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      in US Politics

      Gretchen Whitmer accuses Donald Trump of inciting domestic terror

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      The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.Thirteen men have been charged over a plan to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, whom Joe Biden considered naming as his running mate for the November election before picking Kamala Harris.The men, some of whom were members of a rightwing, self-styled militia group, discussed blowing up a bridge and bundling Whitmer into a boat. Another plan involved killing Whitmer on her doorstep, according to the authorities.The fallout from the thwarted kidnapping – which was set to take place before the 3 November election – has further pulled back the curtain on the ideological polarization in US society, and descended into a growing political row.On Friday Biden accused Trump of “giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country”, as Trump attacked Whitmer hours after the plotters were named.Trump, who has spent months criticizing Whitmer and other Democratic governors over measures to try to control the coronavirus pandemic as it surged across America, on Thursday said Whitmer had “done a terrible job” in Michigan, and complained that she was yet to thank him for the FBI stopping the plot.Speaking on Friday morning, Whitmer said Trump was “creating a very dangerous situation”.“Each time he has tweeted about me, each time that he has said ‘liberate Michigan’ and said I should negotiate with the very people who are arrested because they’re ‘good people’, that incites more domestic terror,” Whitmer told ABC News.“And I am not the only governor going through this. Certainly it’s been worse for me than most, but it is not unique to me, it is not even unique to Democrats. This White House has a duty to call it out and they won’t do it – in fact, they encourage it.”Meanwhile, it was disclosed that Whitmer and her family were at times moved around by authorities as law enforcement tracked the men who allegedly plotted for months to kidnap her, the state’s attorney general said Friday.Dana Nessel disclosed the detail to CBS This Morning. She said the Democratic governor was consistently updated about the investigation over the past couple months.“She was aware of things that were happening,” Nessel said. “At times, she and her family had been moved around as a result of activities that law enforcement was aware of.”Whitmer became a hate figure for rightwingers throughout the spring, when she was among a number of state governors to issue stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.In April, thousands of protesters, many armed, besieged the Michigan state capitol, in Lansing, to demonstrate against Whitmer’s order.From the White House, Trump cheered the mostly white protesters, tweeting: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” as he repeatedly attacked Whitmer.The FBI said on Thursday that the plan to kidnap Whitmer began around the time of those demonstrations, and was months in the making.“Snatch and grab, man,” Adam Fox, one of the conspirators, unwittingly told an FBI informant in July.“Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude – it’s over.”Plotters twice surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home, including in mid-September, as they developed plans to take her hostage.The men attempted to construct explosive devices and held combat drills, and planned to blow up a bridge to Whitmer’s home to slow down police.Seven of those arrested are backers of the so-called boogaloo movement, NBC News reported. Experts say boogaloo is a far-right, violent anti-government movement, and some adherents are also tied to neo-Nazi groups.Of the president’s response to the revelations, Whitmer said on Friday: “A decent human being would pick up the phone and say, ‘Are you OK? How’s your family doing?’“That’s what Joe Biden did. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people that are vying to lead our country for the next four years.”Biden, who is leading Trump in opinion polls in several key swing states – including Michigan – criticized the president in the early hours of Friday morning.“When Governor Whitmer worked to protect her state from a deadly pandemic, President Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Biden said in a tweet.“That call was heard. He’s giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country – and we have to stop it.”Pro-Whitmer demonstrators held a gathering of support for the governor outside the state capitol building in Lansing on Thursday evening.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      in US Politics

      Trump outraged by Democrats' plan to assess president's fitness to serve

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      US politics

      Bipartisan commission would gauge president’s capability
      Nancy Pelosi insists proposal is not about Trump

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      2:10

      Pelosi says Trump’s Covid medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – video

