Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the 2020 vice pres­i­den­tial debate. NPI staff will be watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate between Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee Kamala Har­ris and Repub­li­can nom­i­nee Mike Pence as it pro­gress­es. The debate, spon­sored by the Com­mis­sion on Pres­i­den­tial Debates, is being broad­cast on all major net­works as well as online platforms.

We high­ly rec­om­mend C‑SPAN if you’re livestream­ing the debate as opposed to watch­ing it on a cable or broad­cast tele­vi­sion net­work.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah in Salt Lake City is host­ing the debate, which will be mod­er­at­ed by USA Today’s Susan Page. The for­mat is as follows:

The debate will be divid­ed into nine seg­ments of approx­i­mate­ly 10 min­utes each. The mod­er­a­tor will ask an open­ing ques­tion, after which each can­di­date will have two min­utes to respond. The mod­er­a­tor will use the bal­ance of the time in the seg­ment for a deep­er dis­cus­sion of the topic.

“Page, six­ty-nine, became a White House cor­re­spon­dent for USA Today in 1995 and has inter­viewed nine pres­i­dents, six of them while they were in office. She is the first print reporter select­ed by the Com­mis­sion on Pres­i­den­tial Debates as a solo mod­er­a­tor,” USA Today explained ear­li­er this week.

Page has not announced which top­ics she will be ask­ing about tonight.

New COVID-19 pre­cau­tions have been imple­ment­ed for tonight. The can­di­dates will be seat­ed twelve feet apart and sep­a­rat­ed by plex­i­glass bar­ri­ers. Addi­tion­al­ly, masks are required to be worn by all audi­ence members.

The debate will begin at 6 PM Pacif­ic and run for about nine­ty min­utes. The can­di­dates will be seat­ed at sep­a­rate desks, while Page will be seat­ed in front of them at the mod­er­a­tor’s table. In keep­ing with tra­di­tion for gen­er­al elec­tion pres­i­den­tial debates, there will be no com­mer­cial breaks or interruptions.

Our live cov­er­age will begin below at the time the debate starts.

6:10 – It’s only nat­ur­al that the debate starts with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Kamala Har­ris took a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­trast a Trump’s response to what Biden would do. “They knew what was hap­pen­ing, but they did­n’t tell you…they still don’t have a plan. Well, Joe Biden does.”

6:10 – The fact that Pence sup­pos­ed­ly heads the White House­’s COVID tadk force is a tru­ly black mark on his per­son­al record. His claim that “Don­ald Trump has put the health of Amer­i­ca first.” He imme­di­ate­ly launch­es into lies about Trump’s Chi­na response (Trump did not ban all trav­el from China).

6:13  – Kamala Har­ris demol­ish­es Pence’s argu­ment that the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion’s response was to keep peo­ple calm. Pence’s efforts to turn the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion’s response into “the Amer­i­can peo­ple’s response” is laugh­able. A huge major­i­ty of the Amer­i­can peo­ple think Trump has bun­gled the COVID response.

6:16 – Pence has con­fi­dence in the Amer­i­can peo­ple’s abil­i­ty to fol­low COVID guide­lines, but does­n’t want to talk about his boss’ abil­i­ty to fol­low the rules.

6:17 – Kamala’s come­back to Pence’s line about respect­ing the Amer­i­can peo­ple – “You respect the Amer­i­can peo­ple by telling them the truth” – is fol­lowed by a pow­er­ful lay­ing out of the state of many suf­fer­ing Americans.

6:20 – Instead of talk­ing about Trump’s age and abil­i­ty (a sub­ject that could get him in hot water with his boss), Pence waf­fles about a 2009 Swine Flu out­break that nobody remembers.

6:24 – It is wild that the year is 2020, Kamala Har­ris is still only the sec­ond black woman to sit in the U.S. Senate.

6:28 – Pence says that “I know the feel­ing” that Kamala Har­ris feels about her nom­i­na­tion. How could he pos­si­bly know the weight of his­to­ry that rests on Har­ris’ shoul­ders as the first woman of col­or to occu­py the vice pres­i­den­tial nominee?

6:30 – Mike Pence’s smug grin when the issue of “rais­ing tax­es” came up shows how out of touch he is on the issue of the eco­nom­ic dis­as­ter crash­ing through the lives of most Amer­i­cans. Har­ris takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tie the Biden team’s invest­ment plans direct­ly to repeal­ing Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.

