tonight -- one heartbeat away. the vice presidential candidates never more critical. >> not true. >> is he only going to repeal part of the tax cuts? >> if you don't mind letting me finish. >> clashing over an economic crisis. a covid outbreak at the white house. and the trump administration's handling of the pandemic. >> president trump and i trust the american people to make choices in the best interests of their health. >> plexiglass and the future of the supreme court, dividing mike pence from kamala harris. his democratic and history-making challenger. >> i thought about my mother, who came to the united states at the age of 191919

the thought that i'd be sitting here right now, i know would make her proud. she must be looking down on this. >> this special edition of "nightline" will be right back. ...this one's for you. you inspired us to make your humira experience even better... with humira citrate-free. it has the same effectiveness you know and trust, but we removed the citrate buffers, there's less liquid, and a thinner needle... with less pain immediately following injection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. and you can use your co-pay card to pay

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the first black woman and south asian american on a major party ticket, sparring with vice president mike pence, whose job she's trying to win. this showdown coming as a coavi outbreak shadows the president and the west wing. so how did they do? for the very latest we go now to abc's mary bruce. mary? >> reporter: juju, despite the very unusual setting here in the room, the two candidates up on stage separated by that plexiglass, all of us here in our masks, what struck me most about this debates was how it really felt like a normal traditional debate. after last week's disastrous, very raucous debate between the president and joe biden, the bar for civility was low. so tonight when we saw a lot of pleasantries, not a lot of interrupting at all, and really a conversation about policy, it did seem rather remarkable. what also felt like a normal debate was how much they refused to simply answer a lot of questions. we saw a lot of reverting back to traditional talking points, often a lot of yes or no questions left unanswered. two notable dodges that stick out to me, kamala harris refusing to give a straight answer on packing the court.

mike pence still not saying what their plan is for health care. juju? >> thank you, mary. now more on tonight's consequential debate with many questions artfully dodged. the most pointed question, on the growing controversy over that white house event linked to a covid outbreak. >> vice president pence, you were in the front row in a rose garden event 11 days ago at what seems to have been a superspreader event for senior administration and congressional officials. no social distancing. few masks. and now a cluster of coronavirus cases among those who were there. how can you expect americans to follow the administration's safety guidelines to protect themselves from covid when you at the white house have not been doing so? >> well, the american people have demonstrated over the last eight months that when given the facts they're willing to put the health of their families and their neighbors and people they don't even know first. >> reporter: after the president spent the weekend hospitalized

with covid-19, his vice president, mike pence, tasked tonight with answering for the administration's pandemic response. and for the 34 people connected to the white house outbreak who've also tested positive in the past week. >> rose garden event, there's been a great deal of speculation about it. an outdoor event which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise. the difference here is president trump and i trust the american people to make choices in the best interest of their health. >> the american people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. and here are the facts. 210,000 dead people in our country in just the last several months. over 7 million people have contracted this disease. 1 in 5 businesses closed. we're looking at frontline workers who've been treated like sacrificial workers.

we are looking at over 30 million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment. >> reporter: senator kamala harris pressing pence on his leadership of the white house's coronavirus task force. >> the president said it was a hoax. they minimized the seriousness of it. whatever the vice president's claiming the administration has done, clearly it hasn't worked. >> from the very first day president donald trump has put the health of america first. 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. >> reporter: the pandemic, front and center. the senator's campaign even requesting plexiglass on the debate stage. this contest more civil and substantive than last week's first presidential debate. "usa today" washington bureau chief susan page tasked with keeping this debate on the

rails. >> americans also deserve a discussion that is civil. and i want to -- >> mr. vice president, i'm speaking. i'm speaking. >> senator harris, you're entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts. >> reporter: with that jab the vice president attacking the biden haf-harris economic plan. >> joe biden and kamala harris want to raise taxes. they want to bury our economy under a $2 trillion green new deal which you were one of the original co-sponsors of in the united states senate. they want to abolish fossil fuels and ban fracking, which would cost hundreds of thousands of american jobs all across the heartland. >> i think this is supposed to be a debate based on fact and truth. and the truth and the fact is joe biden has been very clear. he will not raise taxes on anybody who makes less than $400,000 a year. >> he said he'll repeal the trump tax cut. >> you have donald trump, who has reigned over a recession that has been compapapad to the great depression. >> reporter: with the

republican-led senate planning to begin confirmation hearings on judge amy coney barrett's nomination next week, the future of the supreme court a pressing topic for many americans. >> are you and joe biden going to pack the court if judge amy coney barrett is confirmed? your party is actually openly advocating adding seats to the supreme court, which has had nine seats for 150 years, if you don't get your way. this is a classic case of if you can't win by the rules you're going to change the rules. now, you've refused to answer the question. joe biden has refused to answer the question. >> reporter: but vice president pence never answered the question about the millions of americans with coveraged under the affordable care act in a second trump term. >> how would your administration protect americans with pre-existing conditions to have access to affordable insurance if the affordable care act is struck down? >> well, thank you, susan. but let me just say addressing your very first question i couldn't be more proud to serve as vice president to a president