      Democrats provoked an angry tirade from Donald Trump on Friday by proposing a congressional commission to assess whether US presidents are capable of performing their duties or should be removed from office.
      The gambit came a week after Trump was flown to a military hospital for treatment for coronavirus and 25 days before an election. The president returned to the White House on Monday but has caused concern with erratic behaviour.
      “This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents,” Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told a press conference in which she also took a swipe at the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
      But the timing was impossible to ignore as Trump has continued to give rambling TV interviews, tweet false and contradictory statements and potentially endanger his own White House staff by defying public health guidance.
      The president tweeted in response: “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!”
      The 25th amendment to the US constitution provides the procedure for the vice-president to take over the duties of president if he or she dies or resigns or it is determined that he or she cannot fulfill the functions of the office.
      The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, introducing the legislation on Friday, said: “The 25th amendment is all about the stability of the presidency and the continuity of the office.
      “Now, it’s never been necessary, but the authors of the 25th amendment thought it essential in the nuclear age to have a safety valve option and, as they often said, we have 535 members of Congress but we only have one president.”
      He added: “In the age of Covid-19, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and now ravaged the White House staff, the wisdom of the 25th amendment is clear. What happens if a president – any president – ends up in a coma or on a ventilator and has made no provisions for the temporary transfer of power? This situation is what demands action.”
      This panel would be known as the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office. Raskin, a constitutional law professor, said it would be bipartisan and consist of 17 members, including medical personnel, and could only act in concert with the vice-president.
      Asked about the timing of the bill, Raskin explained “this situation has focused everyone’s mind” on the 25th amendment.
      Pelosi repeated her insistence that it did not apply to Trump: “Again, this isn’t about any judgment anybody has about somebody’s behaviour. It isn’t about any of us making a decision as to whether the 25th amendment should be invoked. That’s totally not the point. That’s not up to us.”
      Invoking the 25th amendment would require the support of Vice-President Mike Pence and members of Trump’s cabinet. There has been no hint that this is imminent.
      A reporter asked Pelosi if Johnson was an example of someone whose capacity to govern was reduced by coronavirus. She replied: “I have no idea. Nor do I have of President Trump.
      “I just said clearly, he is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state. He has bragged about the medication he has taken. And again, there are articles by medical professionals saying, as was said earlier, this could have an impact on judgment.”
      She then made a surprise attack on the UK’s efforts to create a vaccine, describing the US Food and Drug Administration’s “very stringent” rules for clinical trials and approval. “My concern is that the UK’s system for that kind of judgment is not on a par with ours in the United States. So if Boris Johnson decides he’s going to approve a drug and this president embraces that, that’s the concern I have about any similarity between the two.”
      The initiative on the 25th amendment was not without political risks for Democrats as Trump’s allies sought to portray it as a power grab ahead of the election. Josh Holmes, former chief of staff and campaign manager for Senate majority leader, the Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, tweeted: “Every time I think our goose is cooked, Nancy Pelosi grabs the microphone and I say to myself, we still have a shot.”
      Trump was flown to a military hospital on 2 October after testing positive for Covid-19. He spent three nights there receiving a menu of treatments before his doctors said he was well enough to be discharged. He returned to the White House and immediately removed his face mask, provoking criticism.
      Since then his conduct has raised concerns, even by the turbulent standards of the Trump presidency. He suddenly called off negotiations with Congress over an economic stimulus package, taking his Republican allies by surprise, but then performed an equally jarring U-turn. And boasted about being a “perfect physical specimen” and “extremely young” in another Fox phone interview.
      Both Trump’s doctors and White House officials still refuse to say when the president received his last negative test, raising questions over who he might have infected.
      Trump floated the idea that he might travel to a rally on Saturday in Florida, but the administration indicated on Friday morning that this was unlikely.

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    • 163 Shares199 Views

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      Pelosi questions Trump's mental state and says Congress will discuss rules for removal

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      US politics

      House speaker says Democrats will consider constitution’s 25th amendment as president faces ‘disassociation from reality’

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      1:19

      Nancy Pelosi suggests future discussion on Donald Trump’s fitness for office – video

