on. it's a much simpler calculation. play it safe. you got a big lead. you don't want to do anything that could create a moment. and pushing back and being overly -- she was not overly assertive throughout the entire debate. >> pence was. >> he was a mansplainer in chief. >> this was probably the advice they gave her. don't create a moment where you're going to incite great friction. you want to be calm and presidential. she let it pass. it doesn't have anything to do with the color of her skin. you're ten points up -- >> i'm saying, it's painful to watch. >> if i'm doing the review of it, and i'm sitting at biden

headquarte headquarters, one thing that was a lost opportunity was when he evaded the question about pre-existing conditions. that is what took republicans down in 2018. that was a missed opportunity. >> there is a good answer. for some reason, this administration, which has, in my opinion, a very good record on health care, and all the things they've done to improve obama care -- >> what? >> they've done tons of things by executive order to make the exchanges work better. and to expand plans. they've done tons of things. >> aren't they suing the supreme court? >> i have no idea why he didn't do that. but my overall take, i think pence made the best case possible for covid. you guys don't think it was a compelling one. i think for a lot of people, it was a good case. and he compared it, rightfully, to obama's record on h1n1.

which would have been disastrous if it was as virulent as this. my point is, he did everything that conservative wanted him to do, and made people feel comfortable, and even moderates, people looking for substance, mike provided a lot of substance. kamala was sort of weak on substance. most of her scoring points were going after trump personally. it was him where she really scored her points, not on substance. and one final thing on that, she never once, i could be wrong, she never once called donald trump president trump. she referred to him throughout the debate as donald trump. he's the president of the united states --

>> you're offended by that? that's your big issue? she was disrespected all night and run over. >> she wasn't disrespected. he had a lot of points to make. >> what i will say, i do agree with you that pence was masterful in normalizing conservative ideas. and that's to his great credit. but what kamala harris had to go out there and do, hang on to her base, which she did. she didn't have to score a knockout because they're up a million points. but i think people were uncomfortable with the moderation, she didn't want to create the angry woman thing. >> and the angry woman label, that is a real danger.

and for a black woman, that is double. >> oh, yeah. did you notice the smile on her face all the time? >> yeah. >> that's hard when you're getting interrupted constantly. and maybe she did create a meme. mr. vice president, i'm speaking, right? and she kept saying that to him as if to say, i'm not finished. and then he would sort of plow ahead. and i think that women watching that, they have a huge gender gap, women watching that are going to say, wait a minute. >> don't make the claim that he interrupted her repeatedly, because he didn't. he did -- >> he interrupted the moderator and her. >> he continued answering questions beyond his time. but -- >> i need another minute to answer that question. >> he actually did interrupt her. >> not more than you would see in any other debate. >> there was another point at

which mike pence said to her, this also struck me. and rick, i bet you would disagree, but he said to kamala harris, stop playing politics with people's lives. you listen to that, and you look at what's going on in the country and you look at bob woodward's book and what the president new in early february and you look at how he's handling covid and that coming from mike pence just struck such a note with me, like an are you kidding kind of thing. who's playing politics with people's lives here? >> one thing that i thought was really good, there was a question that was asked about health, about the physical health of the candidates. >> yeah. >> kamala turned to the financial health and went after trump on the taxes. she said something i thought really resonated. she goes, you owe money to somebody. like hold on a second, you owe money to somebody. she did that a couple of times

where she would take an issue that's been in the news and made it really relatable. >> she did the same thing with foreign policy. >> she also talked about when they put a bounty on somebody's head, that means they're going to kill you and get money for it. she has a base of people. understand you've got a bunch of young voters, new voters out there. she is speaking to them, edge caughting them. there's a lot of things she's doing that may have gone over people's heads. >> to say your foreign policy is about relationships, you want to talk about no substance. that's no substance. zero substance on the issue of foreign policy. >> except when your opponent has been blowing up relationships all around the world that we've spent blood and treasure to make those relationships around the world. >> nato has increased, talked about the relationship with israel. >> are you proud of our relationships around the world sf. >> i think they're better now than they were under barack obama. you guys may disagree with that,

but i can tell you conservatives feel that our relationships are better. >> do the curds feel that way, the kurds that president trump allowed to be murdered. >> don't even talk abdomen the kurds. you want to talk about kurds, let's talk about abandoning iraq and have isis come up and kill thousands of kurds. no, we defeated isis which was in the kurdish area and we have autonomous region. >> i'm going to tell you a couple of things. first of all, i think it's very, very clear that tonight kamala harris took you guys to the wood shed on the stuff we care about the most in this country when it comes to the economy, justice and covid. she was toe to toe with your best person. you said yourself mike pence is the best guy you've got. he gave his best and it was toe to toe on everything that counts. they didn't get enough into the foreign policy. but i don't see how you can sit here and say you're proud of what donald trump has done to our relationships around the world. we are a laughing stock on

planet earth because of periodic table president trump. he's probably tweeting some stuff right now on pence. >> i could go down a laundry list of countries if you want to about how our relationships are far superior than they were under barack obama. >> putin, you got a relationship -- >> no, we are arming ukraine as opposed to allowing the russians to invade and take crimea. there are real issues here and you're blowing -- the contrast you're missing. the fact you pointed out biden was not for taking out osama bin laden. >> we endangered the credibility of the new ukrainian enemy ever of ukraine. the president has made the president of ukraine look like a laughing stock. >> that was because of an investigation that took place -- >> no because because he tried to co-op -- anyway, it's ancient history. in terms of the debate, did this

move the needle? >> no, i don't think it did. i don't think it moved the needle at all. and i think it was pretty frustrating for people to watch because they got asked questions and they didn't answer them. and particularly mike pence. when you get asked one question and you want to pivot and turn to another question. neither one of them talked about the age of their candidate, for example, and talked about the conversations they had or had not. let me make a bet here, just saying, that mike pence has never had that conversation with donald trump. >> nor has kamala had it with joe biden? >> well, i don't know. i don't know the answer to that. >> i watched five minutes of the debate which is something i do in debates without sound. >> you should have done that last week. >> i did. and it's very interesting what you -- >> what did you learn? >> -- pick up on. every shot, kamala harris, when she's looking at, she had a smile on her face far more than pence had a face on his. he had a bloody eye and a fly.

he does the sincerity look well. i thought it was interesting how she was very loose, thoughtful in how she looked at him and how she looked at the moderator and her -- we've seen this before from her when she gave her first speech after being named as vice presidential nominee. she gave a lot of it with a smile on her face. and i think that's clearly intentional. >> oh yeah. >> she did. it's also true if you look back at the debate four years ago. this was a different guy. pence was a different guy. tonight he looked to me -- he often times, particularly on subjects like covid looked like a guy who had been taken to the principal's office. he did not look like he wanted to be there. he was not the warm sunny presence we're accustomed to. i felt that she was playing defense much of the night. i also thought by the way, it was odd that at the end having made the case that kamala harris' radical left, he assailed her for being too tough as a prosecutor.

>> which i was surprise she didn't make that point, which is wait a minute, five minutes ago i was radical left. >> that was clearly oriented to african-american males. >> guess what. everybody else was watching too. >> what's that? >> i said everybody else was watching too. >> i understand. i think to comment on pence, pence felt the weight of the world. after the last debate's performance, the campaign was riding on this. i know, david, you think the race is over to begin with. but a lot of the folks in the trump-pence feel like they need to have at least a step where you stop the pleading or you can come back. and it was on pence's shoulders. >> did he get it? >> i think he delivered. you're right. he was not the happy warrior as much as mike has been in the past, but it's also a different time. it's a somber time. so, i think he did, as i said before, everything that he needed to do to stop the bleeding, whether he turned the

campaign around, i doubt it. but he did what he needed to do. >> he had one good riff, gloria. i thought his riff that he came to give on taxes on some of biden's programs, he misrepresented biden's program. but he -- you knew he was going to attack them for being tax raisers and so on. he was very much on the attack there. most of the night he was on defense. >> can i just say something more about kamala harris' demeanor since we're talking about it? i think she knew exactly what she had to do. she knew she was going to be interrupted. she knew this was going to be an issue. she is a seasoned prosecutor, and she's got a jury out there. and she's making her case. and she doesn't want to -- they don't know her. they've known mike pence. but they don't really know who she is. and she introduced herself. she sort of took her opportunity to give her bio out there because most americans don't know who she is. and i think she was smartly very care to feel smile at mike

pence, to -- her demeanor was calm and reasoned. >> playing it safe. >> what? >> playing it safe. it's all about tone. >> playing it safe. i think for a woman in particular, when she sort of attacked joe biden during that debate, that may not have worked so well for her. i think she's had that experience in the past. and now -- >> i've just got to say it's insane that this day in age -- >> it's insane. >> -- we still have the standard that women have to be more. >> thanks very much. i want to do fact checking right now. i want to get to what we heard daniel dale, our fact checker. vice president pence echoed president trump's claims about suspending travel from china early on to try to slow down the coronavirus pandemic. first of all, listen to this. >> before there were more than five cases in the united states, all people who had returned from china.

president donald trump did what no other american president had ever done, and that was he suspended all travel from china, the second largest economy in the world. >> all right, daniel, is that accurate? >> this is false, wolf. i don't know how many times i have to say this on tv with you. president trump did not suspend all travel from china. what trump did, wolf, was impose a partial travel restriction in early february. it exempted citizens, it exempted permanent residents and many of their family members. flights from china were never fully banned and tens of thousands of people kept flying over from china to the u.s. after the thing that trump and pence call a ban was put into effect. wolf, it's worth noting there is good research suggesting these restrictions on china were not supereffective. research has found that the early u.s. outbreak was brought in largely by travellers coming from europe, not china. while trump was restricting travel from china in early

february, he did not impose travel restrictions on europe until the virus was here and spreading. bottom line, pence claims trump suspended all travel from china. that is just false. >> we also heard, daniel, the vice president mike pence try to cast some of the blame for the u.s. coronavirus response on the obama administration citing it's response to theh 17b 1 pandemic. >> in 2009 when joe biden was vice president, we would have lost 2 million american lives. his on chief of staff ron clain would say it was pure luck they did, quote, everything possible wrong. and we learned from that. they left the strategic national stock pile empty. they left an empty and hollow plan. >> where as the stock pile depl or empty?

