Pence, Harris face off in VP debate with diverging views of America

Highlights from the first and only matchup between Biden, Trump's running mates

With plexiglass and more than 12 feet of distance separating them, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California debated in Salt Lake City in the first and only one-on-one matchup between the vice presidential candidates.

The showdown came as President Donald Trump and several in his orbit have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, raising questions on a transfer of power to the vice president were Trump at 74 -- or Democratic nominee Joe Biden at 77 -- to become too ill to serve.

The debate's format was divided into nine 10-minute sections with each candidate having two minutes to respond to the opening question in each segment and the remaining time allowed for follow ups. Moderator Susan Page, Washington Bureau chief of USA Today, did not release the topics in advance.

The sole vice presidential debate follows Trump and Biden's chaotic debate last week in Cleveland.


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FACT CHECK: Pence claims that Biden and Harris want to ban fracking -- but it's complicated

PENCE'S CLAIM: "They want to abolish fossil fuels and ban fracking, which would cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs all across the heartland."

HARRIS' RESPONSE: "I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking."

FACT CHECK: While Harris did support banning fracking as a presidential candidate, she has since fallen in line with Biden, who does not want to ban fracking.

Biden has said that he doesn't want to add new fracking on public lands. He wants to move away from fracking to eventually get net-zero emissions. He has also argued that a transition to clear energy is necessary to keep people employed.

Biden's environmental plan calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies and for a massive investment in clean energy, including training fossil fuel workers for clean energy jobs.

During an address in August, Biden said, "I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again. I am not banning fracking, no matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me."

In July 2019, Biden was asked during a CNN debate if there would be a place for fossil fuels, like coal and fracking, in a Biden administration. "We would make sure it's eliminated," he answered. After his comment, Biden's campaign clarified that he was referring to fracking on public lands.

--ABC News' Averi Harper


Biden says Harris did great, Pence repeated 'same disproven lies'

An aide to the Biden campaign told ABC News Chief Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce they feel Harris did "great" and that she spoke directly to the American people about the things families care about, like they feel Biden did last week.


The aide also reacted to Pence's performance, arguing the vice president is just a different person repeating the same disproven statements as Trump.

"Once again it's super clear they don't have a real pitch or message for re-election. He repeated the same lies we've heard before. It's just smoother and in complete sentences. Folks at home aren't buying it," the aide said.


FACT CHECK: Trump released financial records required by law, but has been significantly less transparent than Biden, predecessors

HARRIS' CLAIM: "Joe Biden has been so incredibly transparent, and certainly by contrast, the president has not. Both in terms of health records, but also let's look at taxes. We now know because of great investigative journalism that Donald Trump paid $750 in taxes. When I first heard about it, I literally said, you mean $750,000? And it was like, no, $750. We now know Donald Trump owes and is in debt for $400 million."

PENCE'S CLAIM: "The president said those public reports are not accurate and the president's also released literally stacks of financial disclosures the American people can review just as the law allows."

FACT CHECK: As a presidential candidate in 2016 and as a sitting president since, Donald Trump has released annual financial disclosure reports filed to the Federal Election Commission and the Office of Government Ethics, as required by federal laws. Trump's annual personal financial records, which are nearly 100-pages each, show his source of income, other assets, as well as liabilities.

Trump, however, has not released his personal tax records, which is not required by law but has been a decades-long tradition that has been followed by his predecessors in the White House.

Biden and Harris have differentiated themselves from Trump by releasing their federal and state tax returns -- most recently just last week, showing Biden and his wife paid roughly $290,000 in taxes to the federal government in 2019, and Harris and her husband paid about $1.2 million in federal and state taxes last year.

Harris' claim that Trump paid just $750 in taxes comes from The New York Times' recent report. According to the Times, Trump's tax records show that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for president and his first year in the White House.

The report also stated that Trump is personally responsible for loans and other debts totaling $421 million, "with most of it coming due within four years."

--ABC News' Soorin Kim


FACT CHECK: Pence misleads on pandemic employment

PENCE'S CLAIM: "When President Trump and I took office, America had gone through the slowest economic recovery since the great depression. ... We're going through a pandemic that lost 22 million jobs at the height, we've already added back 11.6 million jobs."

FACT CHECK: With September's jobs report, over 11.4 million jobs have been added since March. But job gains have slowed in the past three months, showing the recovery is starting to lose momentum.

In September, 661,000 jobs were added, which was worse than expectations. The unemployment rate also declined to 7.9%, better than expectations.

The jobs number represented a significant slowdown in the number of jobs added since the economy started opening up after the pandemic induced shutdown.

Airlines such as United and American notified over 30,000 employees that they would be laid off or furloughed because the federal aid expired. Disney, the parent company of ABC News, announced it was eliminating 28,000 theme park jobs in Florida and California, and Cineworld, parent company of Regal Cinemas, the second-largest theater chain in the United States, said Monday that it will close all of its U.S. and U.K. theaters indefinitely, affecting 45,000 employees. These positions weren't included in the September report.

In September, the number of permanent job losses increased by 345,000 to 3.8 million; this measure has risen by 2.5 million since February.

Though the expansion of the U.S. economy was slow under the start of the Obama administration during the Great Recession, in the final four years GDP growth was at a 2.3%, nearly similar to the 2.5% in the first three years of Trump, according to The Associated Press.

--ABC News' Justin Gomez, Layne Winn and Zunaira Zaki


Pence presses Harris on packing the Supreme Court

Pence pivoted from a question on pre-existing conditions to press Harris for an answer on whether or not she and Biden supported adding additional seats to the Supreme Court.

"I think the American people would really like to know, if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, are you and Joe Biden, if somehow you win this election, going to pack the Supreme Court to get your way?" the vice president asked.

Harris used her first answer to attack the Trump administration for rushing a vote on Barrett's nomination by bringing up a Republican the president often compares himself to -- Abraham Lincoln.

"It was 27 days before the election, and a seat became open on the United States court. Abraham Lincoln's party was in charge of not only the White House but the Senate," she said, referring to the 1864 election.

"But Honest Abe said it's not the right thing to do," Harris added. "The American people deserve to make the decision about who will be the next president of the United States, and then that person can select who will serve for a lifetime on the highest court of our land. And so, Joe and I are very clear: the American people are voting right now, and it should be their decision about who will serve on this most important body for a lifetime."

MORE: Most say wait on Ginsburg seat, while opposing packing the court: Poll

Pence used her non-answer to say that Biden and Harris would pack the Supreme Court and that he and Trump would protect the current number of justices on the court. 
"The American people deserve a straight answer," he said. "And if you have not figured it out yet, the straight answer is they are going to pack the Supreme Court, if they somehow win this election.

Harris responded that Republican efforts to get more conservatives confirmed as federal judges amounted to packing the court, noting that of the 50 people the president nominated to the Court of Appeals none were Black. She did not state her position on adding seats to the U.S. Supreme Court.