HARRIS: First of all, we had to recover as an economy, and we have done that. I'm very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%, the work that we've done to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. Donald Trump said he was gonna do a number of things, including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Never happened. We did it.
Q: So you maintain Bidenomics is a success.
HARRIS: I maintain that when we do the work of bringing down prescription medication for the American people, including capping the cost--of the annual cost of prescription medication for seniors at $2,000; when we do what we did in the first year of being in office to extend the child tax credit so that we cut child poverty in America by over 50%; I'll say that that's good work. There's more to do, but that's good work.
Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor's emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Things got easier for Walz in his second term, after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.
Republicans increasingly objected to and tried rolling back Walz's emergency powers, and protesters chafed at his stay-at-home orders. But Walz's approach--which combined near-constant public visibility with stubbornly defying political and business pressure to reopen before the vaccine rollout--ultimately paid off: by June 2021, Minnesota had a lower death rate from COVID than any surrounding state, at 136 deaths per 100,000. For Iowa and North Dakota, governed by Trump-emulating anti-restriction Republicans, that figure was 194 and 200, respectively.
TRUMP: Because the tax cuts spurred the greatest economy that we've ever seen just prior to COVID, and even after COVID. It was so strong that we were able to get through COVID much better than just about any other country. Now, the corporate tax was cut down to 21% from 39%, plus beyond that, we took in more revenue with much less tax and companies were bringing back trillions of dollars back into our country. The country was going like never before. We were ready to start paying down debt.
BIDEN: [Taxing] a 1,000 billionaires would raise $500 billion dollars. We'd be able to wipe out his debt.
TRUMP: Because the tax cuts spurred the greatest economy that we've ever seen just prior to COVID, and even after COVID.
Q: [To Biden]: So far, your administration has approved $4.3 trillion in new debt.
BIDEN: We have a thousand billionaires in America. And what's happening? They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in taxes. If they just paid 24% or 25%, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 billion dollars in a 10-year period. We'd be able to right wipe out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do--childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system.
HALEY: Well, I think we saw it exacerbated by COVID. One in three people right now suffer from mental health issues, but if treated, they can live a perfectly normal life. The problem is we don't have enough mental health therapists. We don't have enough mental health treatment centers. We don't have enough addiction centers. And if you happen to be lucky enough to get one of those three, insurance doesn't cover it.
Q: What would you do to fix it?
HALEY: We need to have more Telehealth, so that people can get the mental health care they need right when they need it. We need to have mental health counselors in schools so they can identify when a child has a problem. But right now, we've got to get access to care. And that's why I want to move those federal programs down to the state level, because states know they need more mental health support.
"I'm Vivek Ramaswamy and I approve this message. The mainstream media is trying to rig the Iowa GOP caucus in favor of the corporate candidates who they can control. Don't fall for their trick. They don't want you to hear from me: about the truth of what really happened on Jan.6; the truth about the COVID origin; the Hunter Biden laptop story; and everything else they have lied to you about. You can fix that. Take your remote"--[clicks a remote; screen blinks to black]--"and turn this s--- off."
[Daily Beast analysis: "A campaign spokesperson said"], "The network takes it upon themselves to disrespect Iowa voters and the caucuses by holding a debate and excluding Vivek when his polling clearly qualified for the stage." To qualify, Ramaswamy needed to hit at least 10% support in 3 separate polls meeting CNN's standards--which were more stringent than the RNC's for previous debates.
And then we're going to go and take as many federal programs as we can and send them down to the states. That will reduce the size of the federal government, but it will empower people on the ground. Think health care. Think welfare. Think education -- if we started doing that.
PENCE: Well, I think what's in part to blame is the Democrats been talking about defunding the police for the last five years. And we ought to be funding law enforcement, particularly in our major cities at unprecedented levels. And yet Democrats and liberal prosecutors in major metropolitan areas continue to work out their fanciful agendas, to do bail reform and go easy. What we need is strong commitment to law enforcement. We need leadership in Washington, D.C., that will marshal the resources of the states, marshal the resources of the American people. But when I'm president, we're going to extend those tax cuts. And we're going to block grant funding back to the states with a growing economy and educational choice and law enforcement. We will bring our cities back.
