US Presidential Election 2020 LIVE Updates: Senator Kamala Harris branded the response to the Covid-19 pandemic under Donald Trump as the “greatest failure” of any US administration, as the debate between her and Vice President Mike Pence opened on Wednesday. But Pence fired back by accusing Harris of undermining public confidence in a future coronavirus vaccine through her attacks on Trump’s credibility. “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” Harris, running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said.
The US death toll from the pandemic has exceeded 210,000, with over 7.5 million people infected, the highest reported totals in the world. Pence slammed Harris for her statements questioning whether a vaccine released under Trump could be trusted due to the intense pressure on the president to tame the pandemic. “The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable,” Pence said.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were mostly aligned on climate questions, though the California senator – in part because of her office – offered more concrete support for the Green New Deal’s blueprint. She signed on to a resolution written by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019.
When challenged by Trump in their debate last week, Biden said he opposed the Green New Deal. And while it’s true he hasn’t embraced it, his climate plan has been (cautiously) applauded by leading environmental groups. “Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face,” according to his campaign website, which touts his plan as a “Clean Energy Revolution.”
Both Harris and Biden support re-entering the Paris climate agreement, ending fossil fuel extraction on public land and putting a price on carbon emissions as part of broader policy visions.
But they differed somewhat, during the primary, on fracking. Harris said she wanted to ban the practice, beginning on federal land. Biden has said he wants to limit it, but rejects a ban in favor of stopping new or additional fracking on federal land. “I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again: I am not banning fracking,” Biden said at a speech in Pittsburgh this summer. “No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me.”
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