LIVE: Fact-checking the vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris
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- Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee faced off Wednesday in the first and only debate between the two of the 2020 campaign season.
- Topics for the debate have not been publicly released, but it will likely focus heavily on the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 7 million Americans including the president and killed over 210,000.
- This month, the virus made its way to the highest levels of the US government, infecting more than two dozen people in President Donald Trump's orbit, including him and First Lady Melania Trump.
- Other debate topics will likely focus on healthcare, the economy, the Supreme Court, and Trump and Joe Biden's respective records.
- Scroll down to follow Business Insider's live fact check of the debate.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris face off in the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2020 election.
The debate comes as the Trump administration is mired in the most serious public health crisis of Donald Trump's presidency: more than two dozen people in and around Trump's orbit have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. That includes Trump and First Lady Melania Pence, multiple current and former Republican lawmakers, the White House press secretary, Trump's counselor Hope Hicks, the head of the White House security office Crede Bailey, and others.
The second highest-ranking official in the Marine Corps and a senior Coast Guard admiral have also tested positive, and top military officials including the joint chiefs of staff have had to go into quarantine as a result.
Pence has tested negative as of Wednesday, but the Biden campaign insisted that debate staff erect a plexiglass wall between Harris and the vice president and keep them more than six feet apart as a precautionary measure.
Harris also tested negative on Wednesday.
Topics for Wednesday's debate have not been released, but it will likely focus heavily on the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, especially as cases, deaths, and hospitalization rates spike across the country during the flu season. USA Today's Susan Page, who is moderating the debate, will also likely ask about key policies the two campaigns have put forward on issues like healthcare, the economy, the Supreme Court, and Trump and Biden's respective governing records.
What they said: Pence said at the start of the debate that "from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of Americans first" and that "he suspended all travel from China and Biden opposed this decision saying it was xenophobic."
Fact check: Trump did not ban all travel from China. He restricted certain types of travel, and far from denigrating the president's decision as xenophobic, Biden's campaign expressed support for the move in April.
What they said: Pence accused the Biden campaign of drawing from the Trump administration's COVID-19 policies, saying, "When you read the Biden plan it looks an awful lot what President Trump, the task force, and I have been doing. It looks a little bit like plagiarism, something Joe Biden knows a little bit about."
Fact check: Pence was likely referring to the plagiarism controversy that doomed Biden's 1988 presidential run. Specifically, as Insider previously reported, Biden lifted portions of a speech by United Kingdom Labour MP and Margaret Thatcher challenger Neil Kinnock. And according to a 1987 article in The New York Times, Biden acknowledged plagiarizing a law review journal for a paper during law school, and asked school administrators not to be expelled. Biden later said he made a mistake in the citation process.
Joe Perticone contributed reporting.
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