>> the claim is misleading. it is not true the national stock pile was empty as pence said. a spokesperson has told me they inherented more than 16,000 ventilators in good working order from the obama administration. it also contained, for example, enough smallpox vaccine for every american. journalists were allowed to tour the stock pile, they personally saw piles of stuff on the shelves. no, not empty. however, it is true that some supplies had run low, for example the supply of n95 masks was low. it got completed during the the h1n1 pandemic. so, there was some truth, but misleading. it's wrong to say empty. it certainly wasn't bereft of stuff. >> our producers did some math. they found nearly identical speaking times for these two

ka candidates. take a look at this. 36 minutes 24 seconds for kamala harris. 46 minutes 27 seconds more mike pence. very, very equal amounts of time. >> we were talking before about whether or not senator kamala harris left some opportunities on the table purposely because perhaps she went into the debate knowing of some gender and racial roles and dynamics that make women, make people of color have to hold back, not that they should, but that they feel like they have to in this country. and a source close to the campaign after we had this conversation said that senator harris went into the debate aware of the dynamics and knowing she had to thread the needle. women are judged differently. it's a needle we have to thread all the time, and of course she

has been the only woman and only black woman in many spaces. so, just what we were talking about. >> yeah, of course she's had to thread -- she has had to thread that line several times in the past. one of the interesting differences between tonight compared to what we've come to see from kamala harris in the primary debates was that she became known for creating moments, whether it was with joe biden or at other debates, even known for creating moments in the judiciary committee hearings. >> sure, with attorney general barr. >> exactly. we didn't see that kamala harris tonight. we saw a different kamala harris tonight, in part, i'm told, because the objective here was very different. she came in here believing that it was about holding her own steady, stable, executing on the plan, not creating, you know, social media moments that people have come to expect from her. that might be a disappointment, frankly, to some of her fans on

twitter. but from the perspective of the campaign, i think you'll hear a lot of people saying, in terms of what they prepared for, she executed on that. >> although i'm still speaking, was a line that is very memorable. people who are near her are happy that that was something that she got out. she obviously prepared that for when the vice president was going to interrupt her. and i can see that resonating a lot with women. you know, that here was a guy on the stage with her trying to kind of talk over her and she stopped him and she looked at him and she said, i'm still speaking. i can already see the biden campaign making a t-shirt out of that. >> a couple of things, i think i agree with senator san tor is excited about talking about vice president pence than the running mate. i think she played it safe but that's what you would expect if

you believe the polls, the biden-harris campaign is winning and the trump-pence campaign is losing. and if you look at who was more aggressive and really did more dumping in terms of just bringing up votes and her record as an attorney general or a district attorney, that's the campaign that's behind. and that's pence. >> and these are people who are not at the top of the ticket. i mean, this is the vice presidential debate. yes, it is different for all the reasons we have discussed, not the least of which is that the men at the top of the ticket are in their 70s and, you know, this is incredibly important because they could be the future of their respective parties. but it is the vice presidential debate. so, it is -- if you're kamala harris, do no harm right now. >> i really want to know what you think about senator harris' response when it came to the vaccine, if there is a coronavirus vaccine. she said that if -- because people have criticized her for

undermining whether or not the concept of whether or not she should take the vaccine. she said she would be first in line if the medical professionals, the health professionals advocated. but if it's just donald trump, nope, she's not going to take it. >> this was a doover for her and she executed it line-for-line, word-for-word exactly what i'm sure they prepared her to say. if the scientists say it's safe, i will be the first in line to take it, if donald trump says to take it, i will not. that's the message. and pence ignored what she said and continued to accuse her of undermining the science even though the president tweeted this morning he wants a vaccine before the election because it's before the election. >> and president trump also opposes vaccines in general. >> exactly. i think she also took the opportunity to redo that line, and i think it worked well for her opportunity. pence to our earlier conversation had a lot more work to do tonight because the last

debate with president trump, you couldn't hear what was being said so much to understand what the trump argument against biden was. i thought tonight because of the calm nature of this debate. on both sides they were a lot more toned down. you could hear the arguments. and that was effective for pence because he needed to deliver these lines on china. he needed to deliver these lines on the green new deal. he needed to deliver these lines on taxes. and these mess saages did not c across last week. and the trump-pence campaign is a little bit behind the eight ball on this. >> it sounds to me like you're saying that he succeeded. >> he succeeded in executing the trump-pence talking point. >> yeah. >> did he answer the questions? >> no. >> no, he did not. >> right. >> but if debates are about bringing your message to the american public, mike pence is, to quote president trump, very effective of not even coming

close to the question and talking and talking and talking and delivering his talking points. and you are know, it's up to the american people at this point which version of this they want to take home and believe. >> yeah. the other thing is that because we have not seen kamala harris in this kind of situation, obviously we've seen her in interviews and on the stump with joe biden, but this is the first time that she's really had to meld her record and her beliefs and joe biden's, obviously joe biden's wins out. that one moment she looked at the camera and said explicitly joe biden does not want to ban fracking, which is a big, big issue in places like southwest pennsylvania where they're doing well. i thought that was really interesting because in the primaries she did want to ban fracking. so, now she is falling in line, as running mates do, with the guy at the top of the ticket. >> i do have to say i still think the major three issues as to why people are going to vote and how they're going to vote are the coronavirus response,

the economy and health care. and when it comes to the coronavirus response, vice president pence was unable to answer the question, why is our death rate so much higher than any other western country? why are the number of corpses we have here so much higher than any other wealthy country. he just was unable to answer that question. and he was forced to create an alternate reality where the h1n1 flu under president obama was as bad and as deadly as coronavirus and projecting out what that would look like. that's not planet earth. that's not what we're living on. maybe that's great in a ray bradbury version of the coronavirus vaccine. >> right, you don't get to choose which version of the reality you live in. and i think one of the things that perhaps harris was trying to execute on in this debate tonight was just saying to the american people in response to those things, what is your life

like today right now? and you don't really even have to make a comparison between the two because we all sitting here lived through h1n1 and i don't remember the economy shutting down, i don't remember quarantining, wearing a mask, anything like that. i don't know a single person who contracted the h1n1 flu. i know countless people who have contracted covid-19. >> yeah. president trump is one of them. >> including the president of the united states. so, i do think that that argument from pence really skirted the question. and just putting aside the politics of it, in this moment that we are living in, i do think the american people deserve real answers from a vice president pence, from president trump about why we have gotten to this point. and what they're going to do about it from this point forward. >> yeah, no, i agree. the fact that she kept going back to the fact that the president and the vice president knew early on, particularly the

president leaning on the bob woodward tape because why wouldn't she, it would be malpractice if she didn't, and then looking into the camera and saying to the american people you don't have to be in this mess as much as you are. you don't are to have your kids in virtual school the way that they are now. if they would have actually acted in a much more robust way on what they knew, then things would be different. you know, i'm sure that was effective. >> i mean, i think it was effective but i don't think she did it enough to be honest. >> she could have done it more. >> if politics is about the repetition of your talking points, the repetition of the arguments you're trying to make so they get through to the american people -- let's be honest. first of all, most americans did not watch the debachlt second of all, if they were watching they were doing other things. they were in and out of the living room. she said it i think twice. >> because she was answering the questions. >> right. well, that's the thing. it was in this very room at the very beginning of the trump

presidency -- i think pence was vice president-elect pence and they had just fired michael flynn's son from the transition because he was out there pushing crazy pizzagate nonsense. i told vice president pence, did you know they put in a security issue for him. he refused to answer my question. there's a shamelessness in terms of how much he doesn't answer questions. >> i want to go to our fact checker daniel dale. the candidates clashed over jobs, manufacturing, trade with china. i want to play one exchange. >> the vice president earlier referred to part of what he thinks is an accomplishment, the president's trade war with china. you lost that trade war. you lost it. what ended up happening is because of a so-called trade war

with china? america lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. >> i would love to respond. look, lost the afraid war with china? joe biden never fought it. joe biden has been a cheerleader for communist china over the last several decades. and, again, senator harris, you're entitled to your opinion. you're not entitled to your own facts. when joe biden was vice president we lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs and president obama said they were never coming back. this administration saw 500,000 jobs -- >> thank you, vice president. >> -- created and that's exactly the kind of growth we're going to continue to see -- >> thank you. >> -- as we bring our country through this pandemic. >> this exchange was kind of a mess on both sidesment i'm going to start at the beginning. senator harris said that 300,000 manufacturing jobs were lost

because of trump's trade war with china. before the pandemic, there was a net gain under the trump presidency of 483,000 manufacturing jobs. many economists do believe that the trade war did cause some jobs to be lost and prevent further gains. but i haven't seen a credible estimate that it's as many as 300,000 losses. pence then said that 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost under obama and biden. this, anderson, is misleading by omission. those losses occurred because obama inherited a steep recession with manufacturing jobs plummeting, well underway when he took office. and the number of jobs took office until about a year into his tenure, more than a million lost in his first year alone. but then the trend reversed and between march 2010 and the end of the obama-biden tenure in 2016, more than 900,000 were added. no, obama did not give up on manufacturing jobs. and pence like trump said manufacturing jobs are gone.

obama also said at a town hall that some were gone for good but boasted of how many were being created. finally pence boasted of 500,000 manufacturing jobs created in the first three years of the trump presidency. that's true as of february. but pence ignored what happened in year four and that is the number of jobs plummeted because of the pandemic. through september it's a net loss of 164,000 manufacturing jobs since trump took office. so, bottom line, harris was kind of misleading with the first stat, pence was misleading in a number of respects with his last three claims. >> daniel dale. thanks very much. van, what happens tomorrow? does the race change at all after this? >> look, i don't think that there's going to be a big shift or anything like that. but i think what you're going to see is further consolidation. i guarantee within 24 hours we're not going to be talking about any of the nice things pence said. he's very smart.