And it's time for us to stop being reactionary to China and start actually being aggressive and letting China know what we expect of them.
A Rochester physician and DFL activist [summarized] that the COVID-19 pandemic was the most profound health care crisis the country has faced in a century, and Gov. Walz and his team provided "leadership in uncertain times": "The governor made tough but necessary choices to limit the spread of the disease. We will never know who didn't die because of the Walz administration's efforts--whose parent or whose child (didn't die). That is the challenge of public health."
DFL supporters contrasted Walz's record with the comments by Jensen, who has compared public health measures to limit the spread of the disease as akin to Kristallnacht, when Nazis in Germany torched synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes.
BIDEN: The vast majority of the experts, including Wall Street, are suggesting that it's highly unlikely that it's going to be long-term inflation that's going to get out of hand. There will be near-term inflation, because everything is now trying to be picked back up.
Q: You seem pretty confident that inflation is temporary, but you're pumping all of this money into the economy. Couldn't that add to--
BIDEN: Moody's said if we pass the other two things I'm trying to get done, we will reduce inflation, because we're going to be providing good opportunities and jobs for people who are going to be reinvesting that money back in all the things we're talking about, driving down prices, not raising prices.
Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries' did. Private and religious schools did. Science has shown for months that schools are safe. But too often, powerful grown-ups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind. The clearest case for school choice in our lifetimes.
PROMISE KEPT: (CNN, March 6, 2021): [In the stimulus plan]: Both the Senate and House bills would provide nearly $130 billion to K-12 schools to help students return to the classroom. The bills are in line with what Biden proposed. Altogether, $170 billion would be authorized for K-12 schools and higher education. Last year, Congress approved a total of $112 billion between two relief packages that went to K-12 schools and colleges.
PROMISE KEPT: (CNN, March 6, 2021): [In the stimulus plan]: The bills would also provide about $39 billion to child care providers. The amount a provider receives would be based on operating expenses and is available to pay employees and rent, help families struggling to pay the cost, and purchase personal protective equipment and other supplies.
PROMISE BROKEN: (CNN March 6, 2021): Unlike Biden's initial proposal, neither bill would reinstate mandatory paid family and sick leave approved in a previous Covid relief package. But they continue to provide tax credits to employers who voluntarily choose to offer the benefit through October 1.
OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: Paid family and sick leave is mandated in 10 states: CA, CO, CT, DC, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, and WA.
PROMISE KEPT: (CNN 3/6/21): The Senate bill allocates $8.5 billion to help struggling rural hospitals and health care providers.
White House Press Release: (8/13/2021): [The $8.5B will go towards]:
PROMISE KEPT: (CNN March 6, 2021): The Senate version calls for providing a $300 federal boost to weekly jobless payments and extending two key pandemic unemployment benefits programs through September 6. The agreement would also make the first $10,200 worth of benefits payments tax-free for households with annual incomes less than $150,000.
OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: The extended unemployment benefits under previous legislation was scheduled to end in mid-March [and may get extended again beyond September 6]. The unemployment benefit applies to independent contractors, who are normally ineligible for unemployment.
Our efforts saved lives. In fact, 40 states have suffered higher COVID mortality for seniors aged 65+ on a per capita basis than Florida. The cases and hospitalizations for seniors in Florida have plummeted as vaccinations have increased. Florida was right to prioritize the elderly. Seniors First works.
The bill also delivers immediate relief to workers and families bearing the brunt of the public health and economic crises, by providing eligible Americans with a $1,400 payment in addition to the $600 payment provided in December of 2020.
The bill also expands the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit on an emergency basis, extends key emergency unemployment benefits, raises the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and stabilizes pensions for Americans who participate in multi-employer pension plans. [See details of ARPA]
PROMISE KEPT:(Executive Order on Medicare 1/28/21): It is the policy of my Administration to protect and strengthen Medicaid and the ACA and to make high-quality healthcare accessible and affordable for every American. In light of the exceptional circumstances caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, establish a Special Enrollment Period for uninsured and under-insured Americans to seek coverage through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace.
OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: Biden made his promise at the beginning of the pandemic, and all healthcare policy in 2021 is tied up with the pandemic. Biden has largely restored ObamaCare cuts--by reopening ACA enrollment--and largely subsidized ObamaCare--via pandemic spending and pandemic justification.
PROMISE KEPT: (Executive Order on Mask-Wearing, 1/20/21): The heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall immediately take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to require compliance with CDC guidelines with respect to wearing masks, maintaining physical distance, & other public health measures by: on-duty or on-site Federal employees; on-site Federal contractors; and all persons in Federal buildings or on Federal lands.
OnTheIssues ANALYSIS: "Mask mandates" are a core political issue at the state level: whether to mandate masks for state employees (as Biden has done for federal employees), versus for the public at-large (which Biden has not done).
PROMISE KEPT: (CNN March 6, 2021): The Senate bill amends the House bill on the $1,400-per-person stimulus payments to tighten eligibility. Individuals earning less than $75,000 a year and married couples earning less than $150,000 will receive $1,400 per person, including children. That will get money to about 90% of households.
ANALYSIS by en.as.com: (July 23, 2021): In total, an enormous 478 million stimulus check payments have been sent out since the start of the pandemic [with the third round underway] at $1,400 per person.
BIDEN: This HEROES Act has been sitting there. And look at what's happening. When I was in charge of the recovery act with $800 billion, I was able to get $145 billion to local and communities that have to balance their budgets. [If they cannot], then they have to fire firefighters, teachers, first responders, law enforcement officers, so they could keep their cities and counties running. They have not done a thing for them. And Mitch McConnell said, "Let them go bankrupt. Let them go bankrupt."
TRUMP: 99.9% of young people recover. We have to recover. We can't close up our nation. We have to open our schools and we can't close up our nation, or you're not going to have a nation.
BIDEN: He says that we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. And you say, "I take no responsibility."
TRUMP: I take full responsibility. It's not my fault that it came here. It's China's fault. They kept it from going into the rest of China for the most part, but they didn't keep it from coming out to the world, including Europe and ourselves. But when I closed, he said, "This is a terrible thing, you're xenophobic." I think [Biden] called me racist even, because I was closing it to China. Now he says I should have closed it earlier.
Q: What do you say to Americans who are fearful that the cost of shutdowns?
BIDEN: What I would say is, I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country.
TRUMP: 99.9% of young people recover. We have to recover. We can't close up our nation. We have to open our schools and we can't close up our nation, or you're not going to have a nation.
BIDEN: We're about to go into a dark winter, and he has no clear plan. He says that we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch, there out of habit, where their wife or husband was, is gone. Learning to live with it. Come on. We're dying with it, because he's never said. See, you said, "It's dangerous." When's the last time? Is it really dangerous still? Are we dangerous. You tell the people it's dangerous now. What should they do about the danger? And you say, "I take no responsibility."
Q: What do you say to Americans who are fearful that the cost of shutdowns, the impact on the economy outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus?
BIDEN: What I would say is, I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country. It's [President Trump's] ineptitude that caused the country to have to shut down in large part, why businesses have gone under, why schools are closed.
Q: But you haven't ruled out more shut downs?
BIDEN: I'm not shutting down today, but you need standards. If you have a community that's above a certain level, everybody says, "Slow up. More social distancing. Do not open bars and do not open gymnasiums." But when you do open, give the people the capacity to open safely. For example, schools. They need a lot of money to be open. They need to deal with ventilation systems. They need to deal with smaller classes, more teachers.
BIDEN: If you're going to open a business, have social distancing. If you have a restaurant, you need to have plexiglass dividers. You need to take testing rapidly. You need to be able to trace. You need to be able to provide all the resources that are needed to do this. That is going to make sure that we're going to open safely.
TRUMP: We have to open our country. We can't keep this country closed. This is a massive country with a massive economy. People are losing their jobs. They're committing suicide. There's depression, alcohol, drugs at a level that nobody's ever seen before. He'll close down the country if one person in our bureaucracy says we should close it down.