      Democrats in the US Congress have announced a plan to create a commission to review whether Donald Trump is capable of carrying out his presidential duties or should face removal from office.
      The office of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a Friday press conference about the bill after she expressed concern that Trump, who is under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, is suffering a “disassociation from reality”.
      The president has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.
      In a zigzagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”
      Pelosi, who is negotiating a Covid-19 economic stimulus plan, responded at her weekly press conference: “The plan isn’t for the president to say that he’s a perfect physical specimen. Specimen, maybe I can agree with that … And young, he said he was young.”
      Trump “is, shall we say, in an altered state right now” and “the disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” the 80-year-old speaker added while wearing a mask.
      Trump reacted angrily to Pelosi’s manoeuvre, tweeting: “Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don’t call her Crazy for nothing!”
      He also retweeted Republican allies, including the congressman Mark Green, who posted: “I wouldn’t put it past @SpeakerPelosi to stage a coup. She has already weaponized impeachment, what’s to keep her from weaponizing the 25th amendment? We need a new Speaker!”
      In the surprise move on Thursday, Pelosi revealed that Democrats will meet to focus on the 25th amendment to the constitution, which contains a clause that allows a president to be removed from office against his will because of physical or mental incapacity.
      Her office followed up with the announcement that Pelosi and the congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland will hold a press conference at 10.15am on Friday “to discuss the introduction of the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office Act”.
      The legislation will create the body and process called for in the 25th amendment to “enable Congress to help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership in the highest office in the Executive Branch of government”, it added.
      Although the 25th amendment enables Pelosi to create such a panel to review the president’s health and fitness for office, the House of Representatives would not be able to remove Trump from office without the agreement of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the cabinet. They have given no hint that such a move is imminent.
      The Democratic-led House impeached Trump last year on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favours. The Republican-controlled Senate did not convict him.
      Trump tweeted last Friday morning that he had tested positive for coronavirus, and he was flown to a military hospital that evening. After a three-night stay, including a car ride to wave to his supporters, he flew back to the White House and caused outrage by removing his mask.
      He has received various treatments including doses of remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, supplemental oxygen, a controversial experimental antibody treatment by the US biotech firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and dexamethasone, a steroid that some medical experts warn can cause insomnia and mood swings.
      Pelosi said: ‘I’ve quoted others to say that there are those who say that when you’re on steroids and/or if you’ve had Covid-19 or both – that there may be some impairment of judgment. But, again, that’s for the doctors and scientists to determine, but it was very strange, really surprising.”
      Trump has issued video messages and dozens of tweets that, even by the standards of his mercurial presidency, have spun in all directions and sown disarray.
      This week he abruptly announced that he was calling off the talks with Pelosi over additional coronavirus economic relief legislation, catching Republicans by surprise, only to later partly reverse his position. On Thursday he also suddenly declared that he would not take part in next week’s debate with Joe Biden, after it was announced on Thursday morning that the event would be virtual, not in-person.
      And the president has returned to the Oval Office despite isolation rules that should have kept him away and the White House itself becoming a virus hotspot. At least 20 people in or working around the executive mansion have tested positive for Covid-19 in recent days.

      Play Video

      0:45

      Donald Trump says he will not participate in virtual debate with Joe Biden – video
      In Trump’s hour-long interview with Fox Business on Thursday, observers found further cause for concern. He mused that he could have contracted the virus from a reception he held for military families at the White House. “They want to hug me and they want to kiss me,” he said. “And they do and, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up.”
      He claimed that his hospitalisation was unnecessary. “I didn’t have to go in, frankly; I think it would have gone away by itself.” And he made the false assertion: “I don’t think I am contagious at all. Remember this: when you catch it you get better. And then you’re immune.”
      This was after he emerged from hospital announcing that people should not fear Covid-19, despite the fact it has already killed 212,000 people in America and caused many others among the 7.6 million infected in the US to suffer serious and sometimes prolonged symptoms.
      And reacting to Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, he called the Democratic senator Kamala Harris of California a “communist” and “monster” who wants to “open up the borders to allow killers and murderers and rapists to pour into our country”.
      Earlier on Wednesday, the president tweeted a video of himself describing his contraction of the virus as a “blessing from God”.
      Under the 25th amendment, Pence would take over if Trump were deemed unfit to serve, with Pelosi next in line. Pence reported on Thursday that he had tested negative for coronavirus.