trump will do something nutty and we'll be in some other sich waegs. i wanted to say i'm trying to figure out what's going on here. you have a lot of people who are -- this is -- they finally got a chance to see what a debate is supposed to be. don't forget it. every presidential race brings new people, new voices, people who have done this before and this is how it's supposed to be. i think we got a little bit of credibility back as a political class tonight. >> i've heard that vice president biden is fundraising off the fly. >> i don't know exactly how. >> with a fly swatter. picture of a -- the question that i have about the fly in one of our numerous interludes here. >> winging it. >> that's such a dad joke. >> i know. pitching $5 helped this campaign fly. >> did he know the fly was on his head and just not touch it? >> i don't know. >> where was mike pence? i don't know. >> i hope it goes into

quarantine. >> but in terms of the race, does anything change? >> no. no, you really don't think so. i think kamala harris did very well tonight. she had a better argument tonight to make too on the things people care about. and i think she executed on that. pence, maybe she gave some comfort to republicans who are worried that an avalanche was about to take them all down and in that sense maybe that will be the case but i don't think it changes anything. one thing i want to say is someone who's prepared people for debates, this idea of not answering questions, every time you prepare for a debate, you know, there is an element of here's how we're going to deal with this and sometimes you want to get into it and sometimes you don't. but generally you make some passing effort to acknowledge the question. and i think the thing that was probably troubling to people watching the debate tonight was particularly when pence just

completely ignored it and just drove past it and said i'm not going to even bother making a pass at that. >> as someone who was guilty to a fault of answering every question i was ever answered directly -- that's why i'm sitting here today? i am not going to criticize someone -- >> that's why we like having you here. >> okay. so, good job mike pence. i would agree that on a couple of occasions, most of the time he did it it's because he wanted to comment on something from the previous question, not because he wanted to donnel the question, but because there was something about the last question he didn't get to respond to. and that's legitimate to do. >> when he was asked about whether he would accept the result of the election, he went back and said you guys have been trying to delegitimize us. >> number one, that was a great answer, but he didn't follow up and answer the question, which he should have.

and that was a big mistake. and david, you don't give much cree dance to this. i think it is a huge issue that on a fundamental issue like whether you're going pack the united states supreme court that you can't get an answer out of a major presidential candidate that you're going change the balance of power and the constitutional structure of this country? i'm just telling you that is not going to fly. i'm sorry, no pun intended. >> i think after last week, they should have had the better answer than the non-answer that she gave. i understand the politics of it, but i think they should. but what i would say to you is i don't think this election is going to turn on that issue. we're right in the middle of a 100-year pandemic, and we've -- >> okay. >> -- it's like we're adrift. and on the major things that are on people's minds today -- >> but i -- >> but there was one answer. wait a second. there was one answer he gave that i think was bad.

you know, he said there's no systemic race u ism. he went there. i don't understand what they're doing on this question of race. on the one hand they seem to be going after black male support, as you mentioned earlier. on the other hand that is a stick in the eye to every african-american parent raising a kid. all of us are terrified how our kids are treated in school. we have to deal with this every single day with our kids and i do not understand why mike pence -- if they want to get african-american male support, they've got to cut that crap out. there is systemic racism. it doesn't mean america is a terrible country, it's a great country. bit has a terrible issue with this. >> how can he say this? he's never going to crush donald trump. he's never going to disagree with him. it's not a surprise he would answer that way. >> i need to get something in here because jake was right that health care and covid and the

economy are the big three issues that americans care about. and i think that he did a poor -- that the vice president did a poor job in articulating what this administration has done on k had, and it's a lot. i know van is dismissing it. they've done a lot. and whether he doesn't know or can't articulate it is a huge problem. and trump's got to fix that. but i would say on the other side, if you listen to the substance of what kamala harris said about what they would do with covid, it is absolutely no different than what the president is doing right now. >> but they could be effective with it. >> but the point is you can't say well, they're terrible, we're going to do the same thing and be better. >> i thought she was good on that. >> he really missed the bar. >> i think what she missed is you can -- i think that's a fair argument that if you look at the nuts and bolts -- >> same thing. >> -- there are similarities. what would be different was not

being completely reckless both in personal behavior and also in undercutting the scientists at every step and politicizing the science. >> this is the point i've been making on this panel for a long time. it's not what president trump does because biden's not going to do anything different than trump does. >> that's not true. >> it's how he communicates it. >> no, it goes far beyond communication. >> it's not just communication. it's putting the thumb on scientists and actually having folks in hhs. >> this is a very important point to me. i think that the trump administration as a whole does not understand one thing. for an ordinary person, your actions speak louder than your words. that is true. but when you're the president of the united states, your words speak way louder than your actions. when you have the president of the united states pulling his mask off and doing all this stuff, it has a profoundly disruptive, destructive effect. and they didn't use their power

to get the industry on the side of ppe. there's a lot of stuff they did not do that biden would have done. >> he does have a communications problem. he was told this was a deadly virus and he forgot to communicate it to the american people. >> right. >> that is the essence of it. rick, you can shake your head, but we went through months of hell because the president sat on his -- on this information. he did not -- he told us it was like a flu, said it was a cold. even after he told bob woodward it is deadly, it is five times more deadly than the flu. how can you withhold that information. >> he's currently covering up what actually happened. he is refusing to allow his doctor to say when his last negative test was. he's covering up the history of this. he very well may have stood on the stage, knowingly positive with covid, spewing and yelling at joe biden six feet away, spewing who knows what -- i

mean, that's completely irresponsible. >> but you're talking about character -- hold on. you're talking about character. you're talking about behavior. i'm uk talking about policy. i'm not going to argue with you. i'm just saying, if you look at the policy as opposed to -- no, no, that's not true. >> the policy, telling the cdc director, you know what, your get back to school guidelines are too tough, you've got to rewrite them and weaken them. >> with all due respect, the president has the right to do that. he runs the country. >> but what about -- >> the cdc doesn't run the country. >> but rick -- >> he has a right to say to the cdc -- >> so, you're fine with donald trump -- >> i'm fine with the president making decisions -- >> -- with the paradon of recklessness. there are gay people in this country who are hiv positive and in some states they can be arrested if they don't inform a sexual partner they're hiv positive even though if they're

on medication it's zero threat to any sexual partner, none if they're on medication. they cannot transmit the virus n. mesh in several states they can be sent to jail because of that. donald trump is out there possibly infecting people. he could have infected joe biden on the stage and it's not that -- he's not held responsible? >> i'm not arguing with you about the president's character. i'm arguing about the policy decisions -- >> no, no, no, the character -- the character -- >> can i just say -- >> what's happened to -- what's happened to him in this country and in our politics is that his character now, the cost of it is clear. when you subjugate public interest to your political interest to the degree this president has on this virus and people's lives are lost because of it -- >> are you telling me -- >> that's a policy problem. >> hold on. are you telling me that barack obama followed every advice from every adviser he ever had and never changed it if an adviser came forward --

>> on public health issues he took his guidance from public health experts and that is the difference. >> let me just say one thing on policy because just recently maybe it was yesterday, the president of the united states tweeted -- or maybe it was today -- tweeted that the fda was slowing down purposefully and without any scientific reason, apparently, he thinks, the vaccine because it insisted ongoing through a couple of months of approval process. so, you have a president of the united states -- >> who complained about an agency. >> everyone wants a vaccine in this country. but you have the president telling the scientists and the doctors they don't know what they're doing and that they are somehow slowing it down for political reasons. this was his -- >> okay. >> this was his insinuation. >> but what happened? but what happened? but what happened? >> they did it. >> they did it. >> they did what they wanted to do. but who knows what donald

trump's next step is. >> that's pretty cold. >> does he have the pow tore overrule the fda? >> he does. >> so, maybe he will. stay tuned. >> let's go back to wolf. we'll have more ahead. >> anderson, thank you. undecided voters often watch these debates like the one we saw tonight to try to help them make up their minds. we have a group of undecided voters in the battleground state of pennsylvania. sara sidner is with them in phoenix. sara, what did the voters think of the candidates' performances. >> reporter: they thought it was a good debate overall. but let's ask them. let's talk to tyler here. you're 19 years old. this is your first time voting in a presidential election. in one word, describe to me the performance of vice president pence. >> shifty. >> reporter: shifty. okay. let me go back behind you to debra. debra, tell me, you have in the past i think you voted for president trump back in 2016. you are now on the fence,

undecided. in one word describe to me what you thought of vice president pence's performance. >> confident. >> reporter: okay. so, we've got tyler, shifty, debra is saying confident. let's go back now here to, let's see -- who is in the back here. sam, sam, you're back here. i saw you a little bit nodding and engaging. one word. >> not sincere. >> reporter: so, shifty, confident, not sincere. morgan, front row. you were very engaged as well. i was watching you go up and down with your device. what did you think of vice president pence in one word? >> stubborn. >> reporter: stubborn. okay. all right. judy, we've got you back here. you voted for president trump i think in 2016. is that right? >> yes. >> reporter: you're on the fence but leaning towards trump. what did you think of his vice president? >> overtime. >> reporter: what did you say? >> overtime. he kept stealing her time.