who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life. >> if you have a preexisting condition, heart disease, diabet diabetes, breast cancer, they're coming for you. if you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they're coming for you. >> reporter: as a biracial former prosecutor, senator harris addressing the racial injustice seen throughout the country. >> bad cops are bad for good cops. we need reform of our policing in america and our criminal justice system, which is why joe and i will immediately ban choke holds and carotid holds. george floyd would be alive today if we did that. we will require a national registry for police officers who break the law. >> reporter: but harris's past as a prosecutor something the vice president tried to use against her. >> i really need to make this point. when you were d.a. in san francisco, when you left office, african-americans were 19 times more likely to be prosecuted for minor drug offenses than whites and hispanics. >> thank you, vice president --

>> when you were attorney general of california you increased the disproportionate incarceration of blacks in california. you did nothing on criminal justice reform in california. you didn't lift a finger past the first step back on capitol hill. the reality is your record speaks for itself -- >> thank you, vice president -- >> reporter: abc news political director rick klein fact checking some of the biggest moments from tonight's debate. >> vice president pence claimed that president trump enacted a total ban on travel from china early in the pandemic. while there was a ban announced, it actually had some significant loopholes. american citizens, health care workers, and a whole lot of others including green card holders were able to travel freely from china, and it should be noted by that point there was a lot of covid-19 already beginning to spread inside the united states and europe. senator harris warned that if the trump-pence ticket is elected it will mean those with pre-existing conditions will lose their health coverage. while president trump has made clear he does not want that to happen, he does not currently have a health care flan that does otherwise and in fact his

administration is in the supreme court to try to throw out all of obamacare, which includes protections for those with pre-existing conditions. one interesting note about this debate were the number of questions not answered by the candidates. there were a whole lot of evasions and pure decisions not to answer. mike pence didn't want to say what he'd like to see happen in states if roe v. wade was overturned in terms of abortion rights. kamala harris didn't want to talk at all about whether the administration under joe biden would look to expand the number of seats on the supreme court. >> next week's second presidential debate is still up in the air, dependent on donald trump's health. with less than a month until election day, joe biden is consistently up several points over president trump in key battleground states. with a fund-raising war chest that continues to trump the president's. >> and coming up next, abc's linsey davis and the powerhouse political team break down what some say is the most important vice presidential debate in

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your shoulder seems to be healing nicely. i'm sorry baby... i don't want you to play with that... (singing) twinkle, twinkle little star. how i wonder what you are... how are you doing? schedule a video visit with your doctor. kaiser permanente. thrive. "nightline," the vice presidential debate. here now, linsey davis. >> so tonight's debate a much more respectful and in some ways substantive debate. our powerhouse round table is here now to weigh in. rahm emanuel, let's start with you. the events of the last week are certainly unprecedented. the president has covid. 34 people -- >> that's an understatement. >> that's an understatement, right? >> that's an understatement. >> 34 people have tested positive connected to the white house outbreak. how well do you think vice president pence did defending that outbreak and answering questions about how seriously the president treats the virus?

>> well, look, i mean, the truth is not very well because the facts aren't very well. it's that simple. he has a horrible hand. the american people have made a judgment even pre the white house where covid has infiltrated the white house. they have an image of 1600 pennsylvania avenue, and the covid has undermined everything they think about that sacred secular place. and you can't change people's view. they've got a conclusion over the last six months about the way the trump administration has handled covid for them, for the country, and now at the white house. and to me this is like a period at the end of a sentence. and the fact is if there's anything i would have said that kamala harris could have done more, which was -- i think she did a very good job. she was confident. she was composed. and she was strong. but what could have been done is that you were put in charge because a, the hhs secretary was not doing a good job. and still we continued to lag everywhere else in the world when it comes to protection and moving forward and making sure that we have what we need for

our frontline workers and for families. and to me i think this is going to be -- people have made a judgment, which is why you start to see these poll numbers are breaking further and further strengthening for joe biden and kamala harris. >> sarah, a similar question to you. of course the vice president is also the head of the white house coronavirus task force. a majority of americans disapprove of the administration's handling of the pandemic. do you think that the vice president was effective in defending their response? >> i think he was very effective. he had the kind of responses about all the things the task force has done that have been positive. and there have been many positive things that have come out of this. therapeutics, faster vaccine research, more ppe for people. ventilators. we're now shipping ventilators to other countries. they have done a pretty good job. the problem is the rhetoric hasn't matched the actions. there hasn't been clear and consistent guidelines out of the white house about how americans should became.

