Kamala Harris may have learned a thing or two during the Presidential debate last week. She maintained her stance after being interrupted by rival, Mike Pence.
One thing that was salient during the Presidential Debate was the constant interruption. Former VP, Joe Biden, in exasperation, called his rival’s behavior as “unpresidential.” His running mate, Kamala Harris, clearly took notes and hit hard of Pence for interrupting her.
Kamala Harris: “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking”
After the chaos that was the first Presidential Debate, the Commission on Presidential Debates swore to add changes to the following debates to prevent a similar situation.
This was clearly seen and observed during the Vice Presidential Debate 2020, with Susan Page repeatedly uttering—giving candidates two uninterrupted minutes to answer her questions.
Academic debates have more strict protocols against interruption. Although, the constant interjections in Wednesday nights political debate have dropped immensely. According to Business Insider, citing the CBS reporter’s tweet, VP Mike Pence interrupted Sen. Harris twice as much.
>> @NorahODonnell on CBS: "Our team was following it very closely, and the VP Mike Pence interrupted Sen. Kamala Harris twice as often."
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 8, 2020
Accordingly, Pence reportedly interrupted his Democrat rival ten times, while Harris has only interrupted him on five occasions.
One very notable point during the debate was when Harris hits hard on Pence for interrupting her saying:
“Mr. Vice President, I am speaking.”
Because of that, Harris lost a chunk of her time to answer Page’s question. When the moderator signals her, she was firm on continuing, saying, “he interrupted me, and I would just like to finish, please.”
A strong message for the public
Sen. Harris’s action became an unexpected ripple effect on the public. Business Insider notes that the women on Twitter highlighted “the imbalanced gender dynamics at play during the debate.”
Pence has no hesitance to ignore and interrupt both of the two women he's on stage with, he's just not as loud about it as Trump.
— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) October 8, 2020
The U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez points out such issue, as well as highlighting VP Pence’s demanded answer his own personal question to Harris, but evaded questions from the moderator, Susan Page.
Pence demanding that Harris answer *his* own personal questions when he won’t even answer the moderator’s is gross, and exemplary of the gender dynamics so many women have to deal with at work.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 8, 2020
Pence’s question strikes on the Biden and Harris campaign for planning to pack the Supreme Court. His question went, as quoted by The New York Times:
“Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the court if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed? Your party is actually openly advocating adding seats to the Supreme Court, which has had nine seats for 150 years, if you don’t get your way. This is a classic case of if you can’t win by the rules, you’re going to change the rules.”
Harris reportedly “ducks” the question, but when pressed, she slams down on the Trump administration for not having even one Black appointee.
“I have witnessed appointments for lifetime appointments to federal courts, district courts, Courts of Appeal. People who are purely ideological, who have been reviewed and found to have been not competent, or substandard,” she expressed. “[…]Of the 50 people Trump appointed to the Court of Appeals—for lifetime appointments—no one is Black.”
But Pence, still unsatisfied, wanted to go on record that the senator did not directly answer his question. Although, Pence has since been criticized online for being evasive on certain questions, most especially those involving President Trump.
Featured image courtesy of Guardian News/YouTube Screenshot