>> reporter: going over time. >> being inconsiderate. >> reporter: joseph, you are back here. i think you are leaning towards joe biden and kamala harris. >> yes. >> reporter: what did you think of vice president trump's performance? >> he was evasive. >> reporter: okay. all right. we have bob here sitting in the front. bob, you were listening intently. what did you think of the vice president? >> polished. >> reporter: polished. okay. very positive reaction to how he performed tonight. >> yes. >> reporter: okay. vanessa, you have sort of talked to me a little bit about how important this vice presidential debate is to you. what did you think of vice president pence? >> calculated. >> reporter: calculated. okay. now we have you, cody. you're also a first-time voter for the presidential election. you were loeaning towards trump. what did you think of his vice president? >> confident. >> reporter: confident. we've got two confidents.

last but not least, dennis. one word to describe vice president pence. >> i'll describe it as consistent because there was nothing new, no surprises. >> reporter: okay. nothing new, no surprises. we should also mention that there weren't any huge moments except for one, and we'll talk about that in a bit. i also should mention we have talked to these folks and canvassed them about whether or not this debate has helped them decide who they're going to vote for in the 2020 election. got some good answers. i'm going to toss it back to you wolf and anderson. >> the undecided voters, sara, they had strong reaction to the discussion about the coronavirus. both men and women agreed with senator harris' krit soichlt trump administration's response. before we show you that, take a look at how the voters' reactions will appear at the bottom of your screen. men men's responses are in green, women in yellow whchlt the line goes up, that means this group liked what they heard. if the lines go down, that means

the group didn't like the candidate's answer. let's listen to those key moments for senator harris. watch this. >> and they knew what was happening and they didn't tell you. can you imagine if you knew on january 28th as opposed to march 13th what they knew, what you might have done to prepare? they knew and they covered it up. you respect the american people when you tell them the truth. you respect the american people to have the courage to be a leader speaking of those things you may not want to hear but they need to hear so they can protect themselves. >> sara, why did that moment resonate with the undecided voters there? >> reporter: yeah, so let's talk about that. that was a very strong performance. the men, by the way, if you watched throughout the debate, the men tended to be much more decisive, much more emotional about what they strongly agreed with. and they went up quite a few times. i'm going to start back here with dennis.

dennis, kamala harris, this was a strong reaction from the men as much as anyone, but the women as well, strongly reacted when kamala harris sort of went on the attack and said, look, the president knew very early on before the american public that, indeed, covid was dangerous and he hid that from the public. what did you think of that response? >> well, hiding it from the public were perhaps trying to protect the public from fear may be the terms i might use. but i will also say that, you know, in talking about the large number of deaths that we had, if we look at americans in general, we're not really a whole bunch of conformists. so, i think we may have contributed to that not because the president didn't take any specific action or enough action but perhaps because we independently didn't think it was necessary or hasn't bought in to seriousness.

>> let me talk to you about the american public wanting to have things their own way and don't always follow the rules put out for them. do you think the president had something to do with that because he was refusing to wear a mask. you wouldn't see him wearing a mask often. do you think he played into the american idea that, like, i don't have to do this? >> well, i think some americans might have read that for sure as that it wasn't serious in that respect. but let's face it, pence was thrown in to the limelight when he started running the coronavirus task force and was very straightforward. they had the science there. they tried to -- they had the facts and the science and they seemed to be working with it. i trusted it. >> reporter: thank you very much for your answer. we're going to go to vanessa. what did you think of senator harris's response when you said you all knew this and you kept it from us and put americans in danger. >> i think it was valid for her to bring up, however i don't think she was necessarily right

that the president was jeopardizing the americans. i feel the americans were well aware of what was going on with the virus. i think trump did, as soon as he was aware of the severity of it, they put together a task force, they did everything they could. that's what i think. >> reporter: okay and that's how you feel. joseph, i'm going to go to you. what were your thoughts on that exchange there? >> i thought it was a very valid comment because it's true. for me, when you're telling a reporter that it's very bad, you can get it through the air and there are recommendations and you're not following them and you're down playing them and then consistently pushing the other way, i felt that that was irresponsible of the administration and they need to own it that we didn't really believe in masks and didn't believe in doing anything preventive except staying at home when we knew that it was really bad and we knew it was

bad early. >> okay. >> and to blame it on china, it's our fault because we didn't do our own research and we didn't push to make sure that we were protecting the american people. and just being up front and letting us make the decision, telling us that it's going away, it's going to be fine is not acceptable. >> reporter: do you feel like ufrp you were lied to? >> yes, we were. >> reporter: you heard the differinged whys of how this went down, but that was a strong reaction from this group. >> do the voters with you think there was a clear winner tonight? >> reporter: i'm going to ask that question. show of hands, how many of you think there was a clear winner tonight in this debate? one, two -- two out of ten. only two out of ten. so, there's your answer, wolf. only two out of ten people thought there was a clear winner, and i'm going to ask them who they think it was. how many of you think that vice president pence won this debate,

raise your hands. one, two, three, four. four people out of ten. how many of you think kamala harris won this debate? senator harris, one, two, three, four. so, it's a tie. four people think -- and then there are obviously people -- owe only have eight people voted. so, the other people, it was a wash. four people think kamala harris won this debate and four people out of ten think that vice president pence won the debate. coming up we're going to get the first results of our instant poll of debate watchers. did they see a clear winner tonight? we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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but despite the rising pain and anguish made worse during the pandemic, insurance companies still refused to cover mental health and addiction treatment. until now. senator scott wiener went to work - taking them on. passing a law requiring the insurance industry to cover mental health and addiction treatment. now more than ever, californians need mental health coverage. i won't let up until the stigma of mental health and addiction is finally over. right now we have the first results of our instant poll, debate watchers giving their take. david chalian has the results. who won? >> before i get to the results, i want to remind you this is a poll of debate watchers, of those folk who is watched the

debate tonight. and our sample of folks who watched the debate tonight leans a little more democratic, about 38% democrats, 33% independent, 29% republicans. so, the audience was a bit more democratic. now for the results. kamala harris, the clear winner according to debate watchers in our flash poll. 59% say she won the debate tonight. 38% say mike pence won the debate tonight. and here's some evidence to back that up. what winning a debate means? improving your position from where you went in. take a look. we asked about whether people had a favorable opinion before the debate of both candidates and after. look at the progress harris made. before the debate, 58% had a favorable opinion of her. after the debate, 63%. mike pence held steady. he didn't lose ground but didn't make up any ground.

41% before the ground favorable and after the debate favorable. the critical question, are they qualified to be president, can they stop into the top job. 63% of debate watchers they kamala harris is qualified to be president. and mike pence, the sitting vice president of the united states scores equally as well, 65% say he is ready and qualified to be president. only 34% of debate watchers said he is not. >> we're going to be getting more results from you as well. i know you're going through numbers right now, david chalian. let's go back to jake, dana, and abby. >> one of the interesting moments dana, considering this is an administration in which president trump has leaned on the cdc and fda to help him get re-elected by getting a vaccine out or therapeutics out to the point that people who work at the cdc and fda are worried

about their agencies being taint. one interesting moment was vice president pence telling kamala harris not to play politics with the vaccine. >> it was the ultimate brazen move by the vice president. we're used to seeing and hearing the guy at the top of the ticket pron project. that's kind of one of his moves. if there's something happens to him or something that is either bad or a liability or just generally things that happen, he says, okay that this is happening to somebody else. and that's exactly what vice president pence did tonight. i mean, the idea that he had the gau to say to senator harris, please stop playing politics with people's lives about the coronavirus, is -- i mean -- i don't know how she held it together to not respond to that one. >> do you know what really strikes me about that moment in particular, but several other moments in tonight's debate. mike pence says exactly the same

thing that donald trump says but in a more polished demeanor. they're not on different pages on the substance of these issues. and that's actually one of the reasons mike pence has remained in such good standing with this president. it's the way that he says it. but in this case it's so obvious that that is not dratrue. it is not an accurate reflection of what is actually happening in the world. i think some people might be lulled into listening to it and that was said very nicely. you know, it's clearly, clearly untrue. >> sure, same thing when he started talk, abby, about when it came to climate change. >> right. >> he wants to follow the science. >> this is another clear moment in which pence is saying something that is consistent with the president's position in some respects, refusing to answer whether he believes climate change is an existential threat to humanity, then claiming they're going to follow the science but not acknowledging that the president on television, on live television, just a couple of

weeks ago, questioned an actual scientist, telling him that climate change is contributing to wild fires in california and in the west. the president went on national television and said, you know, i don't think the science really knows anything about this. >> by the way while he was in california deal being the wild fires. >> after ignoring the wild fires for several weeks. look, just because it's being said with pleasant demeanor doesn't mean that it's true, and that was one of those clear cases where this administration's position, this president's position on climate change is not one where they let the science lead. >> no, and of course that was misrepresented to the voters tonight. something elts that was misrepresented to the voters, the republican party and the trump-pence administration are very clear when it comes to roe vers versus wade, the landmark ruling that made abortion legal, their goal and president trump has stated this, is to appoint

antiabortion judges to the supreme court, such as kavanaugh or gorsuch or judge ache barrmy barrett and have them overturn roe v. wade. mike pence said this evening that he's very proud to be pro-life but refused to acknowledge that this is the plan even though it is the plan. and if you're proud of it even though polls suggest a majority of the country is not supportive of that position, you should just state it. >> that was one area he tried to thread the needle a little bit and pull back from the stated goal of the administration. for the most part, aside from that moment, maybe one other, he, as you said, he was saying trump things but sounding very, very different. and it's because he's much more of a traditional politician, although he is unabashedly anti-abortion, pro-life in his

words. he understands the dynamics of the political landscape. and to say it that bluntly might not be the best thing for the kinds of voters that they're trying to reach now, not the voters that they already have, the kinds of voters they're trying to reach now. >> i still find that to be so interesting because ultimately republicans make the argument that the courts are such a strong issue for them, it's a galvanizing issue for their voters. a lot of recent polling shows democrats are at least equally motivated by the courts, at least they tell pollsters that as republicans are. but given they have the votes for an amy coney barrett in the senate and there's really no feasible way for democrats to block it, i'm with you, jake. why not just acknowledge that this is the plan. republicans will say they believe that this is a center right country that supports their position on these policies. and if that's the case, it's surprising that not only would pence not say it but even

recently president trump has been trying to dodge this issue, trying to say he hasn't really talked to his court nominees about this issue, when you know that this is a central issue for republicans when they're choosing this. >> because the gender gap isn't a gap. it's just a huge chasm. that's a. and b, it's also the suburbs where they're bleeding votes in swing states all over the country. and as much as they are pretty obvious about saying what they want, they also understand that this is the politics of the moment. and that's why they're pulling their punches. >> something else that both candidates this evening dodged was suzanne page had a very obvious question and a good question which is both of your running mates are in their 70s. donald trump's 74, joe biden i think 77. have you talked to them about what needs to happen if they

need -- if you win and the senior citizen that you're running with needs to step down for health reasons or whatever. and neither of them answered the question. >> neither of them answered the question. you know, i thought susan page's questions were excellent. but this is one of those that i think it would have been great to have a follow up. >> i don't think she was allowed to do follow ups. >> i agree. the format -- the format of this debate seemed to be reflexively in response to what happened last week. you get two minutes uninterrupted and that seemed to almost mean not even the moderator could press you to answer the question. but this is one that i think the american people really deserved an answer to. have you had that conversation. and the other part of the question is do the american people deserve transparency about the health of these two candidates? there is no more moment more vivid than this one for why we need transparency. the president was just hospitalized a few days ago. >> yeah, and we still don't know his health conditions and still

not getting straight answers. still ahead. did men and women see the debate similarly or were some of them on mars and some of them on venus. stay with us. negative self image. there was like this contrast between like the way that i was thinking about my personality and the way that i was thinking about my body. with noom, i was able to learn how to interrupt those habits and create new ones. so my goal was 35 pounds and i've lost about 30 pounds now. so.. i've never been this confident in my body. my name is sara and i changed my life with noom. visit noom.com and lose the weight for good.

and a majority of americans. say the vote for the next supreme court justice should wait till after the election. but instead of letting our voices be heard, trump and mcconnell are rushing it through and taking a short cut to the highest court in the land. there's a pandemic devastating every corner of the country, but they're just rushing to play politics with the court. it's a lifetime appointment, tell senators to do it right. demand justice is responsible for the content of this advertising.