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    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Looks speak louder than words as Harris makes quotable case against Pence

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      US elections 2020

      The vice-presidential debate was more courteous than last week’s horror show but still showed two contrasting faces of America

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      1:05

      ‘They’re coming for you’: Harris slams Trump and Pence on healthcare – video

      It was always going to be about the two faces of America.
      One: white, male, midwestern, evangelical Christian. The other: Black, female, coastal, progressive.
      What wasn’t so predictable about the face-to-face at Wednesday’s US vice-presidential debate was that Mike Pence would show up with bloodshot eye – never a good look during a pandemic – or that a fly would nestle in his snowy white hair.
      Equally striking was Kamala Harris’s ability to weaponise facial expressions. The California senator’s fusillade of raised eyebrows, pursed lips and withering stares at her opponent will live in Democrats’ memory long after the words are forgotten (and probably be viewed by Republicans as sneering elitism).
      It was also notable that both candidates did a better job than their bosses in last week’s debate apocalypse. Both were adept at sidestepping questions – such as whether they had discussed “the issue of presidential disability” with their septuagenarian running mates – in favour of talking points. At times, it almost felt like a brief holiday in political normality.
      This may also have been a sneak preview of the 2024 election. Harris was on her game and looked ready to take over from Trump’s Democratic presidential challenger, Joe Biden. Pence, the current vice-president, used attack lines on taxes, the Green New Deal and the supreme court that Trump failed to land against Biden last week.
      It was hardly a surprise that Pence reeked of white male privilege; it was less anticipated that the target was the moderator, Susan Page of USA Today, as much as Harris. Showing no respect for her questions, rules or timekeeping, he just kept talking and often called her “Susan”.
      Struggling to gain control, she pleaded: “I did not create the rules for tonight … I’m here to enforce them.”
      So with that, Republicans may have lost more suburban women voters, if that is even possible. But the bottom line is that this VP debate won’t change the race.
      It took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the candidates separated by two Perspex screens, a metaphor if ever there was one for America’s divisions and self-affirming bubbles.
      Pence wore a dark suit, white shirt and Trumpian red tie; Harris sported a black jacket, dark blouse and necklace; both wore Stars and Stripes badges.
      The former prosecutor made her case to the jury with a bald statement about the coronavirus pandemic that would prove impossible to top: “The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”
      She added for good measure that “this administration has forfeited their right to re-election based on this”.
      Pence had the unenviable task of defending the indefensible. “From the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first,” he claimed unconvincingly, during a pandemic that has claimed more than 210,000 American lives and infected more than 7 million people. Harris pulled another of her scathing lawyerly expressions.
      Pence, head of the White House coronavirus taskforce, went on to offer a highly disingenuous defence that bore little relation to Harris’s critique: “When you say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn’t worked, that’s a great disservice to the sacrifices of the American people.”
      Pence also claimed that the Biden-Harris plan for dealing with Covid-19 looks awfully similar to what the Trump administration is already doing. “It looks a bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.”
      It was a reference to Biden failing to credit the British Labour leader Neil Kinnock in a speech 33 years ago. Harris shook her head wryly. More

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      Mike Pence struggles to defend the indefensible and please his disastrous boss | Richard Wolffe

