SAN DIEGO — In their first and only televised debate this election season, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) clashed Wednesday evening, among other topics, over the U.S. role in the Middle East and whether President Trump has condoned white supremacists, and by implication anti-Semitism.
While numerous controversial topics were discussed, including how the coronavirus pandemic is being handled, the state of the economy, and the selection process for the successor of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two exchanges were of especial interest to Jewish viewers.
Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president in the Nov. 3 election, said President Donald Trump has a “weird obsession” with trying to get “rid of whatever accomplishment was achieved by President Obama and Vice President Biden.”
As an example, she mentioned President Trump pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran, a move that she said “has now put us in a position where we are less safe because they are building up what might end up being a significant nuclear arsenal.” The U.S. had entered that deal with other countries but “because of Donald Trump’s unilateral approach to foreign policy, coupled with his isolationism, he pulled out out and has made America less safe.”
Foreign policy, she said, is about relationships with other countries. In addition to America’s great military she said, “it is about that we keep our word, but Donald Trump doesn’t understand that because he doesn’t understand what it means to be honest.”
Pence, seated 12 feet from Harris on a stage at the University of Utah where each debater was protected from germ spread by plexiglass partitions, quickly responded that “President Trump kept his word when he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel. When Joe Biden was Vice President he promised to do that and he never did. We stood strong with our ally.”
The Vice President also said that when President Trump came into office, “ISIS had captured an area of the Middle East the size of Pennsylvania. But President Trump unleashed the American military and our armed forces destroyed the ISIS caliphate and took down their leader (Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi), who was responsible for the death pf thousands.” Referring to the Iran nuclear deal, Pence added: “The last administration transferred $1.8 billion to the leading sponsor of terrorism. President Donald Trump got us out of the deal and when Qassem Soleimani (the Iranian general who oversaw operations in Iraq) was traveling to Baghdad … President Trump took him out.”
Pence also said that Biden had criticized the action against Solemeini as rash, and declared that Biden while vice president had been opposed to the raid that ended the life of 9-11 terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
With moderator Susan Page, chief Washington correspondent of USA Today moderating the nine-topic debate under rules set by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates, topics were limited to two-minute initial statements by each candidate and six minutes of back and forth debate, which precluded both Harris and Pence from more fully expressing their views and counter-arguments.
When the topic of racial justice came up, there was another exchange between the two vice presidential candidates over the issues of racism and anti-Semitism.
Harris said that in last week’s first televised debate between Trump and Biden, the President “refused to condemn white supremacists.”
“Not true,” Pence interrupted.
“–And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a chance,” Harris continued. “He didn’t do it. He doubled down. When pressed, he said, “Stand back, stand by.’ This is part of a pattern of Donald Trump. He calls Mexicans rapists and criminals. He instituted as his first act a Muslim ban. On the issue of Charlottesville … people were peacefully protesting (for racial justice)… and on the other side there were neo-Nazis carrying Tiki torches shouting racial epithets, anti-Semitic slurs, and Donald Trump, when asked about it, said, ‘There were fine people on both sides.’ This is who we have as President of the United States. America, you deserve better.” She added that Biden would bring the country together, and that he recognizes the beauty of diversity.
Pence responded “One of the things that makes people dislike the media so much, you selectively edit just as Senator Harris did. Senator Harris conveniently omitted that after the President made comments about people on either side of the debate over monuments, he condemned the KKK, Neo-Nazis, and White Supremacists.”
Turning to Harris, he added, “Your concern that he doesn’t condemn neo-Nazis, President Trump has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. This is a President who respects and cherishes all the American people.”
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com