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it was terrifying. thousands of family homes are destroyed in wildfires. families are forced to move and higher property taxes are a huge problem. prop 19 limits taxes on wildfire victims so families can move without a tax penalty. nineteen will help rebuild lives. vote 'yes' on 19. we're breaking down the vice presidential debate, and whether the candidates stuck to the facts. our fact checker, daniel dale, is back with us. daniel, the debate hit on environmental concerns about the process of fracking to extract oil and gas. the vice president mike pence made this claim about joe biden's position. listen. >> senator, the american people can go look at the record. i -- i know joe biden says otherwise, now, as you do.

but the both of you repeatedly committed to abolishing fossil fuel and banning of fracking. >> so, daniel, did the vice president get it right? >> so, he was correct when it comes to senator harris. harris said, during the 2019 democratic primary, that there's no question that she is in favor of banning fracking. so, that's correct. but, he was at least a little bit misleading, at least a little bit, when it comes to former vice president biden. now, biden's plan on his website and so on says that he is proposing to ban new oil and gas permitting on public lands and in public waters. so, that is not a ban on all fracking. just talking about public lands and waters. and it is not a ban on existing fracking. it is talking about new permitting. however, i think it's important to be at least a little bit generous to vice president pence here because, during the democratic primary, biden repeatedly created confusion about his stance, including in an exchange with our dana bash of cnn. she was asking about oil and gas

subsidies and fracking, and he responded, basically, we're going to make sure that that's all eliminated. so, it was -- it was a vague answer but he certainly created the impression that he supported banning fracking. now, wolf, every time he would give such a vague answer, his campaign would say, no, no, look at our website. that's not our actual plan. and during the general election, biden has been much clearer, much more explicit. bottom line, he is at least a little bit misleading about biden, at least during the primary. but we have to be generous to pence because biden has certainly given him some ammunition, wolf. >> very interesting, indeed. the candidates, daniel, also clashed over taxes. listen to what senator harris said about the democrats' plan. >> joe biden will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year. he has been very clear about that. >> so, daniel, is that an accurate portrayal of the biden/harris plan? >> so, this is complicated and i'd say it's a needs-contacts kind of claim. as cnn's excellent reporter

katie la bosco, at least two models show they would not raise taxes on people earning below 400,000 but that's if you look at payroll taxes. no those stories are not the whole story when assessing a candidate's tax plan. it's also important to look at things like biden's proposal. many economists say that workers bear some of the cost of a corporate tax increase, in their after-tax wages. one analysis, for example, found that about 82% of taxpayers could see a reduction in wages, as a result of biden's plan. in addition, biden has proposed to change the way 401(k)s are treated under the tax code. that could leave some middle-income earners. so it's a challenge to fact check what will happen in the future and there is a basis for what harris is saying but it's far from certain that if you are making less than 400,000, you'll have no impact, whatsoever, under the biden plan. >> excellent fact checking, as always. we're going to get back to you,

daniel. thank you very much. still ahead, more results from our cnn instant poll and whether there was a gender gap among debate watchers. we'll be back in a moment. sorr. [ sighs ] hey! hey man! you're here. you don't trust me here is vegas, do you? well... i thought we had a breakthrough with the volkswagen. we did. yes. we broke through. that's the volkswagen! that's the cross sport. wow. seatbelts. ♪ please, just tell me where we're going. ♪

i remember herwho was because she had a bracelet that had the names of her children. she asked me, 'doctor, am i going to be okay?' and i could not give her the answer that i wanted to give her. there is no excuse for why we don't have this under control at this point. joe biden listens to medical experts. he actually has a plan that does the things that we should have been doing many months ago. and joe biden is not going to let his ego get in the way of fighting the disease. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. your journey requires liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. liberty power! wow. that will save me lots of money. you're insured! this game's boring. let's get tacos.

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still refused to cover mental health and addiction treatment. until now. senator scott wiener went to work - taking them on. passing a law requiring the insurance industry to cover mental health and addiction treatment. now more than ever, californians need mental health coverage. i won't let up until the stigma of mental health and addiction is finally over.

the vice presidential debate is now history. our coverage continues. lots of excellent questions. unfortunately, many of those excellent questions were not answered by the two vice presidential candidates. the vice presidential debate, once again, now history. let's check in with our correspondents covering the candidates, the debate performances, what happens next. first, let's go to kyung lah. she is on the scene for us in salt lake city. so, how did they feel about

tonight's debate? >> well, they just wrapped up a call with reporters and in this virtual, sort of, post spin room, what they say is goal accomplished. the aides on the call say that they were singularly focused, and the campaign was singularly focused, on trying to talk to american voters. they believe she was able to successfully do that. and we could see it in the debate hall, and you really saw it on television, as well. that she would talk to the moderator. she would talk to the vice president. and then, she would look at the camera, and deliver lines. and the one line they specifically thought was very effective was where she was talking about pre-existing conditions. she said, quote, if you have a pre-existing condition, the trump administration is coming for you. so, they believe she had a very successful evening. also, drawing contrast between what the trump administration has done and its handling of the coronavirus, and how a future biden-harris administration would handle crises in the future. they, also, spent a bit of time talking rabb talking about the historic

nature of harris simply being on the stage. and also, talked about gender. specifically, that mike pence, yes, had that moment where he acknowledged that it was important that she was breaking a barrier by being there. but they believe, fthrough his words, he simply didn't get it. symone sanders, one of the aides, said pence didn't just man splain. he man dodged. they called him rude and ineffective. and, wolf, we should mention a key voting block this time around, as usual, are women. wolf. >> yes, indeed, good point. thanks very much, kyung lah, in salt lake city. let's check in with jeff zeleny right now. so, jeff, what are you hearing about the next presidential debate? it's supposed to be next week. that would be the second presidential debate. >> wolf, the next presidential debate is supposed to be a week from tomorrow evening in miami. and as of now, it's technically

on. but question abound about how it will be conducted, where it will be conducted, when it will be conducted, exactly. so, at this hour, i am told that advisers to both sides will begin a new round of negotiations tomorrow. they will be talking with the commission on presidential debates, which is moving forward with an expected debate in miami next thursday evening. but, wolf, central to all of this is the president's health. joe biden has said that he plans to debate. but he said if the president still has covid, he likely would not debate. so talking to his advisers this evening, they say he is not going to pull away from this. that joe biden does plan to debate, if it is safe to do so. of course, we do know the president does want to have a second debate. of course, it's critical for his campaign to try and reset this race, once again. but, wolf, so many questions are abound in this because we simply do not know when the president tested negative for the last time for coronavirus. did he actually have the virus when he was on that debate stage in cleveland, last week? the white house has not answered that question.

we don't know if they will. so, so many questions surrounding the health of the president which, of course, lead to the future of the next presidential debate. but as of now, both sides say they are willing to go forward having these negotiations tomorrow. but, wolf, many, many questions surrounding this. and, of course, a week ago, we could not have predicted what happened with the president's health so we're still in a very uncertain situation. >> very uncertain and it's clearly unacceptable the president's doctor is refusing to answer questions about the president's health, two days in a row now. no news conference with the president's doctor. jeff, thank you very much. let's check in with ryan nobles right now. so, ryan, how is the trump campaign reacting to tonight's debate? >> well, wolf, the trump campaign and vice president pence had a very specific goal here, tonight, in utah. they wanted to get on the record, a few wedge issues that they believe the trump campaign is on the right side of. and that the biden/harris ticket is son the wroon the wrong side.

they tried to get them on the record when it comes to fracking. stating emphatically that vice president biden is not in favor of banning fracking but the one issue where they feel that vice president pence scored a big victory was when he pressed senator harris on the issue of what a biden administration would do, as it relates to the supreme court. of course, the trump campaign firmly believes that the appointment of amy coney barrett is a strong way for them to reach out to conservatives across the country but could be a little dicey with moderate and liberal voters. and there is a fear among republicans that, perhaps, the next democratic -- could just add new members to the court, liberal members to the court, that would change the balance and the scope of the court. in a postgame press conference call with the -- the vice president chief of staff mark short and jason miller who is a

senior adviser, they repeatedly brought this up. the fact that senator harris would not answer that question, even though she was repeatedly pressed on it is a sign that joe biden is at least open to that idea. so, wolf, expect this to come up over and over again. even the vice president, himself, said they hope this issue comes up in the next debate, if there is to be a debate. the one thing, wolf, they didn't point out is that, even though the american people might have a mixed opinion as to whether adding more supreme court justices is a good idea, most polls show that many americans would like to see the outcome of this election, before the eventual replacement to ruth bader ginsburg is seated. wolf. >> at the same time, though, the trump campaign clearly wants to talk about the supreme court. they don't want to talk about coronavirus. ryan, thank you very much. anderson, back to you. >> wolf, thanks very much. want to go to andrew yang. andrew, this is the first time we're all talking so let's just, quickly, hear your -- your headlines from the debate. >> it was a tremendous night for joe, kamala, and the democrats, anderson, because where we are

in this race. even since last week, the polls have gone sharply for joe. by five in iowa, which is a state that trump won by almost nine points in 2016. so, anything that did not fundamentally change the dynamic of this race is an enormous win for the democrats. and nothing happened, tonight, to change the fact that joe and kamala have a significant lead heading into the final days. >> how do you see it? >> well, let me -- let me just start by saying i -- i know mike pence. i've met mike pence. i've interviewed mike pence. and at one time, i found him very impressive. tonight, he made my skin crawl. and i think showed that you can be insulting, without using insults. you know, the constant interruptions, the man-splaining, the condescending to both of the women on that stage tonight.

