Pence Slams Harris on Declassified Documents Detailing Democrats’ Effort To Topple Trump

Oct. 8, 2020 (EIRNS)—Towards the end of last night’s Vice Presidential debate, Mike Pence turned the tables on a question about Trump’s supposed unwillingness to accept the results of the coming elections, with a dead-on hit against the Democrat and intelligence community operations to overthrow the Trump government. Coming on the heels of President Donald Trump’s aggressive twitter campaign over the last 48 hours to expose these crimes, Pence’s attack was significant:

“But when you talk about accepting the outcome of the election, I must tell you. Senator, your party has spent the last three and a half years trying to overturn the results of the last election. It’s amazing. When Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, the FBI actually spied on President Trump and my campaign. I mean, there were documents released this week that the CIA actually made a referral to the FBI, documenting that those allegations were coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign. And of course, we’ve all seen the avalanche, what you put the country through for the better part of three years, until it was found that there was no obstruction, no collusion, case closed. And then Senator Harris, you and your colleagues in the Congress tried to impeach the President of the United States over a phone call. And now Hillary Clinton has actually said to Joe Biden that, in her words, under no circumstances, should he concede the election.”

Pence was also very effective in repeatedly going after the Paris Accord and the Green New Deal—more than a dozen times! From the outset he targeted Harris on this:

“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.” And then a little later: “They have a $2 trillion version of the Green New Deal, Susan, that your newspaper, USA Today, said really wasn’t that very different from the original Green New Deal. More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline.”

When the moderator asked Pence if he “believed” in man-made climate change, Pence’s response was very good:

“Now with regard to climate change, the climate is changing, but the issue is what’s the cause and what do we do about it? President Trump has made it clear that we’re going to continue to listen to the science. Now Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would put us back in the Paris Climate Accord. They’d impose the Green New Deal, which would crush American energy, would increase the energy costs of American families in their homes, and literally would crush American jobs.”

Pence also pressed Harris to state that the Democrats would not pack the Supreme Court, which she sidestepped repeatedly. He also scored points on Trump’s supposed racism and anti-Semitism, noting that Trump has two Jewish grandchildren, and otherwise pointing out how the press has lied on these matters.

Harris throughout kept hammering Pence on the COVID-19 crisis, blaming the Trump Administration’s “incompetence” and “ineptitude” for millions of lives. She also hit hard on the economy, unemployment, etc.—all very real problems. (This was exactly the strategy the British had laid out for the Democrats weeks ago.) But her counterproposals on COVID were non-existent (test, PPEs, etc.), and on the economy she kept discussing Obamacare and how great it is.

It should be noted that both candidates were bad on the China question, trying to outdo each other on how the other had “capitulated” to the Chinese and so on. And otherwise there were no questions and no discussion on strategic issues, including the danger of spreading wars and so on. From a strictly “debaters” perspective of scoring points (which means very little in the current situation), it was clear to this writer that Pence had the upper hand, and kept Harris on the defensive throughout most of the debate. The liberal media by and large ruefully acknowledged this, with comments about how “even” and “respectful” it all was.