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      It’s rare that something unexpected and unrehearsed crosses Mike Pence’s head. The sitting vice-president is a disciplined performer known to prep for his public moments, in stark contrast to his boss.But as the vice-presidential debate neared its close, with the candidates tackling the challenges of racial justice, a dark object landed on his blanched white scalp.Pence was expressing his faux sympathy for the family of Breonna Taylor, while also condemning the notion that America is systemically racist, when a large fly found the smell of his words as attractive as the brown debris that decorates a dog run.It was that kind of night for Mike Pence: a night to polish the turds of the Trump years.When he’s not serving as a cardboard cutout smiling over Donald Trump’s shoulder, Mike Pence likes to play the role of a genial veterinarian delivering the sad news about your dead pet hamster.Drained of all blood, the sitting vice-president doesn’t need a white coat to lament the nature of the world in front of him. The strained smile on his face is a pained reminder that all isn’t right with the world.Until now, Pence has simply grieved for an America suffering from his fever dreams about the socialist threat. But after four years inside a Trump White House, that suffering looks a little more real, and a lot more deadly.The night did not start well for Pence because it started with the pandemic. What else is there to debate?“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” said Kamala Harris, who consistently played the role of fly paper to the lies that have filled the air for the last four years.Harris pointed out that, according to Bob Woodward, Trump knew about the threat of the pandemic back in late January. “They knew and they covered it up. The president said it was a hoax. They minimized the seriousness of it … Frankly, this administration has forfeited their right to re-election based on this.”“Our nation has gone through a very challenging time this year,” lamented our vice-veterinarian. “But I want the American people to know that from the very first day, President Donald Trump has put the health of America first.”This will be news to the families of more than 200,000 dead Americans, as well as the White House staff currently struggling with a president spreading a full viral load around the executive mansion and the West Wing.Faced with this storm of excrement, Pence found his refuge hiding behind something he called “the American people”.“When you say what the American people have done over these last several months hasn’t worked, that’s a great disservice to the sacrifices the American people have made,” said Pence, as if his boss was the entire American population rolled into the Covid-filled body of a former reality TV star.“The American people I believe deserve credit for the sacrifices they have made for the health of their family, and their neighbors, our doctors, nurses, first responders.”This kind of piously indignant pabulum is not a new performance for the current vice-president but rather something he perfected as a talkshow radio host in Indiana in the late 1990s. Pence styled himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf” which is just the kind of awshucks deception that is so vital to serving as a cardboard cutout behind Donald Trump’s shoulder.You need a lot of decaf to pretend to be a Christian conservative while fawning over a president who pays off porn stars.Four years ago, Pence’s skills as an un-drugged Limbaugh were evident as he debated Tim Kaine in the vice-presidential encounter that literally nobody remembers from the 2016 campaign. For the record, Kaine came off hot and bothered, while Pence glided through the contest like a winged insect bouncing off the surface of a septic tank.On Wednesday night, Pence faced a very different opponent. Kamala Harris may be a senator, like Kaine, but otherwise the two Democratic veep candidates could not be more of a contrast.Kaine speaks like a Jesuit missionary who became a lawyer, a mayor and a governor. He is as reasonable as he is socially conscious. Harris is a Howard University graduate and career-long prosecutor. She preps hard and she wins cases. Kaine looked like he was suffering while Harris looked like she was having fun.The sad truth of the veep debate is that, much like the job the candidates are auditioning for, the contest isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss. It was FDR’s veep who said that, and – to prove his point – nobody can remember his name.It’s tempting to think that Pence versus Harris is somehow different, like everything else in this year from hell.Pence, after all, led the coronavirus taskforce that prayed away the pandemic so well. No wonder his boss gasped on video, under a heavy coating of orange makeup, “this was a blessing from God.”Sitting behind a couple of Plexiglass barriers, to catch the divine-like virus, Pence had by far the hardest job on stage: to defend both his disastrous record, and to please his disastrous boss.In many ways, this was a three-way contest, between Harris, Pence and Trump. But only Pence cared about the Trump voice in his head. And that astonishingly loud, gasping voice constantly distracted Pence from the contest on stage.It does not take much imagination to conjure up a world in which Pence is sworn into the presidency just before the people kick him out of officeFor starters, Trump – excluded for some weird reason from this TV show – could not shut his mouth on social media for the entire evening. This was of course a repeat performance of his debate with Joe Biden last week. It was also the unfortunate side-effect of large doses of steroids that make him look and feel like the top of a Duracell.Perhaps the incessant yapping was merely the latest sign of presidential insecurity about someone who is a heartbeat away from a Covid-infected septuagenarian’s job. It does not take much imagination to conjure up a world in which Pence is sworn into the presidency just before the people kick him out of office.For that matter, it isn’t far-fetched to worry about Joe Biden’s health either, as this pandemic rips through Washington DC, thanks to the man he’s trying to unseat. This White House is responsible for 34 infected individuals all on its own, it emerged just before the veep debate.When asked the tricky question about Trump’s health – and a possible Pence presidency – the vice-president ignored the subject as carefully as he has ignored the scientific advice on Covid. “Let me say, on behalf of the president and the first lady, how moved we have all been by the outpouring of prayers and concern for the president,” Pence said, on the verge of the most sincere outpouring of concern.Kamala Harris proved, as she has all along, that she was more than equal to the task of appearing presidential – and dodging the pesky questions of a presidential debate. When asked the same question, she pivoted neatly to turn the table back on Trump.Should Biden reveal his health records? “Absolutely,” said Harris. “And that’s why Joe Biden has been so incredibly transparent. And by contrast, the president has not. Both in terms of health records, but also let’s look at in terms of taxes.”In truth, both candidates were equally matched debaters. Pence dodged everything about climate change. Harris dodged everything about packing the supreme court.What was unequal was that Pence had to defend the indefensible: a disastrous and preventable death toll, a collapsing economy and a Covid-infected president.Trailing in every poll in every state that counts, Pence and Trump needed something to change on Wednesday night.They needed Harris to flame out, or seem like a raving revolutionary, or perhaps forget how to speak. Instead she punched and parried, and looked like she loved the spotlight as much as the fly that stuck to her opponent’s skull. More