and to not answering questions, the gas lighting, i found infuriating. and if you are looking for the reasons why white, suburban women have been leaving the republican party, in droves, yes, it's the chaos, the confusion, the incompetence, the corruption. it's also the tone. and mike pence and donald trump have very different styles. but i found his dismissiveness and disrespect tonight very much cut from the same cloth. and i think suburban, white women who are voters who are watching probably heard it the same. >> scott? >> first, i'd like to compliment the moderator, susan paige. i thought she did a nice job tonight. that's number one. number two. republicans have been waiting for a good day, for quite some time. i mean, i don't know if you guys have been watching the news or not but it hasn't exactly been a banner period. >> hadn't noticed. >> yeah. he came out with a lot of weight on his shoulders and he delivered.

republicans think he did a fine job, tonight. delivering on virtually every substantive exchange. he really, i think, won the exchanges on taxes, the economy, on fracking, on the green new deal. i do think harris scored some points on coronavirus and on health care. so, that was good for their side. i sort of look at this through the lens of audiences. i think the audience, where the trump/pence ticket has been bleeding a bit is senior citizens. and a lot of the latest polls that andrew was mentioning shows seniors going towards biden. i do think seniors would have liked mike pence's performance tonight. i think that's the kind of republican performance they've been looking for and that they could see themselves voting for because that's what they voted for in the past. overall, republicans are breathing a sigh of relief that mike pence got it done tonight. >> you know, so much of the focus on tonight's debate from the news and viewers was looking to see, you know, given the fact that both the presidential candidates are so old, whether

these two could fill the role as president, if that became necessary. do you think that question was answered in the affirmative for both of them tonight? i mean, do you think viewers came away, whether they liked one or the other, believing both would be capable? >> i do. i -- i think they both came off as -- as competent. say what you will. what i just did about mike pence. he had facts at his fingertips. he was very quick on his feet. he had sort of a -- a catalog, at the ready, of policies and stats and talking points. and i think, yeah, by anyone's estimation, he seemed very clear-eyed. and -- and same for kamala harris. i don't think their competence was the issue. i think you might have a different idea of who came off as more trustworthy. i'm sure that's part. but i think in terms of shiftiness and answering questions and trying to sort of, you know, be forthright, i think

you might come down differently. but certainly, they both seemed competent. >> i'm not sure clear eyed is the best descriptive of pence tonight. given -- >> oh, shoot. >> i hope that he's doing okay. >> me, too. >> andrew, do you think that question was answered for people? >> yeah. that was one of the key things i was looking for, tonight. and i think it was an enormous goal for kamala and the dems. for her to seem like she could fit right into that second seat. and she passed that threshold, and then some, in my book. she was smart, thoughtful, empathetic, confident, co competent. i think that millions of americans became very comfortable with the idea of her as vice president tonight. >> scott, does the race change at all because of this? >> you know, i -- i don't typically think vice presidential picks matter, all that much or the debate matters, all that much. i do think, in this case, as you pointed out, i mean, look.

trump's kind of a wounded duck and biden's no spring chicken. so, both of these possibilities should matter to people because of their age. but politically, historically, these things haven't mattered all that much. also, last week and with everything else and the polarization in this race is largely baked. i don't know how many persuadable voters are left and if you are left, i'm not sure if watching the vice presidential debate tonight was what was going to make up your mind. i will say this. for wobbly republicans, for -- for conservative seniors, for some audiences that have been very, very troubled with trump's performance, pence, i think, would have shored those up. so, it wouldn't surprise me, anderson, if you do see a little bit of a bounceback from wobbly republicans or wobbly conservatives who have been nervous about trump, lately. >> sc, just the ways things are going, by tomorrow, who knows what the president will have tweeted, in all caps, you know.

just before this debate, he put out a video. unclear when it was actually shot. the white house claims it was today. some indicate yesterday because he had gotten back to the white house the day before. he said getting covid is like a blessing from god. he said that he's discovered, essentially, a cure in remdesivir. so, there's no telling where -- what will happen tomorrow. this may seem like a distant memory, by then. >> right. and if we believe scott and i'm inclined to, that republicans think this was a good night, we can the next day or two or three because he can't seem to get out of his own way, when it comes to, you know, wins that are right -- right in front of his face. and so, i -- i tend to think, actually, this debate was very important. i think it was important for all the reasons we said. but also, because i do believe there are undecideds, for whom the vice presidential pick

matters. i was -- i was there, not long ago, wondering what these two people would do if they became president. but, if you thought tonight was important, just wait a few hours. it will not be, by tomorrow. >> yeah. scott, i mean, if you were advising the president, the fact that he released a video, just a few hours before this debate took place. it does change the topic away from this debate. >> sure. i mean, look. i mean, trump's made it clear, from day one, he's the most important in this administration and in his own campaign. and, of course, most voters would -- would agree with that. i do think that it would be smart -- see the president tweeting tonight that he thought mike pence did a great job. if i were donald trump, by the way, i would be meeting with mike pence about how you, not just plan but, execute a winning debate strategy. >> if you were mike pence -- >> as he said, mike pence

clearly knows how to -- you know, one of the things that you -- that a lot of people do in debates is try to cram ten pounds of crap into a five-pound sack. trump did that last week. it was too much. pence brought the right amount to this debate. it wasn't too much and it wasn't too little. >> just the right amount of crap. he brought just the right amount of crap. i'm not sure pence wants to meet with president trump. maybe, a call would do, at this point. >> they have -- they have secure video conferencing. >> so i've heard. okay. all right. all right. i'm not sure there's anyone left in the white house to actually operate, you know, put the call through. but, andrew yang, i mean, we've -- i know we've got results from debate watchers. but do you think this -- i mean, tomorrow, does this -- you know, i just feel -- i feel like last week's debate seems like a year ago, given all that's happened since then. by tomorrow afternoon, will anybody be talking about tonight's debate?

>> well, we've had a very big week, anderson. but i agree with scott, that i thought mike pence did a great job reassuring parts of the base. and at this point, our attention should be on the senate, on these house races around the country because if you're looking at something like a 10 to 12-point swing, you could see democrats win in places like texas and alaska, that they have not won in a long time. so, tonight's going to matter a lot in terms of setting the stage, not just for the top of the ticket and the vice presidential nominations but, also, what's going to happen around the country in terms of turnout for a lot of these congressional races. >> we have more results from our instant poll and debate watchers. david chalian is back. david, what else are you learning from this poll? >> we'll just start again with the overall who won the debate, among debate watchers. that's what this poll is all about. who watched the debate? 59% said kamala harris won this debate. 38% said mike pence. that's not just a small win.

that's a big, significant, 21-point win there for kamala harris. but just like jake and dana and abby were talking about the gender gap, before, calling it a chasm. look at this. among women who watched the debate tonight, in this poll, 69% said harris won the debate. 30% said pence won. compare that to how men saw who won the debate. it was basically tied. harris got 48%. pence got 46%. this is kind of mireriroring wh we are seeing in national polling and why joe biden is so far ahead. this huge gap with women, an advantage there. and then, competitive with men. we also asked two key questions. who did that key job that a vp has to do, which is defending your running mate? 64% said kamala harris did the better job of defending this -- her running mate. 34% said that of mike pence. and which candidate spent more time attacking their opponent? 56%, a majority, said mike pence

did that. only 36% of debate watchers said kamala harris did that. that gender chasm is a defining characteristic of this race, jake. >> that's right, david. and it's time, right now, for another fact check of what we heard in tonight's debate. daniel dale is back. daniel, i don't think i told you but you're one of my mom's favorites. >> oh, thank you, jake's mom. so nice. >> she was born in canada, just like yourself. >> biased. >> that's right. she's very biased. the trump administration has a plan to protect americans with pre-existing conditions. here's how he said it. >> well, i hope we have a chance to talk about health care because obamacare was a disaster. the american people remember it well. and president trump and i have a plan to improve health care and protect pre-existing conditions for every american. >> i think i know the answer to this, daniel, but is that true? >> jake, it is, indeed, false.

now, when they first said this, they have a plan, i gave them the benefit of the doubt. you know, maybe, it was coming in a few days, a few weeks. but this plan has perpetually been two weeks away, and has never arrived. let's just do a brief review on trump's history in pre-existing conditions. early in the administration, they made repeated efforts that would significantly weaken these protections. right now, the administration is in court supporting a lawsuit that seeks to get the courts to overturn, to kill the entirety of obamacare, including those protections. the president did sign some executive order he hailed as a big deal but it just says that it is the policy of the united states to basically protect people with pre-existing conditions. frankly, that executive order is not worth anything. that is not a law. that is not a replacement for obamacare if the courts rule in their favor. so, no, bottom line, this claim is false. there is no plan to protect people, certainly not the extent they are protected under

obamacare. >> that's right. they can't charge them more, which is very significant. vice president pence was also asked about this now-infamous rose garden ceremony, 11 days ago. it appears to have been a coronavirus superspreader event. listen to how pence recalled that event. >> if i may say, that rose garden event, been a great deal of speculation about it. my wife karen and i were there and honored to be there. many people who were at that event, susan, were tested for coronavirus and it was an outdoor event, which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise. >> was there strictly an outdoor event, daniel? >> it was not, jake. this claim, i'll say, is misleading because those festivities for nominee judge amy coney barrett involved more than that ceremony. both before and after, there were indoor festivities.

