Vice Presidential Debate: Kamala Harris Embraces Late Term Abortion, In Debate With Mike Pence

In a debate markedly different than the raucous presidential debate between Trump and Biden, both Democrat candidate senator Kamala Harris(D. Calif.) and Republican Vice President Mike Pence, Wednesday, went after each other aggressively but with far less unruly interruptions.

About 1 hour into the debate, the moderator USA Today’s Susan Page asked the candidates about abortion and healthcare access for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

Pence said he is proud of Trump’s pro-life record. "I'm pro-life, I don't apologize for it," he added.

The vice president pointed out that Biden and running mate Harris support taxpayer-funded abortions up to the point of birth.

"There's the issue of choice," Harris said in her response. "i'd always fight for a woman's right to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision [to abort her baby]."

The senator dodged the questions over late term and taxpayer-funded abortions.

Pence talked about Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said he and Trump could not be more enthusiastic about Barrett, whom he calls a “brilliant woman.”

Pence said his hope is that she gets a fair hearing in the senate, unlike what now Justice Kavanaugh had to go through. He said he doesn’t want to see attacks on Barrett’s faith, like Harris' attacks against a judicial nominee for being a member of the Knight of Columbus.

The vice president also called out Biden and Harris for dodging the question of whether they would pack the Supreme Court -- which has had nine seats for 150 years -- to get favorable rulings. Pence noted that it seems like if Democrats can’t win by the rules, they want to change the rules.

In her response, Harris falsely claimed the Trump-Pence administration has appointed people to lower courts, who are purely ideological and who have been reviewed to be not competent or “substandard.”

The senator also falsely claimed that during his presidency, Abraham Lincoln, said voters should elect a president when a Supreme Court vacancy came up in an election year. The popular United States' 16th president in fact didn't push to fill the vacancy because the senate was not in session.

Harris said the the winner of November's election should fill the Supreme Court seat.

Pence during the debate, knocked Harris' criticism of Trump administration's response to the wuhanvirus pandemic. He noted that Joe Biden opposed some of the administration's earliest actions like the ban on travel from China. "Joe Biden opposed that decision, he said it was xenophobic and hysterical," Pence said.

The vice president noted that Biden's plans are very similar to testing, tracing and other efforts the Trump administration has worked on.

"When I look at their plan," Pence said, "it looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about."

Pence said China is to blame for the wuhanvirus and that “President Trump is not happy about it.” He noted that China and the WHO did not “play it straight” with the American people and did not allow Americans into China to get information on the wuhanvirus.

The vice president said Trump has been standing up to China after it had been taking advantage of America while people like Biden were being cheerleaders. He said they want to hold China accountable for what they did to America.

Harris in response, pivoted to attacking Trump by falsely claiming that the president got rid of an office created by Obama for monitoring pandemics. She also falsely claimed “lost the trade war” with China.

Of note, during the candidates' exchange on China, the communist regime temporarily blocked CNN broadcast signal inside the country when Pence was speaking, and restored it when Harris started responding.

On the economy, Harris lied about her position on tax policy. She said a Biden-Harris administration would support the repeal of the tax cuts passed by then Republican led congress in 2017.

But as Pence was accusing Harris of telling the American people that she would immediately raise their taxes upon assuming office, Harris smiled and said "That's not what I said" while shaking her said.

The vice president shot back: "Joe Biden said twice in the debate last week that he's going to repeal the Trump tax cuts. That was tax cuts that gave the average working family to a thousand dollars in a tax break every single year."

The candidates also debated US-China trade policy with Harris repeatedly quoting false numbers on manufacturing jobs gained under the Trump administration versus Obama-Biden's.

Pence pointed out that Obama claimed during the 2016 campaign, that unless Trump has a magic wand, he cannot bring back the manufacturing jobs that US lost to China. The vice president correctly noted Trump's economic and trade policies spurred the creation of many manufacturing jobs.

During their debate over foreign policy, Pence said Trump kept his word when he moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and emphasized that Trump has overseen significant successes in the fight against ISIS.

Pence then attacked Biden over the death of Kayla Mueller, who was abducted by ISIS along with her boyfriend in 2013 after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria. Mueller's parents blame the Obama administration for failing to save her life and were Pence's guests at the debate Wednesday.

"The reality is that when Joe Biden was vice president, we had an opportunity to save Kayla Mueller," Pence said. "The military came into the Oval Office, presented a plan. They said they knew where Kayla was... But when Joe Biden was vice president, they hesitated for a month. And when armed forces finally went in, it was clear she had been moved two days earlier."

In response, Harris repeated the fake news story on Trump's purported derogatory comments about military veterans. "This is about a pattern of Donald Trump's where he has referred to our men who are serving in our military as suckers and losers," Harris said.

Viewers called out Harris for dodging important questions, and blatantly lying throughout the debate. Many also panned her "I'm speaking, ok?" quip which she used numerous times to rudely interrupt Pence.