this is the news live from berlin the coronavirus dominating the u.s. vice presidential debate. the american people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in history of our country but from the very 1st day president donald trump has put the health of america 1st. harris and mike pence facing off debating issues ranging from supreme court appointments on the climate to racial justice but do they have any answers al gore there.

i'm brian thomas great to have you with us today in the united states the 2 candidates vying for the vice presidency have sparred over the coronavirus and other contentious issues republican vice presidential candidate mike pence and democratic challenger harris clashing over the trumpet ministrations response to the pandemic with paris hammering on the coronavirus task force now in the white house other hot button issues the positions open the position open rather for the supreme court justices seat and abortion as well as the ongoing unrest in american cities. joining us now for analysis is a correspondent stuff on assignments you know washington and bevan's from our u.s.

election team here in the studio good day to both of you stacey a very different debate than the one we saw just last week were these 2 candidates able to convince the public of their of their positions and what was your impression of their performance well this was definitely a more civilized debate easier to understand easier to follow the 1st was like kids on the playground running around on a sugar high and this when people of both of the candidates were able to lay out their points of view clearly i think that if you were a supporter of the biden harris campaign you saw what you wanted to see you want to see come on the harris put pen to speak to the fire when it comes to the coronavirus and no matter how he tried to pivot and he has a really good debater and he has that oh shucks midwestern charm but she kept going back to that and if you are a supporter of peds you are glad that he mentioned some things that made her seem like she would be

a little bit more of an extremist with more leftist views. stuff and going over to washington now so much of the lead up to this debate was dominated by the president's health was vice president guns able to convince the public that donald trump is in fact fit and back at work at full speed. i think you didn't have to because camilla harris didn't go for that point she made is a larger point just as you pointed out corona virus and the disastrous in her mind and that's always to try to show it and to paint this in her might be disastrous performance of the tumbler ministration culminating now with the president being sick and saying his. blessing from got just a day anyhow so the president the vice president pens didn't have to actually pivot a lot or dodge a lot of questions in terms of what is your president thinking or how how bad is he worked how bad is he really and what is i was your information politics in the

white house that was unnecessary because come all hours went straight to the juggalos so to speak and as we heard in the soundbite before we started this conversation he telling the american people that they have witnessed the most disastrous failure of an administration in history by handling and how this administration handled this current of virus disaster or crisis in the united states. certainly didn't mince any of her words when criticizing the president's handling of the pandemic as you mentioned let's take a listen to her and pence's response that the american people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in history of our country and here are the facts 210000 dead people in our country in just the last several months over 7000000 people who have contract with . one in 5 businesses closed we're looking at front line

workers who have been treated like fact professional workers from the very 1st day president donald trump has put the health of america 1st before there were more than 5 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 2nd largest economy in the world stefan more attention than usual on this v.p. debate because both candidates have to sell their fitness to potentially take over the top job if either of the presidential candidates should be capacitated should they be in office either due to ill health or or old age trump a 74 biden $77.00 at did they make their case is that their presidential material. i would say they both made sure that everybody understands their presidential

material however they dodged any direct question in this regard because of course they have a job to serve and a boss to serve in the case of mike pence it's donald trump and it's going to be joe biden hopefully so she hopes at least so so i think camelot harris was a little bit more reserved in making this point again and not directly answering this but using her opportunity to actually introduce herself to the american people again because don't forget this is a historic vice presidential debate it is the 1st time that you have a woman of color on this stage and she is also the youngest was the youngest on the stage she see younger than vice president penn so she used this opportunity to introduce herself again to america with her resume talking about herself and what she did in her in her past years as a senator as a general attorney in california and so on vice president pence didn't have to do

much there i think everybody who knows him in the last 4 years and before as governor and. is pretty much convinced that he would be if need be presidential enough to fill all the shoes of a presidency ok penson lee has stacey a lot more experience debating tama harris this is her 2nd big opportunity to present herself to the american public after the primary debate interestingly against joe biden what was your opinion in terms of their presidential material you know who are they for the american public did they get that across in terms of their substance their character and their and their take on the topic i think that they both did well in presenting themselves and harris had extra weight being a strong woman. handling her business but also not be so aggressive stefan mentioned that she wasn't as aggressive as she might have been able to be because