some of the attendees gathered inside white house reception rooms. there were hugs. there were handshakes. and afterwards, dozens of them gathered inside the session room, in a joining hallway, and we have photos from that gathering from "the new york times" that show president trump and others chatting inside, without masks, and people gathered, quite closely together. no distancing. now, this is the second-straight debate where trump or pence has inaccurately used this kind of outdoors excuse. last time, trump, himself, insisted his rallies were outside, even though, some of them, we know, have been inside, again. with no distancing, again. with very few masks. jake. >> thanks. let's talk about this for a second because one of the things that's so appalling about the administration's handling or mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic where we lead the world in cases and deaths is that, not only has their mishandling resulted in how it's being -- how it's affecting all of our lives but, also, their

recklessness. >> right. >> holding these events indoors and outdoors. no distancing. no masks required. has now led to a superspreader event that might be one of the biggest ones in washington, d.c., this year. >> and -- and surprisingly, it felt like this barely came up in this -- in this debate, considering how enormous of an issue this is. what -- what is really incredible about pence's response was that he suggested that, because the event -- even -- even if you just took the outdoor event. just because it was outdoors, that it was in accordance with cdc guidelines. that is not true. it is not true that you can have an event with 150-plus people, even if it is outdoors where virtually no one is wearing masks and everybody is walking around, hugging and kissing each other. >> look at this photo. one second, abby. i'm sorry. but just -- these are people at the event. this is, i think, nine people at the event who, after the event, have tested positive.

some of them have, then, gone on to infect other people. and we know of a tenth person, as well, at least who's not in this photo. yeah. >> and this is when they're just sitting there. but really, you have to watch the footage. you know, they get up from this event. people are hugging. they're kissing. they're shaking hands. they're fist bumping. they are touching each other. they are not distanced from each other. and what did not come up tonight was this idea that the laxness around the virus and the reliance on testing, as opposed to on all of the things that you are supposed to do, of which testing is a part, is what has led to this massive outbreak that is, probably, the largest outbreak in the entire district of columbia right now. >> yeah, absolutely. i was waiting to see if the numbers, here, in d.c., actually, you know, if the percentages go up not just because of the rose garden but because of the ripple effect from that. i mean, a lot of people there were d.c. residents. look. this is really one of the core

problems with the -- the president and the whole administration's approach to this. number one is what they do or what they don't do, it's basically not much. but, number two, it is the whole idea of being an example for the rest of the country. and we have seen the president be the opposite of an example, since day one of this -- of this pandemic and this was the ultimate example -- non-example, i should say, in the rose garden. >> and we don't know when president trump contracted coronavirus. but people in the white house think that it might have been at that event, which was, both, outdoors and indoors. let's put up a picture of president trump, indoors, that day. there he is with the family of judge amy coney barrett. and her -- her big, beautiful family with first lady melania trump. we do not know if he contracted

the virus there. but if he did, as the administration believes, the next day, he spoke to reporters in the briefing room. and then, he met with gold-star families. on tuesday of that week, he went to ohio and participated in a debate. the day after that, he went to minnesota, and he held an indoor event, and then an outdoor rally where, again, no social distancing. no masks. hope hicks, one of his top aides, had contracted the virus and was showing symptoms. was actually sick. he flew to new jersey. so, there he is, as a vector. he is spreading the virus, theoretically, and we still do not know when he last tested negative. meaning, has he been tested anytime in the last few months? we don't even know that. >> and what's even worse, it's the public's right to know, i believe.

but the people who are working for him, are helping him. i mean, my understanding is that everybody who went to the white house for that event and then for subsequent events around that weekend, namely debate prep, they all got tested. and the presumption was that, of course, the president is also tested every day. and they believe, now, that that was absolutely wrong. and that many people got it from the president of the united states. it's very hard to prove, for a million reasons, not the least of which is that we don't know when his last, negative test was. but he clearly was not held to the same standard as the people around him. and because of that, he -- >> and if you're joe biden, you've got to debate him next week. and if you're anybody who is attending that debate, you might need to sit in an audience with many, many people who you can't necessarily, trust that they have been taking the appropriate precautions. it's a real problem. >> the citizens of ohio, new jersey, minnesota, deserve

answers from the administration. the gold-star families. the people who travel with the president deserve that. and frankly, the commission on presidential debates, the cleveland clinic, and the biden campaign need to insist, anderson, they need to insist that they get testing information about the president. >> yeah. i don't understand why there would be any debate taking place, until, certainly, the biden campaign and anybody in that hall and the country is informed when the president last tested negative because we have no way of telling, nor would the biden campaign have any way of telling, andrew, the course of the president's illness. and -- and the trajectory of it, other than knowing when he actually last tested positive. >> i think joe's stance would be common sense to the vast majority of americans. that you don't want to debate someone who may actively have the coronavirus and be -- be

struggling with it and can still be contagious. i'd, also, question why these debates are being held in environments that require you to travel for both candidates. you know, it would have made sense, in a time when there might've been rallies or a political reason to be in miami. but why would you force both people to travel, unnecessarily? because there are a lot of variables that get introduced when you travel, during a pandemic. so, there are, to me, a lot of things that the campaigns need to hammer out. to be confident there is even going to be a debate next week. >> they could very well have a debate online. it could be, you know, a zoom or whatever debate. that would avoid crosstalk. each person gets two minutes to answer the piece and on to the next question. >> that's t-- trump doesn't wan to confine his ability to gesticulate and get in the

head space of joe biden and play off an audience. i mean, he wants all of the trappings of -- of a traditional debate because he thinks it works in his favor. i think, from my vantage point last week, did not. i think it had unintended effects, and joe biden not only survived that, but thrived in that environment. so, if trump wants to do that again, i say do that at your one peril. >> scott, just in terms of the recklessness, obviously, of the president. and the coverup of the -- the continued coverup by him of not letting his doctor tell people when his last negative test was, which would help contact tracers know whether those gold-star families who they held an event for on monday. whether they all need to be tested if the president was positive by -- by then or potentially positive by then. even tonight, just in terms of recklessness, you know, everybody had agreed, other than the moderators -- the moderator

and the two candidates -- to wear masks. that everybody in that hall had to wear a mask. karen pence, as soon as the debate ends, jumps up on stage, not wearing a mask. you know, doug, kamala harris's husband, wears a mask. i don't understand the -- just the recklessness of people in this white house associated regarding covid-19. >> yeah. look. i agree with you. i mean, i think, regarding president trump next week, if he is still testing positive for covid, it would not be a good idea for him to travel or be around other people. that would go for anybody that is covid positive. i'm not sure about the zoom idea. i mean -- i mean, i can't imagine two 70-something-year-old men screaming at each other that their mute is on for 90 minutes. but i think there are ways -- there are ways you could handle

this. i'll be honest. by the way, when they panned in from behind susan paige tonight, i was surprised how many people were in the crowd. what good is an audience when they have been instructed not to clap or cheer or boo, anyway? that's not just because, you know, donald trump has it. it's because a great many people could have it, and not know it. and you've got the president, a potential president, potential vice president, the current vice president. i mean, i'm for being -- i'm for being careful and -- and i think there are ways that this could be handled, via technology, that would respect that. >> yeah. i mean, frankly, sc, why should anybody trust, you know, if next week -- next week, the white house says, oh, no, the president's fine. the president's cured of this. i mean, he already, today, said he feels he's been cured and that this is a blessing from god. why should anyone trust the white house on this? >> no, they shouldn't. i believe not one word coming from this administration,

especially on this issue. and i just want -- can i just point out how insane and absurd the conversation we are currently having is? i know we've like normalized covid and this insane disruption in our lives. but this is actually crazy that we're talking about having -- >> i agree. >> -- to -- to put up, you know, shields between candidates. and we're here because of this administration's failures. and i will say, one thing i thought was missing from kamala harris, tonight, was that human expression of exasperation. when mike pence would gaslight and say something pathologically nuts, like we'll continue to follow the science or let's not, you know, politicize american deaths. i -- i wanted her to be emotional, and say did i just

hear you correctly, sir? did you just say that? we're here because of your failures. how can you say that with a straight face? and believe me, as a woman in politics, i understand why she felt like she couldn't come off as too angry or emotional. but, my god, is this not the time to be emotional and angry? i think she would have been forgiven had she been a bit more, you know, expressive in those moments. >> go ahead, andrew. >> i think -- i think shoe had task and she stuck to it. and i think that was very, very smart, given where we are in this race and the context. we all know why trump and the republicans want the next two debates is because they're their only, last two opportunities to possibly change the direction that we're all heading in. but at this point, over five and a half million americans have already voted. that number's going to go up, every day. the republicans are running out of field but that's why they are

going to try and make sure these debates happen. though, we can all see it's inadvisable for you to have a president with coronavirus traveling and trying to debate in person. >> yeah. i mean, sc, quickly to your point, you look at the poll david chalian was giving. the different results, based on men watching and women watching. women's response to kamala harris, 69% say she -- she won. >> yeah. >> men said -- 48% of men said she won. whereas, with pence, 30% women said he won. 46% of men. so, that's clearly in the calculation in terms of how she felt she had to hold herself and respond, which is, obviously, a double standard. still ahead, we are going to find out if tonight's vice presidential debate was a tippling point that helped any undecided voters in our focus group to make up their minds. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.

