After last week’s dumpster fire, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris met at Salt Lake City, Utah for the Vice Presidential Debate with a more proper, respectful, and peaceful outcome. Photo by Frank Mckenna from Unsplash.
By Iracema Navarro, Politics Editor
A big smile on my face came when walking into my room this evening to see a woman, Senator Kamala Harris, in the Vice Presidential debate against current Vice President Mike Pence. And a bigger smile on my face knowing as an American I was going to witness a normal debate.
A normal debate where real questions are asked and the candidates constantly dodged.
The VP candidates’ obligations into the debate were to back up the presidential nomination statements after a bad dream turned into a nightmare last week. I was able to hear both tonight and confidentiality says I won’t have a nightmare.
I will not have a nightmare, but I will stay up late tonight thinking of everything I heard and did not hear.
I did not want to hear about the swine flu, Hillary Clinton, or Trump’s taxes. I wanted to hear what the plans of both campaigns are to attack and solve the current issues today.
The swine flu was mentioned again. Why mention the swine flu when 210,000 Americans have died of COVID-19? Trump’s taxes were mentioned again. Why mention Trump’s taxes, when 36.5 million of Americans have filed for unemployment since mid-March?
Pence played moderator when a question about adding seats to the Supreme Court, as the critical question was dodged by Harris.
“You’ve refused to answer the question. Joe Biden has refused to answer the question,” Pence said. “I just want the record to reflect that she never answered the question.”
Come November, we will vote and have the oldest president sworn into an oath to serve the country for four years. Biden will be 78 and Trump 74 in January 2021. Plans on how death would be managed by the vice-presidential candidates was also asked but also kindly passed to surprise me that there might not be a plan. My parents and I already have a plan on who will decide to unplug the machine, who is responsible for the Mexican land, and who is in charge of the household paperwork. The question of what will happen if the oldest president elected dies within the four-year term is an important issue. An issue that will keep me up at night.
Maybe that is why the VP debate went better.
Maybe the VP will be the President.
Let’s face it, 2020 has been ruined. Why look for blame in China? Trump is Trump and Pence is Pence, right? No, they are Trump-Pence with the mutual persistence to blame China for the current pandemic. An administration that has not been fully open to the American public about the pandemic. The head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Mike Pence, informed there would be “tens of millions of doses of a vaccine before the end of this year.”
That wasn’t enough for Harris. A president must be transparent.
“They knew what was happening, and they didn’t tell you,” Harris said.
There are three winners for me in this debate: the fly on Pence’s head, the side pink eye, and Harris’s emotional eyebrow.
Vote.