she didn't want to come across as the angry black woman and when you are in situations where you are competing for something that matters to you and you don't want to turn people off like in this in this election she doesn't want to turn off white voters that are probably on the fence or women voters so i was careful and how she presented herself and i think i get the impression that pence was a little less careful he didn't mind over talking her over talking season page moderator and i don't believe that that will help him and the pursuit to get more suburban women to vote in terms of presenting herself to the public if we were going on air google google search oh come on harris is trending in terms of searches to find out who she is this is very important for her this debate in terms of presenting herself to all those undecided voters you were talking about you know this is this is really crucial because because like i said the trump but the

trump pence campaign was looking to make her seem like a radical be careful because if you vote for her look he's 77 years all of this could be dangerous what kind of a direction will she take the country what will she do the supreme court will she packed the supreme court so she really had to take the time to introduce herself to show that she is presidential and that she has a core values what one of the issues tom irises really been taken to task for by conservatives and. undecided voters as well as her stand on abortion roe v wade a big supporter of that in california. and that is going to be one of the big issues for the undecided voters the position that both these candidates have on roe v wade let's take a listen to that. let the american people fill that seat in the white house and then we'll fill that seat on the united states supreme court and to your point

susan that the issues before us couldn't be more serious there is the issue of choice and i will always fight for a woman's right to make a decision about her own body it should be her decision and not that of donald trump and and the vice president michel i'm pro-life i don't apologize for. this is another one of those cases where there's such a dramatic contrast joe biden kamel her support taxpayer funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth late term abortion they want to increase funding to planned parenthood of america and for our part i would never presume a judge in the county bird would rule on the supreme court of the united states but will continue to stand strong for the right to life stacey the right to life abortion the very big issues once again in this cycle this election cycle was what's driving that well trump's base as what's driving it hissed he's not really trying to build he's just trying to get his base to come out and vote and he has

a strong evangelical following and a lot of them are are single issue voters and that single issue that matters the most of them is abortion and they appreciate that he's trying to push along the supreme court nominee and it's disingenuous for pense to say that he doesn't know how she would vote on this issue she says that roe v wade is the law of the land but also she would support legislation that would hollow it out and this is what and the evangelicals are glad to hear. stone let me ask a question to you about that how much is abortion how important is this in this election cycle is it mainly coronavirus or is it shaping up to be one of the other top issues. you. know it's important it's that 10th layer of important 4 years over years for decades and should be a pro-life pro-choice there's not much wriggle room and there's one position and the other position and again there's no compromising going on and it's in the

political debate for decades up and down like a roller coaster more intense less intense and so on for this election it is an important topic but it's not the most important topic the most important topic say that democrats coronavirus republicans and the trump administration knows yes it is because it was such a disaster it's such a disaster still on display and in the making in the still in the making let's not forget this is the last 6 months and it's not over yet 2nd wave and winter is coming and flu is also upon us anyhow but the other big issue is health care and then of course abortion rights and the women's rights to decide about her bodies and about abortions this is all in terms of health care and health care is a major issue still here in the u.s. not much in the press spots when you go out in the suburbs and out in the out in the streets health care health care health care is still a big thing unity of this country or decisiveness in the country coronavirus and

health care including abortion rights stacey let me pick up with you on the issue of unity in the country has it been the case there's a lot of concerns about this vote being legitimate about vote counting about the mail in ballots how important is that. well it's crucial and i think that the president has done a poor job of making people feel comfortable that their votes will be counted and again pressing that if he does not win then it's rigged and so he's willing to fight to the supreme court well that suppress the vote we're going to have to wait and see ok mel and mel and ballots also being very important absolutely cycle ok we're going to have to leave it there stacey thanks very much to you stuff on simons in washington thanks so much to you as well a brief wrap up the drug administration's been widely criticized for its handling of the coronavirus heading into this vice presidential debate both candidates

putting their positions forward like thank you for joining us here with d.w. news there's plenty more at our website interview dot com we also have a live blog you can follow where we've been following the debate and it's a blow by blow developments you can go there for more information as well i'm brian thomas for the entire team thanks for being here.

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