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now, we want to go back to our focus group of undecided voters in arizona.

cnn's sara sidner is with them in phoenix. her answer on whether justice was served in the breonna taylor case. let let's -- let's watch this moment. >> her family deserves justice. she was a beautiful, young woman. she had -- it was her life goal to become a nurse. and to first learn what is going on out in the street so she could then become a nurse and save lives. and her life was taken unjustifiably, tragically, and violently. >> sara, what are the voters telling you about why that answer resonated with them? >> yeah, we're here in phoenix, arizona. and we do have our undecided voters. although, that may have changed after the vice presidential debate. let me start with you, morgan. what did you think of the moment where social justice came to the stage, and kamala harris mentioned breonna taylor's name and talked about how she felt like that was an unjust

decision? >> i think it was an incredible moment for her to say her name. to say breonna tailylor and to address it, head on. i think the notion put forward by pence that there's not a systemic issue in this country is absolutely insane. and i -- i think we see it, not just in police and interactions with, you know, people on the street. but we so it in other areas. i work in maternal health care. and i see this -- these racial disparities, all across the board. in maternal death rates, in fetal death rates. it is overwhelmingly evident that there needs to be change. and so, for her to tackle that, head on, that really was a moment, for me, where i looked to her like you can do good work on the ground where it really, really matters. >> did this help you decide? >> absolutely. >> we'll come back to you on that in a minute. sam, you talked about justice being something that you wanted addressed. how do you think kamala harris did with her answer? and vice president pence did

with his answer? >> i thought she did a really good job acknowledging that there is an issue. i appreciated that she brought up -- how she spoke to her parents. as -- as a father of daughters, that just hit me because i would want our leader to -- to acknowledge, you know, me and the pain that the families are going through if that situation ever happened to me. so, i appreciated how she kind of humanized it. pence. he -- he did okay. i know it's kind of a complicated issue. but -- but i thought that -- that senator harris did a better job of just acknowledging that it's an issue, even if there wasn't a concrete plan in place on how to correct it. >> got you. thank you, sam. all right, wolf. there are your answers for that. that did resonate with this entire group. >> certainly did and, sara, it was vice president pence's closing argument to the american people, a message of unity, that earned him his highest mark of the night. let's listen. >> here, in america, we can

disagree, we can debate vigorously, as senator harris and i have on this stage, tonight. but when the debate is over, we come together, as americans, and that's what people do in big cities and small towns all across this country. >> so, why was this -- this such an important moment, sara, for the voters? >> almost everyone here -- actually, everyone here has talked about unity being important to them. bob, you heard president pence respond to this 8-year-old who said how come every time i look up on the news and i see everybody fighting? what are you guys going to try to do to fix? and he responded. why did that resonate with you? >> i just -- i love the fact that he -- he -- he compared or he referenced how, recently, ruth -- justice ruth ginsburg, who passed away, and -- and supreme court justice anthony

scalia. how they were two different people with different views, but got along so well and -- and had different beliefs. but at the end of the day, they just shared one, common ground and that was for the betterment of this country. so it -- you know, they had the same beliefs regarding that. and it -- it means that you may have different beliefs but you can come together, at the end of the day, and still do the right thing for this country. and -- and that's -- when he said that, it just meant a lot to me. and -- and that was a big part of that whole debate that really stood out to me, to be honest with you. >> okay. so, you heard that and i'm -- i know these -- these masks keep coming down. it's a little bit difficult. so we all tried to keep them up. this is a sentiment that is sort of shared. that people like it when they see the candidates trying to bring the country together, not trying to divide the country. wolf. >> sara, the big question, though, did tonight's debate help any of them decide who they're going to vote for?

>> let's do a show of hands, right? easiest way to find out. okay. show of hands. how many of you watched this debate and made your decision? it helped you make your decision on who you are going to vote for in the 2020 presidential election? raise your hands. so of ten people, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. 70% of you are now decided voters. you came in undecided, correct? you're now decided. all right. how many of you have decided on biden and harris? raise your hands. one, two, three, four. okay. how many of you have decided you're definitely going for trump/pence ticket? one, two, three. and so, we still have a couple of folks here who, still, don't quite know. and the reason for that, they say they would like to see another presidential debate. wolf. >> all right. thanks very much, sara. good work. thank all of the voters there as well. we are getting more results from our instant poll of people who watched tonight's debate.

let's go back to david chalian. david, what do you have? >> just to remind everyone, this poll of debate watchers. we asked the big question, who won tonight's debate? this is the big number tonight, wolf. 59% of debate watchers, in this poll, say kamala harris won tonight's debate. that is compared to 38% who said that mike pence won. big win for kamala harris, tonight. did the debate move the needle? we discuss that question, all the time. the answer, according to our poll, is not really. did debate watchers -- did -- did the debate make you more likely to vote for biden? 26% said yes to that. 20% said it made it more likely they'd vote for trump. but a majority, here, 55%, said neither. and if you are doing the math at home, wolf, i know that adds up to 101%. that's just because of decimals and -- and rounding. and then, the future of presidential debates. we asked debate watchers, tonight, should the next debate, scheduled for next thursday, october 15th, take place? and 32% say it should be held in

person given what they know about donald trump's health condition. 47% said it should be held remotely. nearly half of tonight's debate watchers say that, because of what they know about donald trump's health, that the next debate between trump and biden should be held remotely. 20% said it should not be held next thursday, october 15th, and look how this splits by party. look at that line there about democrats. 64% of democratic debate watchers, tonight, say that next week's debate should be held remotely. it is a different universe with republicans. 67% of republicans say, given what they know about the president's health, next week's debate should take place in person. wolf. >> very interesting, indeed. all right. thanks for all that work. david chalian. still ahead, the big picture of how much of tonight's vice presidential debate was factual and how much was false. we'll be right back.

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debate night in america. another busy night for our fact checker daniel dale. tonight we heard vice president pence try to use the green new deal against the biden/harris campaign. let's watch that. >> you were the first senate co-sponsor of the green new deal. and while joe biden denied the green new deal, susan, thank you for pointing out the green new deal is on their campaign website. >> so, daniel, what do you make

of that claim? >> so it is true that the green new deal is mentioned on the biden campaign website, but this claim needs context. the green new deal is a vague congressional resolution. it is not a detailed policy plan. the biden campaign website says the resolution is a crucial framework for addressing climate change, but it doesn't say the green new deal is the biden plan. it's like a friendly nod to the green new deal. it then goes on to lay an actual biden plan which does have some overlap but it also differs in some key respects. for instance, theine new deal says every american. when the republicans cite in the $100 trillion cost for the green new deal. they like to assume it includes a bernie sanders foul. 100% clean energy economy, net zero emissions no later than 2050. aggressive regulation on methane vehicles, building efficiency,

and so on. so it is a big sweeping plan for sure but it does not precisely match with that green new deal -- >> give us the big picture on what we heard from the vice presidential candidate. >> so it was imperfect, but it was conventional political spin and dishonesty rather than just the avalanche of lies we get regularly from president trump. vice president pence made a number of significant false claims, including when he said that we always tell the truth on the pandemic. that itself is just not true. senator harris herself made some false and misleading claims, certainly was not perfect. but for me, selfishly, it was a little bit at least of a chance to take a breath after dealing with trump for four or five years because these are politicians who twist, who exaggerate, sometimes outright lie, but we're not being hit over the head, you know, every 30 seconds or a minute with an egregious lie as we are with this president. >> daniel dale, appreciate it. back with our team. andrew yang, if you were the democratic candidate for president, would you next week, next thursday, stand on the

stage with president trump? >> again, i think it's common sense that you wouldn't want to debate someone who could be actively contagious with the coronavirus. i think joe and his team need to negotiate very, very strongly around timing, around format, around whether it's in person because they're in the catbird seat at this point. joe and kamala are on track and right now it's the trump team that's going to be desperate to try and get on the same stage. >> i love how deadpan you are. i mean it's just a sign of how crazy things are that it's just deadpan sentence like i would not want to stand on a debate stage with somebody infected -- that's where we're at. this is what we're talking about because it's the situation. s.e., do you think the debate will take place next thursday? >> i don't know. i mean biden doesn't need this debate. i think -- i think he's shown over the past few weeks if not months, he's actually doing just fine without all of the

trappings of a traditional, you know, election season. he is targeting his messages much more -- in a much more focused way. he's using opportunities better. so i think trump is the one who needs the debate. if joe biden wants anothe swing at it, i think he can take it, and i think he needs to make the point over and over and over again that he is sort of walking personification of his own failures, of his own ineptitude. i would say over and over again if i were joe biden, you failed at keeping the country safe. you failed at keeping yourself and your own friends and family safe. why should we trust you for another four years? i mean i think that's a winning message. can he do it for an hour and a half? i don't know. >> you know, scott, one of the cdc guidelines is, you know, for when you no longer have covid, when you can no longer have to isolate yourself is ten days from when you first start

showing symptoms. given that president trump continues to cover up when he actually started getting symptoms, when he actually last tested negative, i mean would the biden campaign be in their right to say, look, until you release that information, we're not going to put our candidate on the same stage with somebody who's hiding their health information? >> well, sure they would. if i were the biden campaign, though, i would expect the debate commission to do that, right, so you don't look like you're trying to find some reason to not have this debate. so i think the debate will happen. i think they will find a way to do this. but as i said earlier, i think you got to be careful with this. i mean it's not just president trump. i mean other people have this. sometimes people have it and they don't know it. sometimes people have it and they test negative and then they test positive. so i just think when you're dealing with the leader of the free world, the potential leader of the free world and all of the staff and people that go along as careful as you possibly can.-

so my hope is that's what both campaigns and the debate commission decide that's what they want to do. >> anderson, i also think another question is will the moderator want to do this? you know, for issues of covid but also for issues of repeating the same sort of bananas circus that we were all treated to last week. i mean without some very clear rules, i'd be hesitant as a moderator to take part. >> i want to thank you all. much more ahead. don lemon and chris cuomo pick up our coverage after this short break. if you're at home thinking about your financial plan... so are we. prudential helps 1 in 7 americans with their financial needs. that's over 25 million people. with over 90 years of investment experience, our thousands of financial professionals can help with secure video chat or on the phone. we make it easy for you with online tools, e-signatures, and no-medical-exam life insurance.

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taking california for a ride. companies like uber, lyft, doordash. breaking state employment laws for years. now these multi-billion-dollar companies wrote deceptive prop 22 to buy themselves a new law. to deny drivers the rights they deserve. no sick leave. no workers' comp. no unemployment benefits. vote no on the deceptive uber, lyft, doordash prop 22. one ride california doesn't want to take. doordash prop 22. they do one of the most deven in normal times.s, our frontline health care workers. and when these heroes lack the resources they need, that risky job gets ten times harder. prop fifteen makes corporations pay their fair share. to invest in our communities, in our clinics, in the essential workers who treat everyone- rich, poor, and in-between.

whether it's this pandemic or the next health crisis, vote yes on prop fifteen. for all of us. all right. now we're talking. i'm chris cuomo along with don lemon. this is cnn's -- >> wait. you said my name rong. >> what did i say? you always say my name d. lemon. >> i say it right the first time because there's a formality to it. now they're aware what your official name is, donald, we can get to what we're really talking about and get familiar because that's what this is about. it's going to be about an intimacy of 27 days. it's about feel now. how do you feel about which set of candidates will best represent the selection of what kind of country you want to see