6:34 – Har­ris pret­ty much demol­ish­es four years of Trump’s eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy in a few sen­tences and promis­es invest­ment mea­sures that are incred­i­bly pop­u­lar across the board. By con­trast, Pence’s Repub­li­can talk­ing points on tax­es and trade haven’t changed in a decade.

6:35 – Kamala Har­ris is hap­py to sit back and let Mike Pence mansplain to her – she’s prob­a­bly imag­in­ing mil­lions of female vot­ers turn­ing away from Pence in disgust.

6:38 – Har­ris makes a dire warn­ing: “If you have a pre-exist­ing condition…they’re com­ing for you!” Pence’s talk­ing points by con­trast sound incred­i­bly canned.

6:40 – Pence says “we’re going to con­tin­ue to lis­ten to the sci­ence,” with­out say­ing what the sci­ence actu­al­ly says about cli­mate change’s caus­es. He does throw in a line about “cli­mate alarmists,” though, in case you though he was tak­ing cli­mate sci­ence seriously.

6:42 – The mod­er­a­tor press­es Pence on his refusal to treat cli­mate change as a threat. Instead, he piv­ots to talk­ing about taxes!

6:47 – Har­ris slams the Trump-Chi­na trade war: “You lost that trade war, you lost it!” Har­ris obvi­ous­ly has her pre-made attack lines, but they sound much more nat­ur­al than Pence’s “tax­es, tax­es, Green New tax­es,” droning.

6:48 – Pence seems very deter­mined to keep bring­ing up cli­mate change, even though most Amer­i­cans sup­port a stronger response to cli­mate change than Trump and Pence are offering.

6:54 – Har­ris seems to have worked out where the cam­era is, and is lean­ing heav­i­ly into Joe Biden’s tech­nique of star­ing direct­ly at the view­ers. Pence does­n’t seem to want to look the Amer­i­can peo­ple in the eye…

7:00 – The mod­er­a­tor seems com­plete­ly unable to stop Pence’s dron­ing away, bla­tant­ly politi­ciz­ing the death of Kay­la Mueller. Har­ris lets him go on before bring­ing some gen­uine emo­tion to the stage, call­ing out to the par­ents of Mueller to express her grief. She then goes on the warpath against Trump’s dis­dain for Amer­i­can troops and veterans.

7:01 – Nobody in their right mind believes that “Don­ald Trump REVERES” mil­i­tary mem­bers, but Pence goes and says it anyway.

7:05 – Pence, deputy to the elite-bash­ing Pres­i­dent Trump, seems to think that his best shot is stand­ing up for the not at all elite-sound­ing “Knights of Columbus.”

7:07 – Har­ris brings up arguably the most impor­tant issue hang­ing over the Supreme Court bat­tle – the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion’s legal cam­paign against the ACA.

7:08 – Sur­prised to hear that Mike Pence does­n’t know how Amy Coney Bar­rett would rule on abortion.

7:10 – Pence talk­ing about chang­ing the rules for the Supreme Court is tru­ly, tru­ly rich.

7:16 – Har­ris pulls no punch­es describ­ing the death of George Floyd: “An Amer­i­can man was tor­tured and killed…” Har­ris effec­tive­ly links the move­ment for black lives with her own pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al expe­ri­ence to launch into the Biden cam­paign’s racial platform.

7:17 – Pence is giv­ing dag­ger eyes to Kamala Har­ris as he talks about “riot­ers and loot­ers,” as if Har­ris was some­how per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble. It makes you won­der what he real­ly sees when he looks at Har­ris, a woman of color.

7:20 – Kamala Har­ris is not tak­ing Pence’s attempts to come off as the tough on crime, tout­ing her pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al record. She slips smooth­ly into Don­ald Trump’s cod­dling of Nazis and white suprema­cists: “Amer­i­ca, you deserve better!”

7:23 – Har­ris not only defends her record as Cal­i­for­nia AG, but calls it a mod­el for the rest of the country!

7:25 – It’s an inter­est­ing approach to ask Kamala Har­ris, “what if you win, but Trump does some­thing insane?” As if it’s some­how the Biden cam­paign’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop Trump doing some kind of coup!

7:32 – When faced with an eighth grader’s ques­tion, Pence slipped from an incred­i­bly patron­iz­ing tone into a series of canned talk­ing points. By con­trast, Har­ris speaks with respect for the eighth-grad­er and her ques­tion, look­ing direct­ly into the cam­era. She goes on to promise Brek­lyn a bright future, address­ing her as a future leader.

7:34 – At the end of the debate, Kamala Har­ris’ hus­band wears a mask. Mike Pence’s wife, unsur­pris­ing­ly, does not.