TRUMP: I did put it in very early. Joe Biden was two months behind me, and he called me xenophobic and racist, because I put it in. And it turned out that I was 100% right. I also put it on Europe, very early, because I saw there was a lot of infection in Europe. The news doesn't get out the right answer, because I put on a travel ban far earlier than Dr. Fauci thought it was necessary. I was actually the only one that wanted to put it on. I put it on at the end of January. When I put on the travel ban Joe Biden, and others, said, "This is ridiculous. You don't do that." Well, Dr. Fauci said, I saved thousands and thousands of lives.
BIDEN: All the way back in the beginning of February, I argued that we should be keeping people in China.In February, I did a piece for USA Today saying, "This is a serious problem." Trump denied it. He said it wasn't.
BIDEN: I suggested that we should be seeking access to the source of the problem. Trump never pushed that.
Q [to TRUMP]: Why did you only put in place a travel ban from China?
TRUMP: I put it in very early. Joe Biden was two months behind me, and he called me xenophobic and racist.
BIDEN: All the way back in the beginning of February, I argued that we should be keeping people in China. There were 44 people on the ground [in China]. All those 44 people came home [as US citizens despite the ban on non-citizens]. In addition to that, I pointed out that I thought in February, I did a piece for USA Today saying, "This is a serious problem." Trump denied it. He said it wasn't. He missed enormous opportunities and kept saying things that weren't true. "It's going to go away by Easter"; "When the summer comes, it's all going to go away like a miracle." He's still saying those things.
What really is a threat to the suburbs is [Trump's] failure to deal with COVID. His failure to deal with the environment; they're being flooded, & burned out, because his refusal to do anything. That's why the suburbs are in trouble.
Show up and vote. You will determine the outcome of this election. Vote, vote, vote. Vote whatever way is the best way for you. He cannot stop you from being able to determine the outcome of this election. When the votes are all counted, that will be accepted. If I win, that will be accepted. If I lose, that'll be accepted. If in fact he says, he's not sure what he's going to accept, let me tell you something, it doesn't matter, because if we get the votes, it's going to be all over. He's going to go. He can't stay in power. It won't happen.
TRUMP: We would have lost far more people, far more people.
BIDEN: His own CDC Director says we could lose as many as another 200,000 people between now and the end of the year. And he said, if we just wear a mask, we can save half those numbers. Just a mask.
BIDEN: COVID-19 proves how vital it is to give people who want to live at home a chance to stay there. I'm going to invest $450 billion so more Americans can choose to live at home if they want to. We're going to give family caregivers, the really quiet heroes out there, the support they deserve. We're going to create a $5,000 tax credit for informal [family] caregivers.
Q: And for seniors?
BIDEN: Medicare is a lifeline for around 60 million Americans. Under the Affordable Care Act, we strengthened Medicare. We extended the life of the trust fund by bending the cost curve. We expanded free preventative services like mammograms and colonoscopies, and we closed the doughnut hole so more seniors could afford their prescriptions. We've got to give Medicare the power, for example, to negotiate drug prices.
BIDEN: I think COVID safety is a problem no matter where people are if they don't have masks on. The context of praising people who protest peacefully, is--there was a question of right to speak, not to loot, not to burn, not to do anything that causes damage. The right to speak out makes sense, but there is a big difference between people walking, moving along, and people sitting down cheek to jowl, shoulder to shoulder, a thousand of them breathing on one another indoors.
BIDEN: We should have national standards laid so people can go to work safely. That requires us to have rapid testing, the protective gear, some Federal funding, particularly kids going back to school, making sure there's testing and tracing. There's a whole range of things we should have done. The President disregarded it. So there's a lot of empty chairs, and it's got to stop.
Q: Could you see a scenario where you downplayed critical information so as not to cause panic?
BIDEN: Not at all. If he had just acted one month, one week earlier, he would have saved 37,000 lives. But he knew it. He knew it and did nothing. It is close to criminal.
TRUMP: We're very proud of the job we've done, and we've saved a lot of lives, a tremendous number of lives.
Q: We have 4% of the world's population, more than 20% of the cases, more than 20% of the deaths.
TRUMP: We have 20% of the cases because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn't do testing you wouldn't have cases. You would have very few cases.