that is their biggest challenge here. and so had president trump let vice president pence do a lot more talking in the early days of this pandemic, i think that the political landscape would be much more favorable to them right now. >> yvette, i see you shaking your head. >> i think it's really hard for them to talk about the response that they had to the coronavirus when 34 of their own have contracted the coronavirus. i talked about the fact that mike pence can't protect his own office, let alone the country. and with 34 infections in the gop right now that exceeds new zealand, taiwan, and vietnam cases together, which have over 124 million people. so i think he was -- as rahm said, he did not have an answer. he could not have an answer because there was no answer to have. and so i think he would have been better suited i think to talk about what they plan to do in the future rather than try to go back in history and recreate what they did before. >> and yvette, i want to stay with you for a minute. what does it say about the fight for suburban women? pence, who is pro life and

anti-abortion, dodged the question about overturning roe v. wade. >> you know, i think he loses them. we know that a supermajority of americans believe that a woman should have a right to choose. and i think kamala harris made it very, very clear where she and biden stand on it. we know mike pence is an ultra conservative extremist, particularly on issues like choice. so i think him standing on that i think probably alienated a ton of women. and the fact that he failed to answer what his own state would do if amy coney barrett was brought into the supreme court and that issue of choice came before the supreme court. and so i think that they lost women. they probably lost some men too. because as i said, a lot of people support women's right to choose what happens with their bodies. >> matt dowd, i want to bring you in here. with no stimulus checks since july, the president shutting down stimulus talks, and millions of americans worried about putting food on the table, do you think that senator harris was effectively able to make the case that joe biden will be the man to revive the economy? >> well, i think we're in a moment where 80% of the country

thinks we're off on the wrong track. so anything that talks about how bad it is and how bad things are today benefits senator harris and joe biden in this race. and i think whoever is the candidate not in office is the beneficiary of what is going on today. so i thought, as i say, i think senator harris won the debate. not by a large amount but won the debate. i think mike pence helped himself in the debate among republicans who look at him and say i like mike pence. in this i think senator harris comes out of this more popular. but i think the fundamentals as we look at this entirety of the race, i think the country's still upset about covid, they're still upset about the economy, they're worried about health care, and all of those things in that dynamic are frozen in place right now. mike pence had to figure out a way to shake that. he didn't shake that dynamic. he didn't do badly. one other thing about mike pence that i found fascinating watching this is mike pence misleads and prevaricates as much as donald trump but he just

does it with conviction and sincerity. that's what i thought was amazing about watching this debate. >> and he does come across as very sincere. rahm, last week's presidential debate was widely considered to be the worst debate ever. we often say that elections are about the top of the ticket. but with biden 77 and trump 74 with covid, do you think that tonight was more important than the typical vice presidential debate? >> i don't think this will change the race, and that's not good for donald trump. i think it's very important because in many ways these are understudies to two candidates and i think they're showing themselves not only for 2024 but what kind of, as i said earlier, and i believe, she -- kamala harris talked about being a partner. pence was very much the loyal soldier. the one other thing i would touch on, while all the issues were touched by susan in asking questions about policy, one of the things that's out there and is palpable is this sense of america is lost and more spiritual, which is why i thought the vice president's speech at gettysburg was so

important. and it took an eighth-grader to ask a question about america and us as a country and a community and something that we care for each other. and i think while the policy questions got asked the things that is spiritually aching in america took an eighth-grader to ask. >> thank you so much to our powerhouse round table. we appreciate it. juju? >> thanks, linsey. up next, voters weighing in on the debate. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ you are my sunshine, my only sunshine... ♪ rybelsus® works differently than any other diabetes pill to lower blood sugar in all 3 of these ways... increases insulin... decreases sugar... ...and slows food. the majority of people taking rybelsus® lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7. people taking rybelsus® lost up to 8 pounds.

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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.

♪ finally tonight, what voters took away from the vice presidential face-off. >> okay. i think kamala harris did a great job. and i like, number one, foremost, i like her when she spoke on the coronavirus. i also like when kamala spoke on the economics and how they're going to bring jobs back. i like what she said about the affordable care act. >> you know, being a small business owner, i would say that we're going to be voting -- i'm going to vote for trump. vice president pence said that he's not ashamed to say that he's pro life. and i'm pro life.

and all of us should be pro life. we're trying to save lives now. >> if president trump is re-elected, it makes me very nervous. because i fear for my country. i fear for myself. i fear for my children. so i am very nervous about this election. more nervous than i've ever been. >> you know, i have conservative friends. i have liberal friends. and we can agree to disagree with my liberal friends. but you know, we still love one another. >> that's "nightline" for tonight. see you right back here tomorrow at the same time. thanks