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 on COVID-19 testing, PPE

PENCE'S CLAIM: Pence said that Trump's decision to impose travel restrictions from China, ultimately "bought" the U.S. "invaluable time" to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, reinvent testing capacity and deliver billions of supplies to doctors and nurses.

FACT CHECK: Although the U.S. has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country, according to experts, testing capacity is still not vast or fast enough to serve all the people who need to get a test.

Additionally, although billions of items of personal protective equipment, or PPE, have been delivered to frontline workers across the country, the United States continues to experience shortages of PPE and testing supplies, according to a Sept. 21 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

In April, Trump said that the U.S. would be conducting up to 5 million tests per day, "very soon." However, the national 7-day average of coronavirus tests has yet to surpass 1 million, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

To date, the U.S. has conducted over 120 million COVID-19 tests, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
More testing will, of course, identify more cases.

However, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there are several countries that have conducted more testing per capita than the U.S., but also have fewer cases per capita than the U.S. does -- such as the U.K., Spain and the United Arab Emirates. Those figures reflect all-time averages of daily tests conducted per capita -- and the daily percentage of tests that come back positive, which is known as the "positivity rate" or the "percent positive rate."

Despite having one of the highest rates of tests per capita, the U.S. faces the largest outbreak in the world and new cases continue to trend upward in many states. The percent positivity in the U.S. remains over 4.7%, when other countries with high testing figures report a significantly lower percent positivity rate, according to Johns Hopkins.

Meanwhile, the shortages of PPE and testing supplies are due to high global demand and the fact the domestic production of supplies is limited. According to the Government Accountability Office, "testing supply shortages have contributed to delays in turnaround times for testing results.

ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

"Delays in processing test results have multiple serious consequences, including delays in isolating those who test positive and tracing their contacts in a timely manner, which can in turn exacerbate outbreaks by allowing the virus to spread undetected," the report read.

--ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos


Final candidate speaking times 

ABC News calculated of the candidate's approximate speaking times during more than 90 minutes on the debate stage, :

Pence: 35:22
Harris: 38:48

ABC News also calculated the approximate speaking times spent on each topic including moderator speaking time:

COVID-19:-11:58
Role of the vice president: 9:27
Economy: 9:20
Climate change: 9:23
Foreign policy: 12:34
Supreme Court: 10:02
Race: 10:35
State of the election: 6:52

--ABC News' Kelsey Walsh


Trump tweets Pence ‘WON BIG!’

Shortly after the debate wrapped, Trump -- known to enjoy his time in front of the television -- signaled his approval of Pence's performance and declared him the winner in a tweet.


The Trump campaign also released a statement in which Pence's chief of staff Marc Short said the vice president made the argument to the American people that Trump is "the clear choice to rebuild the economy."

--ABC News' Terrance Smith


Pence’s pink eye and an errant fly grab social media attention

Social media users clamored to point out that Pence's eye looked red and enflamed, which led to speculation about his health after being exposed to COVID-19 from the president.

ABC News' Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton weighed in, saying that pink eye has been reported in anywhere from 11% to 30% of COVID-19 cases. But as always, Ashton said that it is not possible to diagnose anyone from television and that it was a possibility that it could just be that he just had "some makeup in his eye."

An errant fly that landed on Pence's head during the debate also grabbed the attention of social media users. The Biden campaign immediately seized on the moment, using it as an opportunity to fundraise, posting a tweet asking for donations to "help this campaign fly," along with a photo of Biden holding a fly swatter.


Pence vs. Harris on the issues: Criminal justice reform

Pence has stood by and pushed the Trump campaign message of "law and order" and has remained a vigorous defender of police. In an interview with ABC News Live Anchor Linsey Davis, Pence said that he and Trump "reject the notion from Joe Biden and others that there's an 'implicit bias' towards minorities in law enforcement."

"The president and I know we don't have to choose between supporting law enforcement and supporting all of the families that live in our major cities," Pence told a crowd of supporters in Lititz, Pennsylvania. "We have done both for the last three and a half years, and we're going to support law enforcement and support our African American and minority families for four more years in the White House."

The vice president has dismissed the "defund the police" movement and has called for more resources and better training and accountability in law enforcement.

On matters of racial discrimination in policing and use of force, Harris has called for the rooting out of racial discrimination. In the aftermath of George Floyd's killing while in police custody she participated in protests in Washington, D.C.

During an appearance on ABC's "The View" in June, Harris was asked by co-host Meghan McCain if she supports the "Defund the Police" slogan, but did not give a direct answer on where she stands.

"We need to re-imagine how we are achieving public safety in America. And to have cities where one-third of their entire budget is going to policing but yet there's a dire need in those same cities for mental health resources, for resources going into public schools, for resources going into job training and job creation. Come on. We have to be honest about this that there isn't a consensus around this because if there were, we would actually see a smarter distribution of resources in our country to address the issues that need to be addressed."

After the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, she met with Blake's family in Wisconsin and spoke with Blake over the phone. She also told NBC News, "I think that there should be a thorough investigation, and based on what I've seen, it seems that the officer should be charged." She's also kept in contact with Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor who was shot by Louisvill, Kentucky, police while she was sleeping in her home.

Harris has called for economic and educational investment in communities of color to create safer, healthier communities. She and Biden have called for an end to no-knock warrants, chokeholds and carotid holds. They want to create a national excessive force standard and create a database to track cops who use excessive force and break the rules. The pair want to end cash bail and private prisons.

"We have to understand that you can't think that the only way to create safe communities is to put more police on the streets, that's not how it's going to work," Harris told pop star Lizzo on an Instagram Live stream in September.

In contrast, Harris wrote in her 2009 book "Smart on Crime," "if we take a show of hands of those who would like to see more police officers on the street, mine would shoot up."

-ABC News' Justin Gomez and Averi Harper