TRUMP: Without question, I would say, because things were going so well, the whole COVID, the China virus, as I call it, because it comes from China, I think it's a much more accurate term.
It's been very difficult; it's been so sad. We will get there, it's going to happen. But nobody's seen anything like probably since 1917.
Q: What did you learn from it?
TRUMP: I learned that life is very fragile, because [even with] strong people, all of a sudden they were dead. And it wasn't their fault. It was the fault of a country that could have stopped it. And I made a great deal with China. I feel so differently about that [China trade] deal. I don't view it the same way because of the horror of this disease, that could have been stopped at the border.
Q: Could you have done more to stop it?
TRUMP: I don't think so. I think what I did by closing up the country, I saved lives. I think we did a very good job.
TRUMP: It is going to disappear. It's going to disappear, I still say it.
Q: But not if we don't take action, correct?
TRUMP: No, I still say it. It's going to disappear. I want to see people, and you want to see people. I want to see football games. I'm pushing very hard for Big Ten, I want to see Big Ten open. Let them play sports.
BIDEN: I'm going to ask every governor to step up. This isn't about freedom; it's about freedom for your neighbors. It's about a patriotic responsibility to protect your neighbors. The only way you can do that is to be socially distanced and wearing a mask when you're in public, when you're outside. This is the first time I've ever heard people say that doing something patriotic you can save other people's lives, impacts on their freedom. Give me a break; this is about saving lives.
Q: Would you be prepared to shut this country down again?
BIDEN: I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration's thinking. In order to keep the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus. I would shut it down, I would listen to the scientists.
BIDEN: I don't blame him for the COVID crisis. I blame him for walking away and not dealing with the solutions. Columbia University Medical School said if he had acted just one week earlier, he would have saved over 37,000 lives, 37,000 fewer people would have not passed away. Two weeks earlier over 50,000 people. This is about telling the American people the truth, letting the scientists speak, listening to the science and stepping out of the way.
BIDEN: I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw of this administration's thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus. I would shut it down, I would listen to the scientists.
HARRIS: There are different needs based on different communities and that's why we talk about the need to track actually racial disparities -- disparities based on region, geographic region and do that now. So that when we have a vaccine, those communities that are most in need, will get them. That policy and that approach will be guided by the public health experts, unlike what we have seen now which are the politics guiding a public health crisis.
Donald didn't drag his feet in December 2019, in January, in February, in March because of his narcissism; he did it because of his fear of appearing weak or failing to project the message that everything was "great", "beautiful", and "perfect." The irony is that his failure to face the truth has inevitability led to massive failure anyway. In this case, the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of people will be lost, and the economy of the richest country in history may be destroyed. Donald will acknowledge none of this, moving the goal posts to hide the evidence and convincing himself in the process that he's done a better job than anybody else could have if only a few hundred thousand die instead of two million.
Most of those paths would have required no effort on his part. All he would have had to do was make a couple of phone calls, give a speech or two, then delegate everything else.
Why did it take so long for Donald to act? In part, because like my grandfather, he has no imagination. The pandemic didn't have to immediately do with him, and managing the crisis in every moment doesn't help him promote his preferred narrative that no one has ever done a better job than he has.
Donald's initial response to COVID-19 underscores his need to minimize negativity at all cost. Fear--the equivalent of weakness in our family--is as unacceptable to him now as it was when he was three years old. When Donald is in the most trouble, superlatives are no longer enough; both the situation and the reactions to it must be unique, even if absurd or nonsensical. On his watch, "Nobody could have predicted" a pandemic that his own Department of Health and Human Services was running simulations for just a few months before COVID-19 struck in Washington State. Why does he do this? Fear.
Snopes 7/13/20: One of the conspiracy theories that have plagued attempts to keep people informed during the pandemic is the idea that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory. Scientists who have studied the virus agree that it evolved naturally and crossed into humans from an animal species, most likely a bat. How exactly do we know that this virus, SARS-CoV-2, has a zoonotic animal origin and not an artificial one? The answers lie in the genetic material and evolutionary history of the virus, and understanding the ecology of the bats in question.
setup for 2024 on 10/1/2024 -->
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