The first and only Vice Presidential debate was held last night in Norfolk, Virginia, and many Syracuse students hoped to see a substantive change from last week’s mudslinging in the first Presidential debate. Both Senator Tim Kaine and Governor Mike Pence had the monumental task of defending their parties’ respective Presidential candidates, who have historically low likability ratings.
While Kaine spent much of the evening attacking Pence for many of Donald Trump’s more controversial comments, the general strategy for Pence seemed to be to deny, deny, deny as he tried his best to poke holes in the current government’s policy decisions. To give credit to Pence, his manner remained calm and never wavered from its even, measured tone, although the same, according to Twitter and many analysts, cannot be said for his opponent. Kaine appeared combative, interrupting Pence a total of 70 times [12].
In case you missed the debate, here are some of the highlights:
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-Kaine opened the debate by saying that as the father of a Marine, he and his wife are “scared to death” by the thought of Donald Trump becoming Commander-In-Chief.
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-Pence constantly took to the offensive, bringing up what he sees as the Obama administration’s poor decisions and blaming it for Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. This gave Kaine the opportunity to question Pence on Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin as being a better leader than Barack Obama, and Trump’s business ties with Russian banks.
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-Donald Trump’s taxes were discussed at length. Pence stated that Trump is a businessman, not a career politician who used tax laws appropriately.
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-Kaine called the Trump Foundation an “octopus with tentacles in many parts of the world”.He accused the Trump family of using the foundation’s funds for personal use, which Pence denied.
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-Both Kaine and pence could agree on the importance of community policing in improving race relations. But Pence argues that there is no such thing as racial bias in the police force, while Kaine said that we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it.
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-Kaine said that he and Clinton “will never, ever engage in a risky scheme to privatize Social Security,” while Pence said that he and Trump would fulfill their “obligations to our seniors.”
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-Pence criticized Clinton for calling Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables” last month. Kaine responded by saying that -Clinton apologized, but Trump has not apologized for any of his statements about the Mexicans, muslims or immigrants.
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-Pence argued that Clinton’s immigration policies would expose America to a major risk from countries embroiled in conflict. Kaine responded by saying we can’t discriminate based on people’s religion.
While this was the only Vice Presidential debate, you can see Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton face off in their second debate this Sunday in St. Louis.
