence is a formidable debater, and that tonight is a challenge,” said Democratic US Senator Cory Booker, a Harris ally.

Aides to Harris said that Pence’s style would be more polished than Trump’s more aggressive, off-the-cuff manner, but that his message would be the same.

Biden leads Trump in national opinion polls and has an advantage of 12 percentage points in the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey of likely voters. Polls show the race to be closer in some of the election battleground states that could determine the winner, although a Reuters/Ipsos poll yesterday showed Biden leading Trump in pivotal Florida.

Prosecutor vs radio host

Harris, who will be on the biggest stage of her political career, is a US senator from California picked by Biden in August as his running mate. The daughter of immigrants — her father from Jamaica and her mother from India — Harris is the first Black woman nominated by a major party for vice president as well as the first person of Asian descent.

Pence, a former conservative radio host who debated then-Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine in 2016, is a former US congressman and Indiana governor who has steadfastly defended Trump during his tumultuous presidency.

A Biden campaign official said Harris was prepared for Pence to attack her as too liberal, echoing Trump’s assertion that the moderate Biden would advance a “radical left-wing” agenda if elected president, a charge Biden disputes.

The two campaigns have squabbled over installing barriers on stage between Pence and Harris to guard against coronavirus infection. Yesterday, television images of the debate stage showed two plexiglass barriers, one adjoining each of their desks. Pence and Harris will be placed more than 3.6 metres apart on stage.

Harris had requested plexiglass shielding. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller on Monday mocked Harris, saying if she “wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it.” An aide to the vice president yesterday said Pence had agreed to the barriers to facilitate the debate.

Both Pence and Harris tested negative for the coronavirus on Tuesday. US government guidelines call for anyone exposed to a person with Covid-19 to quarantine for 14 days regardless of test results.

In a statement, Harris spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, “If the Trump administration’s war on masks has now become a war on safety shields, that tells you everything you need to know about why their Covid response is a failure.”

The pandemic is likely to dominate the debate. Biden and Harris have made Trump’s handling of the public health crisis a central theme of their campaign, assailing Trump for playing down the health risks and failing to endorse mask-wearing to battle the spread of infection.

Pence, who has headed the administration’s coronavirus task force, can be expected to defend Trump’s response to the pandemic, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and battered the US economy even as other wealthy nations have managed to better control it.

Z24 News

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Next Post

WHO reports record one-day rise in global coronavirus cases amid European outbreak

Thu Oct 8 , 2020
GENEVA: The World Health Organisation reported a record one-day increase in global coronavirus cases yesterday, with the total rising by 338,779 in 24 hours led by a surge of infections in Europe. Europe reported 96,996 new cases, the highest total for the region ever recorded by the WHO. Global deaths […]

Share

Social menu is not set. You need to create menu and assign it to Social Menu on Menu Settings.