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      in US Politics

      Pretty fly for a white guy: insect on Mike Pence's head upstages vice-president

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      US elections 2020

      The Republican’s six-legged companion lit up Twitter but viewers were also struck by the pinkness of Pence’s left eye
      Follow live updates on the VP debate

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      1:09

      Fly that landed on Mike Pence head becomes VP debate star – video

      Ahead of Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate, the buzz was around whether Kamala Harris or Mike Pence would turn in a standout performance.
      Instead, the unexpected star of the show was a fly, which landed on Pence’s head and sat there, seemingly carefree, for a full two minutes.

      Timothy Burke
      (@bubbaprog)
      Total time a fly sat on Mike Pence’s head: two minutes pic.twitter.com/PtI0rKSi5I

      October 8, 2020

      Bill Kristol
      (@BillKristol)
      My debate ranking:1. Senator Harris.2. The fly.3. Vice President Pence.

      October 8, 2020

      Josh Marshall
      (@joshtpm)
      who will land the interview with the fly? the ride time was amazing. https://t.co/ezp0R9bRH9

      October 8, 2020

      The unnamed fly prompted much commentary online, and the word “flies” began trending on Twitter. Some pointed out that flies, according to conventional wisdom, are drawn to feces.

      nate dern
      (@natedern)
      A fly landing on Pence’s head while he’s saying “systemic racism isn’t real” is the universe’s way of saying “this is bullshit.” pic.twitter.com/25dBH2t5zr

      October 8, 2020

      Patton Oswalt
      (@pattonoswalt)
      EWWWWWWWWW that fly has Mike Pence on his stomach. #VPDebate

      October 8, 2020

      It wasn’t long before the fly had its own Twitter account – Mike Pence’s Fly.
      During her debate prep Harris and her team were aware of the double standard women in power are subjected to compared with men – including increased scrutiny over how women look.
      But it was Pence’s appearance which drew more attention.
      Setting aside the issue of the vice-president having a fly on his head, people also pointed to the condition of his left eye.
      Numerous viewers spotted that Pence’s left eye had a distinctly pinky-red tone, prompting widespread discussion about pink eye.

      Padma Lakshmi
      (@PadmaLakshmi)
      Is he ok? pic.twitter.com/77qDCYdFGr

      October 8, 2020

      Claudia Jordan
      (@claudiajordan)
      #FAKENEWS he was terrible and amazingly stiff and fake. And looked sick with the pink eye AND the fly was attracted to sh*t. https://t.co/sxvaqGywfT

      October 8, 2020

      Pink eye, or conjunctivitis, can be a symptom of coronavirus. Pence tested negative for Covid-19 ahead of the debate – dozens of Donald Trump’s other contacts were not so lucky.
      With commendable speed, the Biden-Harris campaign seized on the fly issue: Biden tweeted a fly-related fundraising ask (“Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly”), and “flywillvote.com” which redirected to a website where Americans can register to vote.

      Joe Biden
      (@JoeBiden)
      Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly. https://t.co/CqHAId0j8t pic.twitter.com/NbkPl0a8HV

      October 8, 2020

      Joe Biden
      (@JoeBiden)

      October 8, 2020

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